8th February 2025: La Cúpula – “Opera & Brunch”, Hotel Palace (Madrid, Spain)

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When I have a “big oh” birthday, I go climb a volcano, when my sibling does, we go for high-end brunch. Not that I am going to complain, at all – I get to tag along. The day, however, could have started better. We left 30 minutes behind schedule, then we ran into a traffic jam in the highway and finally, when we reached Madrid, we could not access the parking lot we had planned because not all the street closures had been published on the town hall’s website. We managed to find a different place to drop off the car, fortunately, but none of us was really wearing walking shoes…

Everything got better when we reached The Palace Hotel, officially The Palace, a Luxury Collection Hotel, Madrid, colloquially El Palace. This five-star hotel was established in 1912. It is both a Spanish Cultural Asset (BIC) and part of the Unesco Heritage Site Paseo del Prado and Buen Retiro, a landscape of Arts and Sciences. The Palace is recognised as the first luxury hotel built in Spain, erected as an early 20th response to the new ways of travelling and King Alfonso XIII’s efforts to modernise Spain, which had previously been considered an “exotic and a bit dangerous” country to travel. The building was designed by architect Leon Eduard Ferrés i Puig in the Beaux-Arts style, one of the multiple “neo” fads from the 19th century, drawing from French Neoclassicism, Renaissance and Baroque whilst at the same time using new building materials – reinforced concrete, iron, steel and glass (another grand example of this style is the Casino in Monte-Carlo).

Historically, The Palace Hotel has hosted national and international names of renown – Spanish artists such as Picasso, Dalí and Lorca, composers like Igor Stravinsky and Richard Strauss, scientist Marie Curie, and showbiz personalities including Josephine Baker, Rita Hayworth and Ava Gardner. Today, El Palace is part of one of the Marriott brands, and after an integral renovation between 2023 and 2025, it comprises 470 rooms and 51 suites across 6,000 square metres on six floors. It is also home to several gastronomic spots: a high-end Chinese restaurant (China Taste by El Bund), a cocktail bar (27 Club) and a flexible restaurant and bar – La Cúpula, so called because it sits in a rotunda underneath the iconic stained glass dome (cúpula in Spanish) and skylight that has become the “heart of the hotel”.

There are also several works of art scattered around the hotel, and just past the lobby, I almost walked into one I was not expecting at all – “The Palace Dino”, El Dino del Palace, a sculpture by Lázaro Rosa-Violán depicting… a spinosaurid dinosaur. The piece is a scaled-down marble skeleton of an outdated interpretation of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus (Cretaceous period) with a thick tail and a bony crest. I say “outdated” because Spinosaurus was discovered in the early 1910s and for a while, it was described as bipedal theropod. Two skeletons were recovered in Egypt but kept in Nazi Germany and destroyed during WWI, so nobody could study them further. Later, in the 21st century, a proposed neotype was unearthed, this time in Morocco. Subsequent discoveries hinted that the animal was actually both quadrupedal and semi aquatic. In 2005, a Spanish spinosaurid was discovered in La Rioja area and named Riojavenatrix lacustris (Lake huntress from La Rioja) – I may have worked on a fossilised piece of bone of this animal in Loarre. I was really surprised to find any dinosaur connection in such a place, but I have exactly zero problems with it.

simplified skeleton of a dinosaur with a sort-of-sail

Dinosaur hype aside, every Sunday afternoon between 13:30 and 16:30, La Cúpula offers an event called Opera & brunch, with a self-service buffet and professional opera singers popping up to delight the attendees with several arias by famous maestros. The crowd was extremely diverse – from middle-aged couples to families with children to solo-diners. When I grow up, I want to be like the lady sitting on her own at the next table, whom both waiters and singers stopped to greet and welcome.

Bar in the centre of a rotunda, covered by a skylight

For now, however, I don’t think I can afford the price tag, which might be steep for some pockets – but as I said, milestone birthday. We had chosen the Deluxe Opera & Brunch, which is 125 € per person. There is a more expensive option which includes a lot more alcohol. Despite its given name, the affair is not really a brunch, but a full-blown lunch.

Waiters serve sparkling wine (cava) and water, and they focus more on the wine than the water, which is slightly inconvenient for a non-alcohol-drinker like myself. Food is organised in a buffet-corner, divided in three spaces. The first one is the “self-service area”: artisan cheeses, Iberian sausages – including a hand-cut ham leg (100% acorn-fed Iberian breed) – baked goods, seafood and raw bar, with lobster and oysters, salad bar and a “hot buffet” with roasted suckling pig and side dishes of potatoes, peppers and chickpeas. In another area stood the live cooking stations, manned by people serving the food: roasted sea bass, beef Wellington and a rice station (paella); an egg station was advertised, but it was not there – hence not a brunch: no option of eggs Benedict. Finally, there was a desserts table with mini cakes, pies, tartelettes, verrines, chocolates, and macarons. I learnt the names of so many desserts that day…

Lady cutting a cured pork leg, and several stations of a buffet, including cooked meat, seafood and oysters

Cold meats and cheese, salad, and dessert stations in a buffet

The music program included a pianist, a soprano and a tenor, and we had a little sheet of paper with the setlist:
 Non ti scordar di me (Don’t forget me) by Ernesto de Curtis (1935).
 Ebben? Ne andrò lontana (Well, then? I’ll go far away) from La Wally by Alfredo Catalani (1892).
 Musica Proibita (Forbidden Music) by Stanislao Gastaldon (1881).
 Io son l’umile ancella (I am the humble servant of the creative spirit) from Adriana Lecouvreur by Francesco Cilea (1902).
 Eri tu (It’s you) from Un ballo in maschera by Giuseppe Verdi (1859).
 Il bacio (The Kiss) by Luigi Arditi (1860).
 Mattinata (Morning) by Ruggero Leoncavallo (1904).
 Die lustige Witwe Waltz (Waltz of the Merry Widow) by Franz Lehár (1861).
 Amapola (Poppy) by Joseph Lacalle (1920).
 O sole mio (Oh my sunshine) by Eduardo Di Capua (1989).
 Granada by Agustín Lara (1932).
 Nessun dorma (Let no one sleep) from Turandot by Giacomo Puccini (1926).
 Brindisi (Toast or Driking Song) from La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi (1853).

Man playing a grand piano

Tenor and soprano singing The Toast from La Traviatta. The soprano is saluting the camera with her glass

The singers and the pianist were excellent. The only complaint I could have is that we were seated right behind the piano, and the artists were on the other side, so their voices did not carry that well, but once the soprano came to sing to us and that was great. I moved at some point so I could hear them better, too (and take pictures). The food was abundant and quite good – I even tried an oyster for the first time. Truth be told, I would have liked to taste a bit of each dish – everything looked delicious – but there was just too much! The sitting and bar area looked beautiful, and there was even a bit of a Chinese New Year decoration (since China Taste is doing a special menu to celebrate). I particularly loved the skylight dome above the bar.

Skylight with a hanging lamp

It was a great event that we could have complemented with something else nearby – the Naval Museum, or the Palace of Cibeles. However, my parents had been so stressed by the drive that they did not want to stay over. Besides, we had eaten a lot. The most reasonable course of events was heading home for a food coma, after deciding that maybe – just maybe – Sunday mornings were not the best to drive around Madrid.

31st January 2026: Mistakes were made around the Tercios (Madrid, Spain)

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A local cultural association organised a day trip to Madrid on the 31st of January to witness the historical re-enactment Día de Los Tercios (Tercios Day). Tercios (thirds) were the Spanish Empire’s infantry force, usually considered to be the origin of modern European armies. They were formed by volunteers-turned-professional soldiers, the elite of the Spanish military.

Despite their 1534 establishment as an actual unit, the strategies and structure of the Tercios can be traced to the 1480s, when the Christians were trying to conquer Grenada from the Arabs. They were known for effectively mixing bladed weapons, usually pikes, and firearms (primitive rifles known as arquebuses). They had a very characteristic hierarchy system in which old soldiers trained newcomers. They had rankings amongst themselves, medical staff, chaplains, even their own justice system. Their most recognisable symbol was the Cross of Burgundy on different backgrounds.

Tercios battled all across Europe with the expansion of the Habsburg house. They fought in Italy, and most famously in the Belgian region of Flanders – there are several monuments in Antwerp hailing the locals who opposed them. Velázquez painted the most famous work of art around the Tercios, La Rendición de Breda – the “Surrender of Breda”, an Italian city conquered in 1625. As world and war changed, their battlefield tactics became obsolete in the 18th century, and they eventually dissolved away, transformed into regiments, as the figure of the pikeman was dropped.

The name Tercios survives in naming the Spanish Navy and Legion units. The historical recreation association 31 Enero Tercios appeared (as far as I have been able to find) around 2020, formed by history professional and amateurs who wanted to remember the Tercios units, organising re-enactments and activities all around the country. Their website is a bit chaotic, and might be slightly problematic with its language at points, but most people just seem to enjoy dressing up, playing with fake weapons, and going home to their phones after they wrap up.

One of the goals of the association is to establish the 31st of January as Tercios Day Día de los Tercios, organising activities and re-enactments throughout the country. It sounded interesting enough so we thought we would sign up the aforementioned day trip… only for it to be cancelled a couple of days later due to general lack of participation. Since there was no forecast of rain or snow, but sun for a change, we thought we could drop by on our own.

There were two main stages for the activities in Madrid: one was Plaza de la Villa (site of the historical town hall), the other Main Square Plaza Mayor. We walked through the latter on our way to the former, and there was absolutely no indication of anything going on. When we arrived at the Plaza de la Villa, they were still setting up camp (literally), so we went to have breakfast somewhere in order to be out of the cold. We had decided to join the “theatre visit” at 11:00, which was difficult as inscriptions were chaotic.

I’m not a guided-visit person, but this was… bad. My parent, who actually likes them, concurs. The “theatre” part came from three people tagging along in period dresses and a two-minute “assassination” in the end, after walking through a number of alleyways and stopping in the most awkward and windy points to see… unrelated buildings. I was completely unable to follow the theoretical plot line of the visit and how it… was any kind of plot, really. I’m still even unclear on who or why was assassinated and their relation to the Tercios.

Sequence of a "theatre play" showing the assassination of some Medieval character, complete with swordplay

The visit ended near the Army cathedral Iglesia Catedral de las Fuerzas Armadas, so I asked my parents if they minded stopping by St Michael’s church Iglesia de San Miguel, which had been closed the previous time I had been around. We were able to snoop inside, but just a little, as they were holding mass.

Neoclassical church

We then headed back towards the Plaza de la Villa, where there was a demonstration of how the pikers would train. This is the kind of thing I like to watch, but my parents don’t, especially in the cold. After a few minutes, they wanted to move on. By the time we reached the Plaza Mayor, the event there had finished and I only managed to get a photo of the ensemble.

Re-enactment of pikers formed at attention

We then headed off to a high-end traditional grill Asador de Aranda that my parent wanted to try. I can’t say I’d recommend the place, as they broke my heart. First, the menu promised baked potatoes and the waiter brought microwaved ones. As we were sitting near the actual wood oven, I had really hoped for oven-baked potatoes. The meat was all right, maybe a bit overcooked, and finally the advertised “five-star pudding” was not-at-all stellar. In general, it felt overhyped and overpriced.

After lunch, I debated whether to stay in Madrid or head back with my parents, but the next event on the Día de los Tercios schedule was a parade at 20:00… too long to wait in the cold. Hence, I decided to just make a note in my calendar for 2027, and quietly slip out to see all the re-enactments on my own. Knowing in advance that this event exists, I can keep an eye on it and plan for down time between the different activities.

27th January 2026: The calm in-between the storms (Madrid, Spain)

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I had arranged to meet my sibling in Madrid for a late lunch when they got off work. Before that, I had a free morning that I could invest in checking out an interesting-sounding exhibition, and as it seemed that the weather was going to give us a small reprieve, I headed out on the train. Upon reaching town, I stepped out of the station and walked towards a former brewery, now turned cultural centre – Complejo Cultural El Águila.

