Your comment made me LOL. A friend who is very much "from this country" was telling me enthusiastically about one of the cities that is essentially the oldest (as a city), and vastly older than the part of the country I live in. He went on about how much of it there was and how old it was "unlike Europe because it had never been bombed" and I had to suppress a hearty laugh at his expense. I explained that said old quarter of said city is a) not particularly old and b) not particularly large. While much as been destroyed through two world wars there are whole cities which are relatively ancient and *fine*. And yes, many castles and chateaus. It still disturbs me a little that there is virtually no material history here where I am from more than a century and a half ago (because while the area was occupied the people were nomadic and didn't have much imperishable material culture). In contrast the place I was born in dates back some thirteen centuries (in its' current incarnation), and I've lived literally walking along roads laid by the Romans.