I've seen some really impressive use cases for it, some things seem almost unreal although I never really thought too deeply about its implications or applications.

But to try something on my own out of mild curiosity, I was just super impressed.

The set up

So sometimes I write blogs here going on Google Maps and street viewing some random place that I land on after shaking my mouse around wildly, or spinning Google Earth and landing somewhere, even if it's in the ocean, I'll go to the nearest island.

This time I went to a random brown spot in Southern Italy.

At first I was going to do my blog touring the area and discuss how my illusion of Italy has been shattered. We only really tend to know about italy through its immensely successful tourism propaganda - rich, ancient history, incredible Roman architecture and sculptures, legendary artists and excellent coffee and food.

But when you leave the 3-4 big cities, you're met with... well, I guess a normal place.

Apartment buildings, regular fields with crops, traffic jams, and so on.

What struck me in this area though, which could be the same all over I don't know, was the graffiti. It's extensive, and it's in plain sight. Not atop train bridges or the backside of buildings, but all across the main streets, all the way down the roads on the walls at regular human height where it can be potentially surveyed by CCTV or washed by cleaners. Neither of which apparently occur.

The entire town seems to be like this.

I didn't think much of it beyond that, until I came across this particular location:

If you look carefully on the left, you'll see a fairly verbose paragraph of red paint on the wall, partially blocked by the blue car.

It's all Greek to me, so I wondered if, instead of typing it all out into Google translate, I asked ChatGPT.

There is some italian text in graffiti here on the side of the wall. can you interpret and translate it?

Results:

"LEI SI GIRÒ SU UN FIANCO... POSÒ LA TESTA SUL MIO BRACCIO, IL CIELO E LA TERRA SI FUSERO.

E CAPII CHE NON SAREI MAI STATO SOLO PIÙ."

Translated to English:

"SHE TURNED ON HER SIDE... RESTED HER HEAD ON MY ARM, THE SKY AND THE EARTH MERGED.

AND I KNEW THAT I WOULD NEVER BE ALONE AGAIN."

Fantastico!!

However, I was not fully satisfied, since it was partially blocked so it shouldn't make that much sense. I fiddled around a bit until I realised I could select previous photos of this exact location from each previous year. ONLY ONE of those previous years was there no car parked in the way - instead, there was a guy's fat head and helmet getting of his scooter, obscuring a different portion.

The only other angle was much more distant and blurry, then also obscured by a tree. I handed this to ChatGPT and asked it to put two and two together to form the complete message:

here's a slightly different angle. can you put them together?

Results (Final)

LEI SI GIRÒ SU UN FIANCO... POSO LA TEST SUL MIO BRACCIO, IL CIELO E LA TERRA CI HANNO GUARDATO... E CAPII CHE MI SONO FOLLEMENTE INNAMORATO DI TE!!!"

SHE TURNED ON HER SIDE... SHE RESTED HER HEAD ON MY ARM, THE SKY AND THE EARTH WATCHED US... AND I REALIZED THAT I AM MADLY IN LOVE WITH YOU!!!"

At least in this case, I can now understand why this has remained on the wall since 2018. If there was any justified destruction of property, it would be this romantic poetry right here.

I wonder if they're still together, whoever they may be. There doesn't seem to be an identifiable source as a quote so I'm choosing to accept that it came from the heart at the time.

So yeah, ChatGPT did an excellent job here.

True, I could have just typed it out manually and had it translated but still. The fact it gave me further insights such as the typo of 'La test' (or 'truncated form') which should be 'la testa', helped me find any potential sources, and had me realise I could get older images in the first place, really helped glue things all together.

So where are we, exactly?

Right here, in the coastal city of Bari:

A seemingly tiny quaint town, although it's actually quite significant with a population of over 320,000 people.

Finally, in defense of Italy, even here had a significant 'old town' section where that distinctive Italian charm dominates as you'd expect from all the tourist propaganda, and the countryside surrounding it is just as stereotypical:

It's pretty legit!