The original brewery was established around 1900 under the commercial name “El Águila” (The Eagle), aiming to become one of the first large-scale beer producers Spain. The location was chosen due to the nearby Delicias station – then an important transportation hub, and the high quality of the water in Madrid – as apparently water is the key ingredient in the making of beer, even more important than the malt. The building was designed by Eugenio Jiménez Corera, in the Neomudejar style. It was expanded between 1915 and 1935 as El Águila managed to take over a quarter of the beer market during the 20th century. In the mid 1980s, production was moved to more modern facilities, when the brand was overtaken by Heineken. At the turn of the century, the factory buildings were repurposed into the Regional Archive, a library, and an exhibition hall.

Old brewery built in brick with an eagle mosaic as logo

It was raining when I walked in, and the security guard came towards me, looking annoyed. I said I was there for the toys exhibition and he directed me to the – very visible – signage. I thanked him even though I had seen the information. He came at me. I would have found my way on my own.

The exhibition ¡Me lo pido! Juguetes en el Madrid de nuestra infancia (I’ll ask for it for myself! Toys in our childhood’s Madrid) is a collection of classic toys, from the beginning of the 20th century to the late 1980s or early 1990s. While during the years after the Civil War toys were an absolute luxury, the 1960s saw Spanish urban society thrive. It became common amongst children to write their letters to the Three Wise Men (or the Three Magi, in Spanish the Wizard-Kings, Reyes Magos) with their gift requests – no Father Christmas then. Kids would also voice (still do) those wishes out loud using the expression ¡Me lo pido!. It’s difficult to translate it, but maybe it could be “I’ll ask for it for myself”. The “myself” is actually key, because it sets some sort of “claim” over the item somehow. It is a sort of spell that seems to ban all the other kids in the friends group from wanting it, or something. I guess that makes sense if you are five…

The Magi are actually figures in the Bible who present offerings to Infant Jesus in Jerusalem. In the Spanish folklore, each has a distinct personality and appearance – they are called Melchor, Gaspar and Baltazar. Melchor is usually characterised as Northern European with a long white beard, bringing gold to Jesus as King – he sort of resembles Santa Claus. Gaspar is supposed to be Persian and sports a gold-brown beard, he presents Baby Jesus with frankincense, symbolising his Godhood. Finally, Baltazar, the dark-skinned Magus, brings myrrh to the mortal man. For a decades, before the black population in Spain grew after the dictatorship, it was an honour for men to paint their faces black in order to portray Baltazar, who is the most popular of the Magi! Nowadays, Baltazar is usually portrayed by an actual black man.

All the items in I’ll ask for it for myself! Toys in our childhood’s Madrid belong to the private collection Colección Quiroga-Montes. They range from extremely high-end, such as the doll Mariquita Pérez and metal reproductions of vehicles, to the more popular like marbles or spinning tops. In the middle, the most famous toys throughout the century – the Meccano, Nancy, Disney stuff – and my absolute favourite, the Lego before Lego, Exin Castillos (which I still use to build castles when I am stressed out). There were also photographs, some chronicling the children outside their houses – staring at toy shop windows – some intimate, after the Magi had done their yearly job.

The whole thing was endearing and I loved every bit, especially the toys dating from my childhood. It was extremely interesting to see how toys changed from metal and wood to plastic all around. However, it was also a bit unsettling to see the rigid divide between “girl presents” and “boy presents” for so long, even more than “inside presents” and “outdoors presents” any more.

Old toys - tin train station and horse, a plastic castle and a plastic pirate ship

When I finished, I walked outside again. It had been raining hard while I was inside, but now it was cloudy but dry. I mentioned before that the brewery was near Delicias station. Today, the original station is no longer in service, but it has become the railway museum Museo del Ferrocarril, a project that was created to salvage the building. Madrid-Delicias was the first monumental station built in the city. It was however short-lived: inaugurated in 1880, it closed down less than a century later, in 1969. There is a widely-believed rumour that it was designed by Gustave Eiffel, but it was actually Émile Cachelièvre who drew the blueprints. The building was erected in iron, glass, and red and black bricks, maybe trying to echo some Neomudejar touches. During its prime, it was the terminus of trains that went to the west, including Lisbon, Portugal.

In 1984, Delicias became the Railway Museum, and it hosts a number of artefacts including whole tractors – steam, diesel and electrical – and cars, along with smaller rooms dedicated to specific pieces. The main ward, which would have made up the platforms, is occupied by real trains that have long gone out of service. The side rooms host smaller collections, either historical or thematic – such as the clock room, the infrastructure room or the model room. On the upper floors, the largest train model in the country is kept running when there are visitors to snoop around. There were many things to see that were closed off when I was in the museum for the flea market Mercado de Motores (despite no running mini-trains).

Collage of the train museum, showing old trains and models

I had planned to stay for longer, but it was cold – the gates were open and the wind came through, so in the end, I decided to go wait for my sibling at their underground stop, which would be much warmer. I was lucky enough that I skipped the two downpours of the day though, as I was inside when the heavy rain came – twice.

Once my sibling was done with work, we rode the underground towards Le Chinois. This high-end Chinese restaurant advertises itself with a different name in Chinese [梦香楼 | Mengxianglou]. It claims, in Spanish, to offer a mystic experience that transports patrons to Ancient China. In Chinese, it asserts to seek authenticity before beauty in food, using the best ingredients. Either text sounds a bit pretentious, honestly, quite on par with the decoration. Everything is wooden and there is an actual dragon model running above the dining area.

We ordered a few dishes to share. We started with some dim sum – an assortment of small one-bite dishes, aptly called “Dim Sum Assortment” [点心拼盘]: Sum Siu Mai (猪烧卖; steamed, handmade dumplings with spring onion, charsiu sauce, and quail egg), Xiao Long Bao (黑猪肉灌汤小笼包; bao stuffed with Iberian pork and chicken consommé), Ha Kao (大海水晶虾饺; Steamed dumplings stuffed with tiger prawns and dehydrated bamboo) and Jiao Zi (牛肉饺子; Chinese garlic, sautéed with fresh ginger, carrots, and chives). We also ordered some Soft Shell Crab [椒盐软壳蟹] (crispy, battered, and sautéed with salt and pepper) and Rice Noodles (干炒牛河; Stir-fried noodles with black soy-marinated beef, roasted ginger, wok-fried free-range egg, and seasonal vegetables). I think – I swear none of the noodles description matches the dish we got. For dessert, we shared an selection of chocolates and tea.

Chinese food at a restaurant with a giant wooden dragon decorating the ceiling

While the food was all right, none of it actually blew my mind. Furthermore, the experience itself did not feel up to par with the pricing, especially considering that the service was not that great. A beer slammed on the ground just next to us and splattered my coat – the staff only noticed when I cleaned it up. We ordered water, but they kept the bottle away and did not refill it as needed. We had to ask for it every time. All in all, way overpriced for “just okay” dishes, so I don’t think I will come back.

After the restaurant, I had booked a ticket at OXO Museo, the museum of video games. It features old-time games, arcade machines, and even a copy of the Atari ET video game. The game, released in 1982, was a massive failure. Urban legend had it that Atari buried all the unsold copies in the middle of the desert in New Mexico – and for once, the urban legend turned out true! A stash of games was found in Alamogordo, and a bunch of them (not only ET, also Pacman, Space Invaders…) and dug out in 2013. Around 1,300 cartridges were recovered, and one of then is exhibited in the museum.

An Atari video game cartridge and a figure of ET, along a certificate of authenticity

The museum is set up as 100% interactive – you can basically play with any video game in display – form the classics on arcade machines to the more modern Play Stations. There was even a taiko game. Decoration features sculptures and holographic displays. On the upper floor, there is a Lego and Video Games exhibition, where you can participate in creating a huge Sonic mural. It’s a pity that one can only stay in the museum for two hours at a time, there are a lot of things to do! The museum is so much “for all ages and skill levels” that even I managed to win a game or two.

Old arcade games at OXO

We made the most out of our time there, and then headed off to the train to try to head back home. There were delays, so we took forever, but eventually we made it. And again, I did not get rained on!

24th January 2026: Short visit to FITUR 2026 (Madrid, Spain)

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Madrid is the seat of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), so it makes sense that the city hosts a yearly International Tourism Fair – Feria Internacional del TURismo, or FITUR. For years, I had been hearing how amazing it was, and how many networking opportunities for travellers there were.

I had wanted to snoop around for as long as it came on my radar, but timing never worked out until this year. I bought a general entry ticket and hoped for decent enough weather to be able to drive to IFEMA – where I can get in 40 minutes on my car or 3 hours by public transport. I’m not even kidding. IFEMA parking lot is chaotic, and so is the nearby Parque Juan Carlos I one. However, if you’re willing to add a 10 minutes’ walk to the experience, there is another convenient lot nearby you can use, where I directly headed upon seeing how traffic was. That should’ve given me an idea of the mayhem and overcrowding I was going to find inside.

Fitur entrance, decorated with Mexican flags

FITUR takes up most of IFEMA, which makes sense considering how much money tourism makes around the world. According to the UNWTO, there were 1.52 billion international tourists around the world in 2025, and 2.2 trillion US dollars in revenue from the industry. The catchphrase of this year’s FITUR edition was “where journeys begin”, so I thought that worst case scenario, I would come back with a bunch of leaflets of cool places I wanted to visit.

Upon entering the convention centre, the first thing I found was a recreation of the new Egyptian archaeology museum in Cairo. However, the reproductions of the pieces were… bad, almost childlike. I walked into the first pavilion – Europe. There I found a lot of stands, but the catch was that very few of them held actual information about countries, most were travel agencies advertising their products. I secured some information about Sardinia, because I have wanted to go there to see the Mont’e Prama Archaeological site since I learnt about the Giants. The lady was nice enough to give me a tote bag, though I was carrying my own.

The Africa pavilion had about twenty stands of companies organising safaris, some of them even playing into the Great White Hunter stereotype! I got a few leaflets from them too. In Asia Pacific I was scolded for calling Australia an “island” and not a continent (hm, hello Oceania?) and the business pavilion was so empty it looked like a completely different fair.

Collage - Egyptian archaeological artefacts (replicas), lion sculptures in front of a safari stand, Mexico written in bold colours, and a Delorean car

Next, I headed off towards the three interconnected pavilions that made up Spain. Here I started encountering mini-parades representing different tourist resources in the country. At one point I found myself surrounded by a re-enactment of the Crucifixion (Holy Week), the ladies from Valencia’s Fallas festival and a small batallion of Napoleonic troops. Here I did find actual information stands about regions and not travel agents’, but when I had questions about specific recommendations, I was irrevocably directed to “check the website”. There were never-ending queues whenever any stand gave out anything – blocking the ways and aisles – and whenever there was anything related to food, such as samples, visitors almost came to blows. I did my best to avoid all of them.

At one point I did come across a company that prided itself in “solo travel” – they even had it in the name. Upon a slight enquire, I found out that they… charge supplementary fees to solo travellers. Like, what? However, it was the Americas pavilion that broke me in the end. I got shoved twice, almost to the ground, around the Argentina stand, only to be unable to find any information regarding Patagonia’s MEF (the reportedly most important dinosaur collection in South America, and where the Patagonian Dinosaur Exhibition originated).

Collage: racing car, a group of people dressed in white carrying olive branches, parade of drummers, and ladies wearing dresses representing different monuments of the Castilla y León area

All in all, my FITUR experience felt bizarre and extremely overcrowded. It was like paying to have the right to be bombarded by travel agency commercials. Not disappointed, but having realised that FITUR was not for me, I decided to head back to the car and drive off. I had been there for around three hours, and taken a walk around the whole fair. At first I thought I would stop for junk food, but it was too cold even for that, so I just headed home, with a bunch of leaflets and a list of websites to look at. Most of the brochures are still sitting on the shelf…

22nd January 2026: The workshop that wasn’t (Madrid, Spain)

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A while back I visited the printing museum Imprenta municipal in Madrid. I’ve since learnt that they have book-binding workshops, and I would very much like to attend one. So would at least one of my parents, and I was asked to sign them up online for one on the 22nd of January, a day when I was supposed to be at work. My project got delayed, so I ended up workshop-less and a bit envious. Just a bit. There’ll be other chances.

On the 21st, I received a notification that I could pick up some paperwork in town, so we arranged we would have lunch together after I had my documentation and they were done. We would all be taking the train, and I was a bit uneasy. I’ve complained about the railway system before, but just a few days before there had been a horrible train accident that killed over 40 people, and a slightly less horrific one that killed one person.

Though it did feel a bit uncomfortable when the train shook within the rails, we reached Madrid just a few minutes late, and I hopped off. It was extremely cold, not only because it was January, Spain had been hit with a string of storms just one after the other. After getting my documents, I realised I was rather close to the fountain I had missed when I was in the Bravo Murillo area exploring after Expogema, Fuente del Río Lozoya, which honours the river Lozoya, the source of the city’s drinking water. It was my third time trying to find the fountain and… it was getting cleaned, and thus empty and fenced off. I felt it was hilarious.

A fountain with female allegory decorations

I headed towards the underground and headed towards Tirso de Molina station. The station opened in 1921, and one of the halls retains the original tiling and decoration, the historical hall – Vestíbulo Histórico de Tirso de Molina, which is considered part of the underground museum network Museos de Metro de Madrid. The station has a bit of a black urban legend / history. It is located underneath the square Plaza de Tirso de Molina, which honours a Spanish friar, dramatist and poet. The square named after him used to be home to his own convent, a building that was expropriated and demolished during the Ecclesiastical confiscations in the 19th century. Apparently, there was a small graveyard associated to the convent, and human remains were found (and quietly reburied behind the walls) during the construction of the station. Creepy.

The historical access hall to the underground station - white with blue decorative tiles

Quite close stands the manor known as Palacio de la Duquesa de Sueca, an Age of Enlightenment building which was for a while featured in one of the most successful fictions on Spanish TV – El Ministerio del Tiempo (The Ministry of Time). It has been abandoned forever, it seems, and nobody quite knows what to do with it, so it is slowly wasting away.

Façacde of a manor with many windows and balconies

I walked to the small metropolitan museum Museo de San Isidro, which was running a special exhibition about the Temple of Debod and the town it used to stand on, fittingly called Debod. 1954-1964. Debod is the only free-standing Nubian temple outside Egypt. The building was dismantled during the International campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia between 1960 and 1980, as the rising waters from the Nile, turning into Lake Nasser, swallowed them.

The exhibition did not only focus on the temple Templo de Debod, but put a lot of emphasis on the town of Debod itself, whose people were forcibly relocated to Kom Ombo. The region of Nubia stood between today’s Egypt and Sudan. It was home to the Kerma culture from around 2500 BCE until the area was conquered and incorporated to the New Kingdom of Egypt around 1500 BCE. Kerma culture is regarded as one of the earliest civilisations of Ancient Africa. A lot of knowledge about the region, including culture and customs, was lost with the move. It was a bit heart-wrenching, surprisingly even more than hearing about it in Egypt itself. The exhibit comprised a lot photographs and videos that showed the people who left, and you could see the desperation in their eyes.

A good part of the items shown were photographs of how the temple stood and how it was documented before getting dismantled in order to rebuild it – which in the end, they did wrong, as one of the entrance pillions was placed backwards. The building was originally erected in the 2nd century BCE, dedicated to the God Amun, creator and King of the Gods. He would later be merged with Ra, hence the Amun-Ra denomination for the Sun God. The small structure would be later expanded by Kings and Roman Emperors. It reached the Nile through a processional walkway that ended at a quay.

The temple was gifted to Spain in 1970, dismantled in 2,300 pieces. The whole thing was reconstructed as well as it could be, filling up the gaps with newer material in a process called anastylosis, and experts say it’s not even a good one. Today, the Templo de Debod stands in a park in the middle of Madrid, and can be accessed at weekends. Unfortunately, the sandstone is getting weathered, which threatens the integrity of the whole structuture. What is surprising is the contrast between all the photographs in the exhibition, and the complaint that there was not enough good documentation to re-erect the building.

Numibian archaeological artefacts (a chest, a hammer, bracelets and necklaces), and a b/w photograph of a small temple next to the Nile

After the exhibition, I walked around the museum once, then went out in the cold again. At least it was sunny, and after noon, so not that bad. During a conversation about Madrid must-dos, someone had mentioned two churches I did not know, which happened to be rather close. The first one I found was the Cathedral Church of the Armed Forces Iglesia Catedral de las Fuerzas Armadas (also known as Church of the Sacrament Iglesia del Sacramento). Though Spain is technically a non-religious country, this has not always been so. For a long time it was an officially Catholic country, and there is a strong catholic tradition amongst the armed forces. As a matter of fact, there is even a Military Archbishopric of Spain (Arzobispado Castrense de España), with seat in this cathedral. I am not sure how one can be an soldier and a priest, much less a bishop / colonel, but I am not an expert.

The cathedral is a Baroque building designed by Juan Gómez de Mora, with a Neoclassical altarpiece and many frescoes. It was built between 1671 and 1744 to be the church of a convent that has since disappeared. The main façade was built by Pedro de Ribera towards the end of the construction period. Today it belongs to the Ministry of Defence – I did not know state agencies could own churches in Spain.

Inside and out of a Baroque church

Nearby stands another important church, the Pontifical Basilica of Saint Michael Basílica Pontificia de San Miguel, another Baroque structure – actually it is considered one of the most important buildings in the Spanish Baroque. It is attributed to Italian architect Giacomo Bonavia and dates from the 1730s. Unfortunately, it closed at 13:15 and it was 13:13, so I could not come in.

In front of the church there is a sculpture called The Reader El Lector, a bronze statue by Félix Hernando García. The statue was recently moved there as part of the urban sculpture program, since a library was installed there in 2011. It is apparently a homage to Carlos Cambronero y Martínez, apparently one of the first “Madrid Historians”.

I headed back towards where I had to meet with my parents, and though I was early, so were they. Their workshop, which was scheduled to finish at 14:00, wrapped up at 13:20, so in the end I had to head there in a bit of a hurry. Once I picked them up, we walked to “a random restaurant” in theory. In practice, one of them had a very specific place in mind – Museo del Jamón. Self-described as a “family chain of restaurant”, the idea of a ham-focused restaurant was born in 1978. Since then, they have opened seven different eateries specialising in ham and other pork products, alongside several typical tapas.

The Spanish word for ham is jamón. It is obtained from the hind leg of a Black Iberian pig, usually. The ideal ham-producing swine lives range-free in oak groves (the dehesa) so it can feed on acorns, as they lead to the best meat, apparently. After the animal is slaughtered, the hind legs are salted and left to dry, in a curing process that may take up to 48 months. How much acorn the pig consumes as part of its diet, and whether or not this is supplemented, determines the quality of the final product, with the best hams being “100% acorn fed” – jamón 100% ibérico de bellota, marked with a black label.

Of course, many other products might be obtained from a pig – the most important sausages are lomo, chorizo and salchichón. Lomo refers to the tenderloin, the piece of meat underneath the ribs and along the spine, cured for about four months after being marinated in spices – normally oregano, garlic and paprika. Chorizo is a sausage made from pork meat and fat with added garlic, and can be either cured or fresh (the former is eaten as is, the latter is usually cooked). The meat is seasoned with smoked paprika (pimentón), which determines how spicy it becomes, and gives it a bright red colour. The best chorizo comes in natural casings, usually the intestines of the pig, and the curing process can take several months. Salchichón is similar to cured chorizo but there are more spices added – salt, pepper (often black grains), oregano, nutmeg, and garlic – and curing can last for three months. If the animal was an acorn-fed black Iberian pig, the monicker ibérico de bellota is added to the name.

We shared a salad (Ensalada de tomate y ventresca de atún), with tomato, tuna and orange – because my parents are unable to be in a restaurant without ordering a salad. We also ordered some battered squid Calamares a la andaluza, and a dish called “Recorrido Ibérico Bellota” – with bits of the different pork cuts: jamón de Bellota 50% Ibérico, chorizo Ibérico de Bellota, salchichón Ibérico de Bellota and lomo Ibérico de Bellota. Despite Madrid being dead in the centre of Spain, battered squid is an extremely typical dish, especially in sandwich form.

Lunch - breaded squid, salad, sausages and ham

I had been extremely lucky that the rainy weather had given a reprieve and I could carry my paperwork around safely, but it was windy and not that nice. Thus, after lunch we headed back towards the train, and we were rather lucky with the connections, so we were home rather early. During the train ride, I learnt hat someone from the binding workshop had decided to leave in a huff because it was “too basic”. I could have totally taken that spot!

18th January 2026: Industrial Heritage around Entrepeñas Reservoir (Spain)

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Weather warnings, work, and a nasty stomach bug seemed to conspire against me for a lousy start of the year, and what I had originally planned for the 2nd of January had to be delayed a couple of weeks until I caught a break from everything. Eventually, the plan just became a “grab the backpack and go” when the stars aligned – and actually, I just required one star and the only thing it needed to do was shine. Whilst I’ve been around the reservoir Embalse de Entrepeñas before, I had never been aware of the not-so-hidden hiking route that departs from the parking lot, heading downstream. I found its description in a book about walking routes in the province, it was not a difficult drive, and the route could be expanded to include a couple of spots the guide did not consider.

Spain has long had a complicated relationship with freshwater. Despite being a majorly dry country, it has developed a wide net of water-intensive agricultural hubs. The cyclic droughts and low-quality soils in the centre do not help – the areas with a nice temperate climate and good soils don’t have water. Thus, once the technology was readily available (the first dams date back from the late 19th century), the first Hydrological Plan (Plan Hidrológico Nacional) was developed during the years of Franco’s Dictatorship. The government designed and built an extensive network of reservoirs in order to, well, store freshwater. Water transfers were designed to feed the eastern orchards. Of course, these were controversial on several fronts. First, the environmental one. Second, the social one – once a dam is built and the water rises, it swallows everything that had previously grown on the riverbanks, be it healthy ecosystems, entire villages, or historical buildings. And third, of course, the moral one – dictatorships are not good, so well-meaning people have to oppose anything such a system devises.

In addition, the reservoir Embalse de Entrepeñas has a bit of a bad reputation. During the 1980s it became popularised as an inland sea, along other reservoirs in the Spanish central plateau, as what became known as the Castilian Sea – El Mar de Castilla. However, despite the extensive security network decades of beach tourism had impulsed along the coast, inland water bodies were left unattended. I grew up on reports of people drowning in Entrepeñas. Everybody seemed to know someone who died there. Adult perspective says most people knew the same victim, or they were just repeating hearsay. As a kid, I really believed that the reservoir might actually been an evil entity feeding on swimmers.

The reservoir Embalse de Entrepeñas was built between 1946 and 1952, during Franco’s Dictatorship, but the plan dated back from 1902. The goal was to regulate the flow of River Tagus to keep drinking and agricultural water in storage, along with producing electricity. During the mid-1960s, the 813 square hectometres of water became a holiday spot. However, soon a “ghost” hovered over the reservoir, the dreaded Tagus-Segura Water Transfer, Trasvase Tajo-Segura. The Segura River is used to water the orchards in the east of Spain, but its flow cannot cope with the demand. Thus, water is carried from the Tagus to one of the tributaries of the Segura, in an engineering feat that was built between 1968 and 1971. The transfer established the region of Murcia as a strategic agricultural area. However, it dried up the Tagus reservoirs, killing off the water-tourism, not even mentioning the environmental consequences of the whole project.

However, as tourism dwindled, something else happened. Entrepeñas became a hotspot of conservation success when threatened griffon vultures (Gyps fulvus) started nesting in the rocky walls. Child-me was very concerned about birds of prey going extinct but had no idea about ecology, so I was halfway worried about vultures disappearing, halfway low-key worried they would make a meal out of me. Considering that during a couple of hikes I’ve actually had raptors circling me, child-me might have been onto something.

Back to the present, though. I woke up and even before pulling up the blinds, I looked at the weather app. Being January, the day was going to be cold, but the temperature would not go below zero, and the sky would be clear. To be honest, I was desperate to do basically anything, but at the same time, there was this wave of exhaustion going through me. I kicked myself into gear and got onto the car. I filled up the tank and set on my merry way towards the parking lot / viewpoint that the guidebook described as being “on the right, before the tunnel”. Dear book, there are two tunnels. You mean the second one. If you go right before the first one you end up… somewhere else. Yes, talking from experience. You can turn around in one of the parking lots on the side of the road. If you dare, of course.

I dared, else I would have had to drive an extra 9 km. I found the almost empty parking lot, parked the car, and set off onto a closed-road-turned-trail. It was around 11:00, the air was crisp and the sun was shining. When I thought in November that hiking season was over, I had not realised there are routes recommended for winter, and this is one of them, as the trees being devoid of leaves allows for a great view of the Romanesque bridge downstream.

The first part of the hike runs between the river Tagus Río Tajo and a vertical wall, eroded at trail level to form a rock shelter. The vultures were already active, treating me to some nice flights. The trail was slightly downwards, and it did not take long to catch a glimpse of the so-called Roman Bridge – actually Romanesque Puente Románico. This area of Spain tends to confuse Roman and Romanesque. The original bridge was erected in the 14th century, but it was rebuilt in the 19th, and that is the structure which remains today.

Rock shelter formed by brown rock

View from above of the valley, with the river crossed by an old bridge. The arch of the bridge and its reflection create a perfect circle

Near the bridge stands the original hydroelectrical station Central Hidroeléctrica de Guadalajara, but it was harder to see it across the river. It was not long before I reached the bridge itself, and the route said to turn right then. Instead, I crossed over and continued downstream, as I had seen that there was an abandoned train station nearby, Antigua Estación de Ferrocarril de Auñón. The original building was part of the former railway network Ferrocarril del Tajuña, a line that was originally designed to join Madrid and Aragón in order to transport people and freight, However, it was eventually dismantled since it was too expensive to maintain and yielded to too little revenue. The station was in use between 1919 and 1953. After 1946, due to the works on the reservoir, Auñón became the terminus. Today, the actual rail is gone, and there are only ruins of the passenger and warehouse buildings, and the loading docks. Unfortunately, the whole thing was covered in graffiti, and the vegetation rather overgrown.

Abandoned hydroelectrical central

Abandoned station building

I backtracked and headed upstream. It did not take long to reach the former hydrological station Central Hidroeléctrica de Guadalajara, a brick building erected in 1909. Not much further, I found the remains of the original dam over the Tagus, with a rather impressive water sprout remaining – and a makeshift bridge over the water, made with wooden logs, that I looked, photographed, and no way in hell I was going to try to step on.

Remains of the former dam

I continued upstream until I reached the modern gravity dam Presa de Buendía, a huge structure made of reinforced concrete that holds back the water. It’s a very different sensation when you look at the dam from this perspective, upwards, from the “empty” side than what I had always experienced – from the top.

Humongous river dam

I turned back towards the bridge, which I had to cross to return to the parking lot. I still had a bit of time, so I wandered towards the actual reservoir area. There’s a structure there that fascinates me… a small building with remains of a railway that goes right into the water. I have never been able to figure out what it was made for.

Tranquil river in a crisp winter morning

Rock shelter alongside a river course

Tranquil reservoir. Some stairs disappear into the water.

And that was it for the day trip, a short hike I dragged for about three hours during the one good weather day we had for a bit and that turned out to be my first outing of 2026. Afterwards, it was just a matter of hopping onto the car and heading back home, feeling recharged.

28th December 2025: Sabre-toothed cats in Alcalá de Henares (Spain)

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For my last escapade of the year 2025, I chose a nearby low-effort one – Alcalá de Henares. I was checking out dates for upcoming events in Madrid when I saw that the palaeontology and archaeology museum Museo Arqueológico y Paleontológico de la Comunidad de Madrid (MARPA) had opened a special exhibition on sabre-toothed cats called Dientes de Sable.

I drove to Alcalá de Henares and parked a bit farther away from the centre, then walked. I really don’t enjoy driving there, especially now that they’re having construction in the main arteries of the city. On my way in, I followed the music to find one of the traditional parades displaying giant puppets – Pasacalles de los gigantes y cabezudos, which happens around Christmas.

I arrived at the MARPA just behind a family, who were told that the sabre-tooth cat exhibit was “good for kids”. I jokingly asked if it wasn’t good for adults and I was told that “kids enjoyed it more”. When I got to the temporal exhibition room to see Dientes de Sable (Sabretooth), I have to say that… no, it was not good for kids. The panels were interesting but… extremely technical. I have some knowledge of science, zoology and palaeontology, and way too much information flew over my head.

When I was in primary school, everything was either an animal, a plant or a rock, and nobody knew what to do about mushrooms. It turns out that biology is slightly more complicated than education in the 1980s tried to convey. Let’s start with what an animal is: an organism comprised by more than one cell, and these cells have a nucleus (which holds DNA) enclosed by a membrane. Having more than one cell allows animals to get pretty big.

Some organisms look more alike than others, which in general (though sometimes it is a fluke) means they are in a way “related”. These relations are scientifically called “taxonomy”, and the groups are bigger or smaller according to the shared characteristics. From more general to more specific they are: domain, kingdom (animals comprise one of these), phylum (for animals) or division (for plants), class, order, family, genus, and finally species. There are “clades” in-between which refer to groups of organisms composed of an identifiable common ancestor and all its descendants, and sub- and super- prefixes for many of the categories.

Mammals – which are animals with milk-producing glands, for feeding the young, among other characteristics – are a class (Mammalia). An order of mammals are Carnivora, creatures which specialise in eating flesh (hence the idea of a “carnivore”, literally meat-eater). Most of them are land-dwelling predators. Within them, we find two suborders – Feliformia (cat-like) and Caniformia (dog-like). For what is worth, seals belong in the dog-like category and hyenas in the cat-like one… so this is a bit more complicated and I am summarising.

Within Feliformia we find the family Felidae, which appeared around 25 million years ago, at the end of the Oligocene. Five million years later, there were two large types of felid groups – some had conical teeth and others developed sabre-shaped teeth – hence being collectively known as sabre-toothed cats. Conical-toothed cats are divided in Felinae or “small cats”, which includes anything smaller than a cheetah, including the domestic cat, and Pantherinae or “big cats”, which comprises leopards, tigers, lions and so on. The subfamily Machairodontinae held all the sabre-toothed cats, with three main subgroups or tribes, all extinct nowadays: Metailurini, Smilodontini and Homotherini or Machairodontini. I hope that was not too confusing, I made a schematic life tree chart to try and help…

The most famous genus of sabre-toothed cat is Smilodon, which jumped to fame hand-in-hand (paw-in-paw) with Diego, from the 2002 animated film Ice Age (also, the squirrel-character Scrat, from that same movie, might have sabre-shaped teeth, but it is a fictional animal, not a Machairodont). Smilodon is a very well-studied genus in science since the species Smilodon fatalis has been found in abundance (over two thousand individuals) in the Los Angeles palaeontological site of La Brea Tar Pits. For millennia, tar has been seeping from the underground, creating a pit so deep that it could (can) swallow an animal whole. However, this was not a fast process. When an animal wandered onto the pits, which were covered with leaves or dust, it became stuck and sank slowly. The dying animal attracted predators, which would also get stuck and end up sinking along after starving to death. This process generates what is known in palaeontology as a “predator trap”.

Spain did not have Smilodon or Tar Pits, but the palaeontological site known as Cerro de los Batallones has turned out to be another predator trap which yielded to many remains of Machairodonts, out of which apparently Machairodus aphanistus is the one getting better PR. The trap was different than the tar – the site was an underground structure or cave with round walls, opened at ground level. Animals fell into the hole and starved, and the stench attracted carnivores, which jumped in, but could not get out again, eventually dying themselves. The cave ended up filled with sediment, maybe in a mudslide or something similar that buried the skeletons. Some of them have even been found articulated, despite the geological phenomena that have affected the area – one of the skulls in the exhibits shows shearing, even.

Confusing still? Try to condense all this informational dump in a few panels with drawings and schematics… I would not call this exhibition child-friendly at all. There is a lot of writing on the walls, along with life-like illustrations about how the animals and their environment would have looked. Regarding the actual items, there were a few replicas of skeletons, and several real pieces, mostly Machairodus from Cerro de los Batallones, as any palaeontological item recovered would be deposited in this museum. Actually, the first skeletal reconstruction you see on display is the one from MARPA’s permanent collection. I really wish they had taken that one out of a glass case, because I can never seem to take a good photography of it.

A room with a reconstruction of a sabretoothed cat skeleton and palaeoart on the walls, depicting the animal in real life.

Dientes de Sable (Sabretooth) exhibition is divided in several sections – taxonomy, environment, palaeoecology, illness, restoration and reconstruction. There are a lot of explanatory panels and artists’ reinterpretation of the animals and their environment. There are three or four complete reconstructions of skeletons, a few skulls – real and casts – and a handful of actual fossils. One of the skeleton casts shows a healed fracture in the hind leg, which seems to imply that the animal lived in a pride and it was relatively taken care for by other members – as it did not starve to death.

Collage: Real sabretoothed cat skull and different reproductions. In all the cases the fangs protude way under the jaw.

There is also a reconstruction of a mummified cub that was found in Siberia in 2020, and a guess of how it would have looked in real life. Having an actual piece of fur helps cement the image of how any of the animals would have looked alive. However, most of it is speculative.

Collage: broken sabretoothed hind leg, mummified cub reproduction, skull fossil, reconstruction of the cat's bite on a hominini's skull.

Sabre-toothed cats coexisted with humans, or at least early Hominini, and maybe the two species even hunted each other. Dmanisi Hominini lived in the modern-day Georgia (country) area of the same name around 1.80 million years ago, so they are amongst the earliest Hominini fossilised in Eurasia. They created simple stone tools, but did not use fire yet, and probably lived in social groups. The scientific consensus is that they belong to the Homo genus, maybe Homo habilis or Homo erectus. One of the skulls found at the site presented unhealed wounds that are consistent with the fangs of a Machairodont animal of the genus Megantereon.

In order to flesh out the exhibition, there are comparisons with modern-day big-cat skeletons, such a tiger or a lion, but one needs to know way more comparative anatomy than myself in order to appreciate much more than the clear difference in the skulls and fangs.

Reconstruction of a sabretoothed cat.

After I left the museum, my plan was to see a couple of the nativities in town, as Alcalá de Henares has a large association dedicated to the dioramas. I went to the exhibition hall and former hospital Antiguo Hospital de Santa María la Rica, where they had set up one of the nativity scenes, Gran Belén Tradicional, along with a few collections and miniatures they were displaying. Nativity scenes are a huge tradition around Christmastime in Spain, with hundreds of displays across town and cities, one in every church, and usually one from every government level.

Spanish nativity displays tend to be structured in scenes, which are not always concurrent. They represent the birth of Jesus according to the Bible (Gospels of Luke and Matthew). There is an area with Mary and Joseph, baby Jesus, a mule, and an ox – usually a cave-like structure to represent the stable. Shepherds are represented heading towards the portal, starting from the Annunciation scene. The Three Wise Men approach, often riding dromedaries (usually referred to as camels though) from a different direction. Many scenes feature a village to show daily life, and usually a snapshot of Mary and Joseph running away to Egypt. Other snippets that might be represented are King Herod – either meeting the Magi or ordering the massacre of the Innocents – or Mary learning she is pregnant.

Bethlehem portal int he Nativity scene.

Since I was in town, I thought I’d check out the other famous nativity scene set up Gran Belén Monumental. I came across a modern felid on a hunt, too – a domestic cat prowling around a hotel garden. When finally I reached my destination, there was a long queue. I was not going to wait for 40 to 60 minutes to see a nativity scene, even if the day was not extremely cold – I was just there out of curiosity. Ergo, I turned on my heels and left. I did not feel like eating out, so I just headed home to munch on some Christmas leftovers.

House cat jumping onto the grass.

11th December 2025: Underground and University London {United Kingdom, December 2025}

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It was not too much of a chilly London morning. I popped into the underground to go leave my luggage at Liverpool Street station – where there is (you guessed it) a Costa Coffee. Then, I headed towards Baker Street Station, where I had booked guided visit with the Hidden London project, by the London Transport Museum. I arrived with some time, so first I explored the Wonderpass – which is a regular underground pedestrian tunnel which allows to cross the road, and has been “decorated” with facts and details about the history of the area, and turned into a small museum.

A few minutes were enough there, so I spent the rest of my time at The Regent’s Park, one of the Royal Parks in London. Between 1536 and 1541, Henry VIII, now head of the Anglican church, ordered the dissolution of the monasteries. Land that used to belong to Catholic orders went to the crown, and although much was sold to fund the King’s military campaigns, the area that comprises Regent’s Park today was retained as hunting grounds. In the 1810s, it was transformed into a pleasure garden with the blessing of the Prince Regent – who would go on to reign as George IV. Today, it is home to the London Zoo, a rose garden, a lake, several fountains, and even a whole university campus.

Regent's Park waterfront in the autumn. Trees on the left are bare, trees on the right are golden.

After a while, I headed towards Baker Street Station to await the beginning of my tour. The meeting point was the Sherlock Holmes Statue, which is, ironically, placed in Marylebone Road. The perpendicular road is indeed Baker Street, where the fictional address of the literary detective is – 221B, which today is a museum dedicated to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s books, recreating scenes from the stories. The statue was created by John Doubleday and installed in 1999. Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930) wrote four novels and over 50 short stories featuring the detective. Today the character – possibly the most famous fictional detective ever – is remembered for his uncanny logical deductions, while other personality traits – misogyny or drug addiction – tend to be tip-toed around.

Statue of Sherlock Holmes in front of Baker Street station.

Around 10:20, the people from the London Transport Museum came to check us in. This is one of those kinds of visits for which you need to bring a piece of ID, probably for insurance reasons. I had been wanting to try one of Hidden London tours for a while, despite them being expensive, and in the end I had chosen Baker Street: The World’s First Underground, as it promised to take you “behind the scenes” of the oldest underground station in the world.

Back in 1863, the Metropolitan Railway company had revolutionised transport by deciding to lay their tracks underground. At that time, London was one of the most populated cities in the world, and crossing it took an hour and a half. The project cut down time to 20 minutes. Unfortunately, we are talking about actual steam trains continouslymoving through tunnels, and the coal smoke was not… the healthiest to breathe, one could say.

The tour takes around 90 minutes, but it is set as more grandiose than it actually is. Most of the “hidden spots” are just service corridors full of trash cans and current working equipment. We had two guides and a security guard, and the information was interesting indeed, but there were few places to explore that felt really “hidden” and just like a conference in a couple of closed-off places.

Baker Street Station hidden tour - platforms, and abandoned tunnels.

I did revisit a couple of the publicly-accessible areas after the tour was over to try and get a decent photograph, and then headed off towards Euston to visit a couple of museums belonging to the University College London (UCL), both of which I’ve wanted to see for a while now. However, the last few times I’ve been in town either one or the other was closed – or their opening times did not fit the plans. Today was the day. I first went to the Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology. Though it is a tiny museum, it holds one of the largest archaeological collections in the world, with around 80,000 items.

The core of the collection was donated by writer Amelia Edwards (1831 – 1892), the “godmother of Egyptology”. Edwards toured Egypt in 1873 and 1874, and later, in 1882, she co-founded the Egypt Exploration Fund (now the Egypt Exploration Society), which aimed to support and promote Egyptian cultural heritage. Upon her death, all her Egyptian artefacts, and a hefty sum of money, were donated to the University.

I reached the museum and asked if I could snoop around. I was told no, but I was welcome to visit. Okay, I guess. No harm done. While I love old museums, this one feels way too crammed (and not even in the fascinating way the Sir John Soane’s Museum does). The space is small, so most objects are lounged together in large cases, some with their original labels from the Victorian times, even. It is run by volunteers and possibly all that they custody is in display, which explains why everything is so full.

Exhibits at Petri Museum - Egyptian archaeological artefacts: a dress, animal and human statuettes, painted tiles.

Afterwards, I headed to the Grant Museum of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, also part of the UCL. Established in 1828 by Robert Edmond Grant, it is one of the oldest natural history collections in the country, originally designed as a teaching collection. It comprises 100,000 specimens in total. There are incredible things on display here. Something that drew my attention was that there were a couple of tutoring sessions going on at the museum… about how to draw creatures and specimens. I did not eavesdrop, but what I overheard was fascinating…

A general view of the Grant Museum of zoology. There are skeletons looking down from the second floor...

One of the highlights is the so-called Micrarium – almost 2,323 old microscope slides (a tiny fraction of the complete collection, which goes up to 20,000), designed in 2013. There is also a collection of invertebrate glass models that blew my mind away, fossils, skeletons and a wall full of disassembled mouse bones. The museum most infamous exhibit is a jar of moles (Talpa europaea), which hosts 18 of these tiny mammals, male and female, preserved in formaldehyde. When I asked why it was so popular, the volunteer explained that the jar was never catalogued and that it predates any worker of the museum – so no one knows where it came from, and what was it going to be used for. It might have been assembled for a zoology class, or maybe a researcher collected the critters. In any case, there is no record of it, the jar just… exists.

Grant museum of Zoology exhibits: a cocrodile skull, an old microscope slide, giant deer antlers, glass models of anemone and squid, and the (in)famous jar of moles.

Had I not received the email concerning security queue issues in London Stansted, I would have at that point headed for the Monument to the Great Fire of London. However, I have trust issues, so I decided to head to the airport instead. I took the underground to Liverpool Street, and was at the airport around four hours in advance instead of my usual two.

Stansted was packed. There was nowhere to sit, and I’m not talking about actual seats. It was almost impossible to find even a spot on the floor to plop down. I fortunately found a corner where I could stay for about an hour before things started clearing out. I felt a bit miffed because while security had taken a bit longer than usual, it was not the chaos I had feared, so I felt I had wasted my afternoon in London. However, better safe than sorry.

When finally my gate was called, I tried to get to sit down somewhere, but Ryanair made the decision to have the check point just at the end of the stairs, and I found myself stuck in the queue. Most of the waiting was done after check in, and the land crew person opened a cordoned thing to push us through so I ended up – somehow – in front of most of the Priority Queue. That meant I entered the aircraft much earlier than I normally would have. I made the trip back encased between two very tall people who… had trouble squeezing into the seats.

Once I landed, I beat most of my plane to passport control. It was cold when I stepped out and once in the car, the parking lot barrier didn’t want to let me through, and it took several tries to get out. Fortunately, going back and forth repeatedly solved the issue, and I did not have to go find a warden to get it done.

All in all, the trip was a success. I really wish I had stayed a day longer, I would have squeezed many other things in. However, now that my early-morning plane is back, and I have an ETA, I might feel compelled to fly to the UK a couple further times before London introduces a tourist tax. Maybe in summer if the Crystal Palace Trust has finished their renovations of the dinosaurs, or summer for the Jurassic Coast… Or, you know, the minute both the Natural History Museum’s Jurassic Oceans: Monsters of the Deep and the British Museum’s Bayeux Tapestry exhibitions are open.

10th December 2025: Oxford, trains and back to London {United Kingdom, December 2025}

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I got up, used the kettle in the room to prepare a quick coffee… and one look at the radiator told me how it worked. I must have been much more tired than I realised the night before… I left my luggage at reception and went back to the streets of Oxford. I basically retraced my route from the previous evening in daylight.

I started off at the Claredon Building, the Bodleian Library and the Bridge of Sighs. Beyond that, I got back to the Radcliffe Camera, University Church of St Mary the Virgin, and the Old Bank Hotel. Down High Street, I walked by All Souls College, the Examination Schools, the Queen’s College, all the way down to Magdalen College.

Up the street again, I reached the Covered Market and turned at Carfax Tower, to St Aldates Church and Christ Church College. Though visiting it was my goal for the morning, I still had some time before the College opened. Thus, I decided to go to Costa Coffee for a proper breakfast, where I had a vanilla latte and a blueberry muffin.

I then headed back to Christ Church College. As it is the largest and most important structure – and also the one that holds the cathedral – it was the college I thought I needed to visit. The visitors’ centre is located in Christ Church Meadow, a floodable grassland open to the public during the day.

I purchased a self-guided visit ticket and went on to explore. Christ Church College (officially The Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral Church of Christ in Oxford of the Foundation of King Henry the Eighth) was founded in 1531 by King Henry VIII, as expected by the name. It was later refounded in 1532, and again in 1546. The second refoundation had a lot to do with the reorganisation of the Church of England, and since then it has been the home of Oxford’s cathedral. Christ Church is a huge complex, mostly in a stunning Gothic and Neo Gothic styles (with some Baroque and Neoclassical add-ons), and the audio guide kept insisting that one should not peer through the windows. Though I think it would have been doable to take the tour the previous day, the cathedral had been closed, and I wanted to see that.

I don’t really think I was ready for how grandiose – I can’t find any other word for it – the whole compound was. The Great Hall caught me by absolute surprise. The staircase which accesses it is magnificent, and the hall is just fascinating. There are fireplaces, pictures of Deans and Professors, long wooden tables and lead windows with different motifs, the most important one being the Alice in Wonderland Window.

The visit begins at Meadow Quad, a 19th-century Gothic Revival building, designed by TN Deane. The particular style is known as Venetian Gothic. During the Victorian period there were several efforts to redefine the significance of Classical ruins and medieval structures, along with a scorn of Baroque. In a typical with-me-or-against-me fashion, two thought currents emerged. On the one hand, Frenchman Eugène Viollet-Le-Duc, who wanted to be more Gothic than the Medievals themselves. His idea was to perfect Gothic buildings using more modern materials and techniques, often making up structures and even whole buildings. Amongst his notable efforts are the restoration of Notre Dame in Paris and the city of Carcassonne (and by his followers, the Olite castle).

On the other hand, Englishman John Ruskin claimed that construction had a life cycle and should be born (be built), then live (be used) and die (collapse). Being a Romantic in the artistic sense of the word, he also idealised Gothic, and his theories inspired more than one Gothic Revival attempt, but he considered them plagiarism and “faux”. Ruskin studied in Oxford, and some of the Neo Gothic buildings there tried to recreate his idealised visions of Gothic – Meadow Quad is one of them (the museum of natural history is another). While Ruskin originally (and vehemently) opposed restoration, to the point that at some point he wrote that it “shattered his soul”, by the end of his life he acknowledged that maybe it was not such a bad idea. Though this is of course a very summarised version of both theories, if I have to take a stand, I’m on Viollet-Le-Duc’s side.

Outer façade of Christ Church College, Oxford, towards the end of the meadow.

The first visit inside the college is Bodley Tower, which features a the monumental Hall Staircase, with an incredibly vaulted ceiling of Medieval design but carved in 17th century. It leads to the Great Hall, the Renaissance mesh room where students and teachers share their meals on long wooden tables (I’ve also learnt that during summer holidays Christ Church turns the students’ rooms into a B&B and you can have breakfast there. Yes, I’m having thoughts). Features of the room include the two chimneys, painted portraits, and stained glass windows.

There is a particularly famous window, called Alice’s window, which honours a former student of the college, one Charles Dodgson, who is more famous than you think. Dodgson’s pen name was Lewis Carroll, and Alice is the one who went to Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Carrol was born in 1832, and throughout his life he became a writer, photographer and mathematician. He was tall but scrawny, deaf in one ear, had weak lungs and suffered from a stammer. In 1851, he enrolled to study in Oxford’s Christ Church, where he would go on to work for the rest of his life. It is said, especially in this college, that the main character from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass (1871) was based on the Dean’s daughter, Alice Liddell. Another apocryphal story is that the Dodo that appears in the fist book is based on himself – apparently his stammer made it difficult for him to pronounce his own surname, Dodgson, so he referred to himself as a Dodo. It’s difficult to know if this was true…

Main Staircase and Main Hall, where food is served.

Leaving behind the tower, I ventured onto the main yard of the college, Tom Quad (officially the Great Quadrangle), home of the resident pet ducks Tom and Peck. It was originally designed to be a cloister, but the arcade was never finished. In the middle of the quad stood a firefighting water reservoir, now substituted by a decorative fountain with a flying Mercury in bronze. The street and the college are connected by a gate on top of which stands the bell tower known as Tom Tower, whose bell is known as Great Tom. Tom Tower was designed by Christopher Wren around 1680, and Great Tom rang for the first time in 1684. Today, it rings 101 times at 21:00 Oxford time, which is 21:05 GMT, signalling the original curfew time.

The other two quadrants open to visitors are Peck Quad and Canterbury Quad. The former is overlooked by the New Library built in the 18th century in the Renaissance style. The latter gives way to the Picture Gallery. Possibly though, the most impressive element in the complex is Christ Church Cathedral or Cathedral Church of Christ. The building was erected towards the end of the 12th century, but the interior was redesigned, in the Neo Gothic style by Sir George Gilbert Scott.

Quadrants at Christ Church College, Oxford. One is Gothic, the other is Baroque.

The cathedral was re-signified within the context of Henry VIII’s Reformation, which was sparked when the king wanted to have his first (out of six of them) marriage annulled. The original wife, Catherine of Aragon (Catalina de Aragón, daughter of Spain’s Catholic Monarchs) had already married Henry’s older brother, Arthur, who died soon after. Seven years later, she was wedded to Henry VIII, soon after his ascent to the throne, and although she become pregnant six times, only one child, future Queen Mary I, survived past infancy. In order to marry his brother’s widow, Henry needed a special dispensation from the Pope.

However, he was unhappy that Catherine had only reared one daughter, so by the time she was too old to have more children, he sought a personal favour from the Pope – the annulment of the marriage. He claimed to have realised that according to the Bible, said marriage was wrong and the lack of sons was a divine sign. It did not help that by this time, he had fallen in love (or in lust) with Anne Boleyn. The Pope rejected the request, which eventually yielded to Henry VIII’s breaking out with the Catholic Church and creating the Church of England. Henry banished Catherine, and married Anne Boleyn, who later ended up beheaded, accused of “treason” (read: infidelity), while Henry married again – four times.

Christ Church Cathedral was originally Catholic, built in the Norman (Romanesque) style during the 11th and 12th centuries. After its conversion to the Anglican rite, the interior of the church was redesigned. It has large stained glass windows and an amazing Neo Gothic ceiling. During the audio guide explanation there was a salute from the Dean, Sarah Foot, welcomed visitors “of any faith, or none” into the cathedral. As the building had originally been designed as an Augustinian monastery during the Catholic period, it features a cloister and a chapter house, the last visitable elements in Christ Church. I turned back in the multimedia guide, bought a trinket at the gift shop, and left the premises.

Interior of the very gothic Christ Church cathedral.

Afterwards, I returned to the hotel to pick up my luggage and head to the station taking a small detour to see the outside of Oxford Castle and Prison and the Castle Mound. There’s no free exploring the castle, you must book a guided tour, so I had decided against it, heading back towards London instead. I wanted to leave on the 12:34 train, which gave me enough time to drop the luggage in my London room, and head out again. Unfortunately, the train was delayed by a “disruptive passenger” and reached Oxford 20 minutes late. I had a booking for the London Museum of Natural History, but I could get another one to guarantee entry if there was a queue, half an hour after the original.

I did not see everything that you can see in Oxford. However, I’ve learnt that day trips are cheaper, because a single and a return ticket have the same price. I did not get to see anything related to JRR Tolkien, nor the Headington Shark, so I might have to eventually come back. I do not regret my planning though, because I had priorities. Off to London I rode, munching on salt-and-vinegar crisps.

I reached Paddington, then changed to the underground to reach Victoria Station. I hate Victoria. I hate it almost as much as I hate Shinjuku Station. It’s bustling and chaotic and I never get my exit right. It was particularly crowded as they had a Christmas installation – a huge plastic “Christmas bauble” which people could enter to have their picture taken. I finally got my bearings and reached the hotel, a few minutes away. Though it was called the Grapevine Hotel, check-in was next door, in the Sheriff Hotel. I had booked a single en-suite with private toilet, and when I got to my second-floor room I found the faucet, the shower, the bed, and a note reading “the toilet is on the first floor”. As in… a whole floor down there was a toilet with a sign reading “Room 15 toilet”. It was incredible surreal, and I had a good laugh about it!

I headed back to Victoria Station (have I mentioned I really hate Victoria?), hopped onto the Tube, and reached South Kensington. It was not too crowded and I could take the tunnel towards London’s Natural History Museum. They have recently reopened their garden, after revamping the area and adding a bunch of details and attractions. Renamed Evolution Garden, its main feature – due to sheer size alone – is Fern the Diplodocus (Diplodocus carnegii). The life-sized specimen is made in bronze and based on Dippy, the Carnegy cast. Before Dippy went on tour in 2021 (again), each bone was scanned so further copies could be made. The museum wanted a new specimen in a lifelike pose and no external support, that would be placed outside, no less. That was why it was decided to build the new display in bronze. However, the resulting skeleton would be too heavy, so they needed to hollow the bones out and keep the skeleton up using internal wiring. The result is a 25-metre long, self-supporting giant that gently sways with wind and withstands both heat and rain.

It almost dwarfs the smaller Hypsilophodon, first discovered in the Isle of Wight – a typical “English dinosaur”. The species lived in the Early Cretaceous, and it was first discovered in 1849, and for a couple of decades it was thought to be a young Iguanodon, until Thomas Henry Huxely proved otherwise. The new species was officially named Hypsilophodon foxii in 1869. It was bipedal, had a beak and teeth, and it is thought to have been a natural runner. It measured up to 2 metres in length, weighed around 20 kilograms.

Outside garden if the Natural Science Museum London showing the diplodocus and Hypsilophodon fossil replicas.

The Garden of Evolution has vegetation in order of appearance – from ferns to other early plants to flowering plants and grasses as one walks through the garden and “advances” in time. There are more small sculptures and art pieces, rocks and ponds, all of them dedicated to recreate evolution and at the same time provide a little nature to the heart of London.

I walked into the building, and my bag was flagged for inspection… ish. It’s just big enough to hold my camera and my wallet, and when the security guard saw that it flopped – the camera was already around my neck – he waved me through. My first stop was the gift shop – there were two things I wanted so I got that out of the way. I was aiming for two Christmas ornaments, but I got a Fern commemorative coin too.

I headed to the dinosaur area. One museum’s traditions is dressing their T. Rex animatronic in a humongous Christmas jumper every year – this year it featured ammonite, theropod prints, stars and a T. Rex skull. It was hilarious. I almost bought myself the human-design version after seeing it.

T Rex animatronic dressed in an ugly Christmas sweater with T Rex skulls.

I then went to the birds area to find the museum’s dodo, because after Oxford, everything dodo had to be checked out, of course. Later, I found my way to Sophie, the most complete stegosaurus skeleton. Afterwards, I made my way up because in June, the Museum unveiled a new species, a small herbivore named Enigmacursor mollyborthwickae from the Morrison Formation in the US. It is considered the holotype for the species (the only specimen known, even). Enigmacursor means “mysterious runner” and mollyborthwickae references Molly Lowell Borthwick – she and her husband donated a small fortune so the museum could acquire the unique skeleton, filed NHMUK PV R 39000. It was named in 2025 by Professors Susannah Maidment and Paul Barrett, and put on display. I was very excited to see it for the first time.

Enigmacursor mollyborthwickae, the one and only skeleton of this small theropod dinosaur.

I wandered through other spaces of the museum, including seeing the Treasures in the Cadogan gallery, where the Archaeopteryx is kept, the mineral gallery and The Vault, with all the gems and precious minerals. I also popped into the newly-renovated Hall of Mammals. I left the museum a bit before closing and was a tad disappointed that I could not cross the gardens, as they had closed an hour before the museum itself. I had a couple of hours before the musical, which did not feel like much to go to the centre and snoop around something “Christmassy”. So I headed back towards Victoria, and stayed a little at the bauble decoration, which now had a few ballet dancers inside – characterised as the Nutcracker, but to the music of Swan Lake.

Natural History Museum London exhibits: Maiasaurus skeleton, mammal hall, rhino skeleton, dodo skeleton, gold ore in the shape of a dragon.

Hintze Hall and Hope the blue whale of the Natural History Museum London from the entrance.

At 18:30 I strolled to Apollo Victoria Theatre. After watching the Spanish version and the first film, it felt right to go back to watch the original Wicked musical once more.

The theatre was displaying a couple of dresses and a sculpture of Chistery the flying monkey. I checked out the upper bar for a change, but everything was packed, so as soon as the sitting area opened, I went to find my seat. Since I was amongst the first people inside, I could take a few decent pictures of the stage. The theatre was rather empty in comparison to what I was expecting, but then I realised that it was the middle of the week, and I had only been to the Apollo Victoria at weekends before. I had booked a seat next to the aisle on row S, and honestly it was a perfect view – the person in front of me was also short, which was fantastic.

Dresses, figures and stage from Wicked in London.

The three main characters were played by Emma Kingston as Elphaba, Zizi Strallen as Glinda and Carl Man as Fiyero. I think Kingston has become my favourite Elphaba to date. Points to Man for keeping the British Ts during his solos, too. However, he did not feel as powerful a character as 2022’s Ryan Reid. I saw a few of Jeff Goldblum’s mannerism on the Wizard (Michael Matus), which… honestly do not work if you’re not Goldblum. Though the cast claims that they have not been influenced by the film, there are times that it just… slips in. Not in a bad way, but… it’s there. I really enjoyed it though, much more than any of the other versions. It feels natural – and not as long as the film(s).

The Cast of London's Wicked after the show.

After the play was over, I stopped by the station so I could buy some dinner (and cut some walking in the cold), and I guess I was hungry because I had all but skipped lunch. Once back at the hotel, I checked in for my flight, and also received an email stating that there was a bit of a chaos at London Stansted airport due to operational issues. That made me decide to head to the airport a couple of hours before I would usually do the following afternoon. It meant sacrificing one of the stops, but it would have sucked to get stuck there due to a long security line. And it’s London. It’s not like I’m not planning to go back already.

The truth is that the hotel had been cheap, and it ended up being quite uncomfortable. On top of the toilet issue, there were no blinds on the window, and it was humid. At least, heating worked, I guess. I did not sleep much, but that gave me time to try and plan my following morning.

9th December 2025: Exploring Oxford {United Kingdom, December 2025}

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Nothing ever seems to go right before 4:30 in the morning, right? It turned out that when I reached my usual parking lot at the airport, I had mistakenly booked for another one! Ho boy that was stressful for a few minutes! Fortunately, I could reach the correct parking lot within five more minutes, and found a good spot to drop off the car. Then I did not have to wait for the bus, but could directly walk into the terminal. I might change my usual parking lot to this one, honestly. I like that you can walk and not depend on the bus. The downside is that if you get in or out late, you have to look for one of the 24-hour accesses to the terminal, and those are far and few so you end up walking back and forth a bit.

This whole mishap put me 20 minutes behind schedule, and of course I got a secondary screening at security – random drug / explosive test. Also, can airports decide on policies? Or at least, you know… could the airport agree with itself? Shoes on, shoes off, liquids in, liquids out… In Madrid, it seems to depend on the terminal – and the equipment I guess, if I am being rational. But I really did not feel like waiting for the chemical test to show a negative result.

Passport control went smoothly. When I sat at the boarding gate, I received a reminder that I had to check in with some administrative nonsense (basically proving that I’m still alive) – fun thing to do at 5:00. But that was a fast thing, and soon we had boarded. I had an aisle seat, not exit row. I dozed for most of the flight. Once at London Stansted, getting out took a bit of time because I was really back in the plane, but since I know that airport pretty well, I was able to outrun most of the crowd and barely had to wait at immigration. No one asked about the ETA, but it’s supposed to be linked to the passport, so I guess the system recognises it.

Once in the United Kingdom, I made my customary stop at Costa Coffee, then hopped onto the Stansted Express to get to central London. I changed into the underground, reached Paddington Station… and missed my train by literally a minute, because I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to access the platform! It turns out that Paddington has only one entry point in the middle of all the platforms, but several points of exit. The next train was only 30 minutes later so I just hung around the station for that time.

The first London Paddington station was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and opened in 1854. The original train shed features a glazed roof and wrought iron arches. There is a side shopping centre with a Paddington Bear shop, since the character was named after the area. Since Michaek Bond published the first book in 1958, this Peruvian spectacled bear has become a staple of British children’s literature – and of course, someone managed to heavily cash on that.

Once the train was announced, I got on, and roughly at 11:00, I was finally in the historical centre of Oxford, with the plan to visit the four museums that the local university created to showcase its collections. Since my hotel was on the way, I dropped my luggage off there, and headed out to the first stop – the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, a place that I had wanted to visit when I was a child, just like the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco. To get there, I walked by St Mary Magdalen, an Anglican church in Gothic and Gothic Revival styles, and the Martyrs’ Memorial, designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott to commemorate the burning at the stake of Protestant Bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer.

The Oxford University Museum of Natural History was built between 1855 and 1860, and gathered all the science collections that the university had amassed in different colleges and the Ashmolean Museum, with items that can be traced back to the Tradecant Collection from the 1600. The building itself was mainly designed by Irish architect Benjamin Woodward in a stunning Neo Gothic style. It was originally conceived as both museum and research centre, but as the collection grew, most of the research departments – except entomology – left to newer spaces. Once inside, the museum resembles a cloister, with a central court divided in five aisles by iron pillars that support the glass ceiling, decorated with wrought leaves to evoke trees and plants. Both floors have stone columns supporting pointed arches, and each one is representative of a different British stone, as if it were a research core.

Today, the museum has custody of seven million artefacts, divided in three main collections – Earth (comprising palaeontology and minerals), Life (covering zoology and entomology) and Archive (out of mere mortals’ reach). There are a few incredibly rare and valuable items in either collection. One of them is the only soft tissue of a dodo, an extinct bird.

The dodo (Raphus cucullatus) was a flightless bird from the African island of Mauritius that disappeared in 1662. It was a roundish bird that could measure up to 75 centimetres, and when it was “discovered” in 1598, it had no fear of humans. That made it a very easy prey, which led to its annihilation in just 64 years. Nowadays, it has become a symbol of anthropic extinction, but it used to be just known due to its role in the book Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, one of the most important books in Victorian literature. Oxford is very proud that the book was written there.

Other elements in the zoology collection are skeletons of elephants and other mammals – the skeleton parade – and dozens of taxidermied birds. The dodo obviously belonged to the bird group, but the preserved tissue is too fragile to be displayed by now. The entomology collection is also impressive, but I’m a bit squirmy about those.

Another item in the Life collection is the so-called Red Lady of Paviland, a partial human skeleton dating back from the Upper Palaeolithic period. The bones were found along with shell beads and carved ivory in a cave known for mammoth remains. They were covered in red ochre, and were originally identified as belonging to a woman from the Roman period (hence the name). They turned out to be from a young man who could have lived as long as as 34,000 years ago, making them the oldest human remains in the United Kingdom, and one of the most ancient ceremonial burials in Europe.

Oxford Museum of Natural History exhibits: reddish human bones from the Red Lady (who turned out to be a man), reconstructed dodo, printouts from the dodo remains the miseum has, a collection of skeletons.

Besides local minerals, the Earth collection hosts over 200 rocks from outer space. One of them is the Nantan meteorite – 4.5 billion years old, and on display for you to touch. And as with every natural history museum, highlights are fossils and, of course, their reproductions. On display there are casts of a Tyrannosaur (Stan), one of the Bernissart iguanodons, an edmontosaur… The ground floor hosts plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs, dunkleosteus… and a “Wall of Trilobites” with literally dozens of them.

However, the key items in the collections is none of the almost-complete skeletons or fossils on display or archived, but a few dislodged pieces – a leg, a piece of spine and half a jaw. These belong to the species Megalosaurus bucklandii, named by Willian Buckland in 1824 as the holotype of a long-gone massive creature. Megalosaurus was the first dinosaur ever described and named, and it would later get its “interpretation” at London’s Crystal Palace. It was not an accurate one, but it kicked off the first “dinomania” in the Victorian times. Normally, only a cast of the jaw is displayed, but the temporary exhibition Breaking Ground, about the history of palaeontology, had brought them out to be enjoyed by yours truly… I mean everyone. Another fantastic item in this exhibition was an ichthyosaur fossil found by Mary Anning herself – one with remains of its last supper still in its stomach.

As I entered the museum, the first thing I saw were two preserved bears (one of them has since been retired), and the skeleton replicas of iguanodon and tyrannosaur. To the right, the marine reptiles that wrote the history of palaeontology in the UK, and some other dinosaur replicas (edmontosaur, triceratops…). I wanted everything in the gift shop, of course. I had planned to walk the museum in order, but I was unable to, because as soon as I found the stairs, I trotted up to the first floor to find the temporary exhibition Breaking Ground.

Oxford Museum of Natural History building from the outside, and exhibits: dinosaurs and other fossils.

I ran into a couple of school visits, and at some point I was almost ran over by an overeager tween. One of his classmates tried to excuse him saying “apologies, he’s a bit hyper”. I could understand… I only hide it better, but this was one of those other places that had been in my inner child’s bucket list forever and a day. I was extremely happy to be there, and I’m sure I stayed way longer than normal people do. Selfies with megalosaurus were taken.

Megalosaurus was a Middle Jurassic theropod carnivore which has only been found in the Oxfordshire area (Taynton Limestone Formation). The first remains known to science have been lost, but were described and illustrated at the time. There was a tooth recovered in 1699, and a partial femur. A new batch of bones were discovered in 1815, and they were acquired by Willian Buckland, a geology professor in the University of Oxford. He named the creature “megalosaurus” (large lizard) in 1822, and officially presented his findings in 1824, with illustrations by his wife Mary Ann Mantell. Though Sir Richard Owen would not coin the term “Dinosauria” until 1842, megalosaurus was the first non-avian dinosaur to be formally described and named (though Buckland’s reconstructions would not be accurate in the least). The species would eventually receive the binomial name Megalosaurus bucklandii to honour Buckland.

Oxford Museum of Natural History exhibits: pieces of the original megalosaurus fossil.

I went through the exhibition, and emerged on the other side, where I saw the mineral and gem gallery, and what they show you about the dodo – a 3D printed skull and some pictures. Back on the ground floor, I looked at the statues, the skeleton parade, the evolution area… Lots and lots of items.

Towards the back, the Oxford University Museum of Natural History is connected to the Pitt Rivers Museum, the university’s collection of archaeology and anthropology. It was founded in 1884 when private collector August Pitt River exchanged his collection for a post as permanent lecturer in anthropology in the university. The premises reminded me a little of the Sir John Soane’s Museum (but way larger), there was so much stuff to see that my brain could not process everything.

Despite the information clutter, I was extremely impressed, especially by the self-awareness of the museum itself. Panels at the entrance explain the relation between colonialism and the collection itself. Apparently, the museum is carrying out a very serious attempt to get in touch with the cultures that spanned a good part of the items in display in order to return them, amend racist descriptions, remove them from view or challenge them. A notable example was its removal of a collection of shrunken heads, tsantsa, from the Shuar culture. Several cases pointed out how historical labels were offensive (outright calling the cultures inferior or savage) and asked how the viewer would feel if their relatives’ remains were exhibited in museums. I think it made me successfully uncomfortable.

Pitt Rivers museum general view.

However, the coolest thing happened on the third floor, when a random volunteer asked me if I knew what a prehistoric tool was. It was in the middle of a case of hand axes. I owned up that I had no idea, so he explained that it was the tool used to make all the other tools, a stone hammer – which made it the oldest item in the whole museum.

There were still things to do and see, and I had time. I had a second run around the Natural History Museum, just because I could, then I headed towards the History of Science Museum. It is one of the oldest museums in the world that was originally built as such. Unfortunately, most of it was closed due to conservation works. However, the lower floor hosts the highlights, one of them being a small blackboard which feature some equations scribbled in 1931 by no other than visiting professor Albert Einstein. Another of the items is the original penicillin culture that was applied to human clinical trials in 1941 by Howard Florey after Alexander Fleming discovered its antibiotic properties. And probably less dramatic, but utterly impressive, is a 1795 drawing of the moon by John Russell, which looks better than any photography I have ever been able to take.

Einstein's blackboard at the History of Science Museum.

I ran into a Christmas market – Christmas in Oxford, which I decided I would visit later on, and headed out to the last of the four museums, the Ashmolean Museum of art and archaeology. Its collections were started as far back as 1683. It is considered Britain’s first public museum, and hosts works spanning half a million years of human history.

On the way, I stopped to buy a drink at a supermarket, and I guess I needed it, because it was gone in… three minutes. I had been getting cramps on my toes, which is usually due to an electrolyte imbalance, so I bought a juice-like thing I like.

The Ashmolean Museum ended up being much larger than either of the other museums, outright huge. It felt similar to Victoria and Albert institution, with a lot of different collections from varying origins. It is much more modern-feeling than the other three, especially since a renovation in 2009.

On the ground floor I found Ancient Egypt – I walked past Roman and Greek sculpture first – with a whole sarcophagus complete with mummy case, and even a small temple. I then proceeded to Greece and Cyprus. I came across a staircase and followed it to the area of Conservation, Textiles, Writing, Money and History – Present of the museum, which includes a cabinet of curiosities hosting some of the oldest pieces in the institution, along some which are just… interesting. One of them is an iron lantern from 1605, which is said (probably an urban legend though) to have been used by Guy Fawkes. Fawkes has historically been considered the head of the Gunpowder Plot, in which a number of English Catholics tried to blow up the English Parliament and assassinate King James VI by digging a tunnel underneath and filling it up with barrels of gunpowder. He would have used this lantern inside the dug-up tunnels.

Ashmolean Museum Exhibits -Greek god, vaguely human form, griffon, Hindu deity.

Ashmolean Museum Exhibits - Small Egyptian temple, Sobek the crocodile god, Arabian camel from a tomb, copies of Roman sculptures.

I popped into the shop, where I saw that the restaurant and terrace was open and they were serving “Festive Afternoon Tea”. I had not been able to book it for the Natural History Museum in London, but maybe I could get away with it here. I decided to try my luck, so I climbed to the fourth floor, where the Rooftop Restaurant is. I caused a bit of a ruckus since I popped in without a reservation and solo, but once the waiters got approval, everything went smoothly. I got a seat next to the window and ordered. Afternoon tea consisted on sandwiches, scones and sweets along with a pot of loose-leaf tea.

The mini-sandwiches were: Cucumber and dill cream cheese; Brie and cranberry shallot shell, shallot purée; Roast turkey, sage emulsion, cranberry sauce, rocket; Smoked salmon, dill and horseradish crème fraîche. The scones were homemade, not plain but with cranberry and mixed spice, accompanied by English clotted cream, and Tiptree jam; they were absolutely mind-blowing.

As for sweets, I got Mini Baileys mousse, Tia Maria syrup; a Father-Christmas-shaped gingerbread biscuit; a lovely Mince Pie; and Mini vanilla cheesecake, candied clementine segment. The sweets were extremely so and I did not finish all of them, particularly the mousse.

It was hard to decide which tea I wanted. In the end I went for the in-house Ashmolean Tea, mixed specifically for the museum by local business Team Tea: a malty second flush Assam, combined with single estate Darjeeling and Black Gunpowder from China. They claim that the “Gunpowder” is a call back to the lantern. It was a great choice, and required no sugar or milk – though I drank the milk after all the sweets.

Afternoon tea, on a three-storied tray, along with a cuppa.

Belly full (maybe a bit too full), I went back down to the second floor, where I visited China and Japan, and European and English art rooms, including jewellery. On the first floor I found the Mediterranean World, Islam and Near East, and India. Back on the ground floor there was more China, Rome, and a collection of Classical casts I had missed before. I missed a bit of the collection, displayed at the third floor, because there is no staircase access there – or I did not find those stairs. I left about ten minutes before closing time.

In front of the Ashmolean Museum stands the beautiful Randolph Hotel Oxford, a Hilton property that is way out of my league, but I can admire. Down Broad Street there were tons of small cafés and shops – collectibles, memorabilia, books… It started drizzling a little just as I walked by one of the largest bookshops, so it was a great idea to pop in and snoop. here are two writers that greatly define Oxford’s personality, and both had their dedicated areas – Lewis Carrol and JRR Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings, and father of the modern high fantasy genre, I guess. I wanted everything, but I was limited by luggage size. Good thing I can be reasonable at times. But only at times… T

The drizzle cleared, and I was quite at the centre of Oxford. I explored the Christmas in Oxford market, and then the Claredon Building and courtyard, the Bodleian Library and the Bridge of Sighs. I checked whether I could get a ticket for the tours happening the following day, but they were sold out. It was a pity, but I could live with that – there were plenty of things to do.

The Clarendon Building is a Neoclassical structure, originally destined to be the University Press under the design of William Townesend. Today, it is part of the library, founded in 1602 by Sir Thomas Bodley, and it hosts 13 million items in print. Besides the Clarendon, the library is hosted in a number of buildings – I was snooping around the 15th century Duke Humfrey’s Library and the Radcliffe Camera (from the Latin “chamber”, not because there is any kind of camera around). The Bridge of Sighs is officially called Hetford Bridge. It is a sky walk between the new and old wards of Hetford College, actually a relatively new construction, dating from 1914.

I walked past the Radcliffe Camera and the Gothic University Church of St Mary the Virgin. I strolled into High Street with another of the high-class lodgings – the Old Bank Hotel. The sun had already set and it looked – and felt – like it was the middle of the night, but it was not even 17:30, as I had just left the Ashmolean Museum right before closing time at 17:00.

Oxford at night - Library, Bridge of Sighs, Radcliff Camera, Colleges.

I went all the way towards the end of High Street to see the colleges and other university and religious buildings. It’s difficult to actually explain the roles that Colleges have in Oxford. They are technically “residential colleges”, and become both housing and teaching institutions. All university students are members of one of the 36 colleges. The University describes them as “academic communities where students have their tutorials”. The colleges offer courses, and the students combine courses (year or semester-long subjects) until they lead to a degree. Classes are organised by the colleges, and the preferred teaching method is the aforementioned tutorial, a small group of people (one to four) discussing a topic of academic nature, usually related to the week’s work. Examinations and important lectures are conducted by the University as a whole.

The first building I came across along High Street was All Souls College (officially The College of All Souls of the Faithful Departed, of Oxford), established in 1438. From that corner, I saw one historical building after the other. All the students take the exams at the end of term in the Examination Schools, which also serves for lectures. It was erected between 1876 and 1882. A bit further down the road I saw the Queen’s College, which dates back to 1341, and it’s named after Queen Consort Philippa of Hainault, wife and political advisor to Edward III. I finally spotted Magdalen College, founded in 1458 and one of the most important colleges in town, with beautiful Gothic and Neo Gothic architecture.

I backtracked towards the other end of High Street, walked past All Saints’ Church, Lincoln College Library, and found the Covered Market. The structure, designed by John Gwynn, has been in use since it opened in 1774. It has permanent stalls and wooden beams that give it a church-like vaulted ceiling, along with a cast iron ceiling. Most of the shops were closed though, and the market was almost empty.

Covered market, a wooden structure.

I reached Carfax Tower, or St Martin’s Tower. It used to belong to a long-gone church built in the 12th century, and technically no building in Oxford may be higher than it. From there, I turned into St Aldate’s street, where the Town Hall stands. Unfortunately, it was under renovation, and mostly covered by construction scaffolding.

I reached Christ Church College, which I planned to visit the following morning. In front of it stands the small Medieval St Aldates Church. I went out a little further until I reached Folly Bridge and Bacon’s Tower over River Thames. The tower is not the original 12th century one, but a sort of revival castle erected in 1849 as a folly – basically a decorative building (hence the name).

I tried to drop by the Christmas Market again to buy a cute bauble, but it turned out that it closed at 18:00, and it was 18:30 by then. I headed back to the hotel and got my room. After a shower, I settled down to make my plans for the following day and watch some TV (without even having to surf for a channel in a language I understood…). I even managed to stay awake long enough not to give myself jet-lag.

However, for the life of me, I could not figure out how to operate the radiator in the room…

9th – 11th December 2025: Oxford & London {United Kingdom, December 2025}

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This little trip was supposed to be to Seville, Spain. I had an unexpected and quite-harsh project in October-November and I decided to spend part of the income rewarding myself for going through it. Thus, I traced a good plan, I swear. Three-day trip, placed right after the Spanish December long weekend, destination accessible by public transport, not so cold… It was a perfect plan. And then I went on Ryanair page and saw that my early-morning flight to London-Stansted was back on the rooster. And furthermore… it was comparably cheap.

But I stuck to the plan. Until I saw that the Oxford University Museum of Natural History was running an exhibition and had pulled out some of its heavy-weight artefacts… But what really sealed the deal was that I found a flights + hotels combination that was actually cheaper than trains + hotel in Seville. It really seemed like the universe was coming together to tell me I could and should take this trip. Yes, it was quite close to the Prague trip, but I was quite literally facing four months of downtime afterwards due to a long project coming up.

So the plan became landing in London, heading to Oxford. Once there, I would see the four museums belonging to the University of Oxford. The next day, I would go back to London, because, in the end, it is one of my favourite cities. Spoiler alert though – I did not get to see much Christmas stuff there. Weird.

For London, I booked a time slot at the Natural History Museum, bought a ticket for Wicked and signed up for a tour with the London Museum of Transport. In Oxford, the museums are free, and I did not know how long I would take, so I would improvise after that.

Something that I have been wanting to do for a while was the Afternoon Tea at the Natural History Museum. You get to see the Mary Anning rooms, usually reserved for members, and there are dinosaur-print macarons. Unfortunately, when I tried to book that, it turned out it was for minimum two people, and since they charged up front, I could not trick the system – though I honestly considered booking it and just bring a take-out container and live off the second afternoon tea for the following day. Temptation, but in the end it was way too expensive for just a whim. Fate would give me a hand with that, too, even if the start of the trip was somewhat… bumpy.

Oxford And London Trip Dec'25 Intro.

One of the things I had to do to travel to the UK was getting an ETA (Electronic Travel Authorisation). I am pretty sure I don’t need one, because I have the right to work in the UK, but I decided to go through the process because it felt easier than drawing up all the paperwork and taking it along to prove it at entrance. On the 20th of November, I downloaded the app and followed the instructions – first, I got a security code on my email to start the application. I had to take a photo of my passport, then scan the chip (I did not even know my phone could do that!). Next, the system asked me to “scan my face”, I guess similarly to what the machines do when you enter the UK border, and I had to take a picture with a white background and no shadows – finding that background was the most difficult part. The last step was, obviously, paying for it, and of course the bank app and the ETA one had to be open at the same time on the phone and switching from one to the other was stressful because my banking app sucks.

After payment, the application was sent, and I received an email that it would be checked. This was 16:09. When I came out from work, I had a valid ETA – the email had arrived at 16:18. Yay, I’m not suspicious. The authorisation is valid for two years, and allows for multiple entries. I will have to make good use of that.

Plane tickets, hotel bookings, train schedules and ETA in hand, I was ready for a three-day getaway in England.

4th December 2025: The Old Town Reprise {Prague, December 2025}

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For our last half-day in Prague [Praha], it was decided that we were going to go back to the Old Town Hall Staroměstská radnice, in order to take a guided tour to see the machinery of the Prague Astronomical Clock Pražský orloj. I am not sure why we did not did the tour on Monday when we first visited, as we ended up paying for admission twice. However, a word to the wise: if you ever find yourself in Prague, do take the tour. The price is negligible in comparison to the ticket entrance and you will actually get to see something besides the view from the tower. We waited at the small frescoed hall for the tour to start.

Small hall in Prague town hall, decorated with frescoes on the ceiling and walls depicting historical scenes and herald motifs.

The guided tour was led by a very giddy lady who was extremely excted to describe all wars, murders, maiming and torture methods in full gory details. The visit started at the chapel, which is not the original one, but a reconstructed version. It is right behind the clock, so you can glimpse a bit into the mechanism. And glimpse means see a couple of gears and the sculptures. Then we continued into the only intact room of the area – the gothic Hall of Justice, which was honestly very impressive – and well maintained.

Prague town hall: reconstructed chapel and apostles inside the clock mechanism.

Gothic Justice room in the Prague town hall, with wooden decoration and ceiling.

We went on to visit a Baroque hall with paintings that depicted the Hussite war and the coronation of George of Poděbrady. The guide also explained that Good King Wenceslas, from the Christmas carol, had never been a king. We finally got to see some original frescos from before most of the Town Hall was destroyed – on the very last day of World War II.

Afterwards, we moved underground, to see the surviving Romanesque and Gothic foundations of the Old Town Hall and the city itself, which used to be 6 metres lower than it is today. They are not the only cellars in Prague [Praha] that can be visited, but they were pretty impressive and preserved.

Underground Prague tunnels and arches.

We did not have time for anything else after the visit, but I ditched my family then to do a quick souvenir-shop run, and met them at the hotel 15 minutes before pick-up. The driver could not find a parking spot, so he was 10 minutes late anyway. We got to the airport, went through security and tried to find somewhere to eat. My parent seemed to be desperately looking for something, anything, that was not Costa Coffee for lunch, but unfortunately for them – fortunately for me – nothing else was found. Ergo, I got a vanilla latte! My other parent was astonished by my happy “Costa Grin”. We had seen a few Costas around Prague through the visit, but aside from saying I liked the chain, I did not push to go into any. I knew there would be enough of them in the UK in a few days.

It did not take long for our gate to be called, and boarding started before schedule. Since I had paid for the upgrade, we were amongst the first to board the plane, despite being on the literal last row. The flight was all right – there was some turbulence, but nothing too bad. And when we were landing, I was surprised about how clearly you could spot the Torrejón Christmas park (hello there, light pollution).

We landed, got to the shuttle, then to the parking lot, and finally home. As a balance… I don’t know. More than a trip, I thought about this as “spending time with family somewhere else”, but I was a bit confused about my role in it. I was expected to sit back, but I was also expected to plan and guide, it felt like being on thin ice a couple of times. I was not disappointed because I made a big effort not to do much research beforehand – beyond what my parents had prepared. I know we missed a few interesting things, and we had a couple of hiccups, but Prague [Praha] was pretty good for a three-day escapade, and I got to see actual central Europe Christmas Markets, which we missed in Vienna in 2024.

I liked Prague’s Gothic – I know, no one is surprised. If anything, I was taken aback at how packed it was, especially tourist families with kids during weekdays. I think the whole Christmas market tourist pull is way more important than I had given credit to. Yes, I had seen actual group trips aimed to see them but… Just wow. Talk about packed. And finally, on the topic of famous and populated Christmas Markets – I am not sure a couple of them actually closed for the night. At least they were still open way past 22:00… Which would cause even more contrast a few days later in Oxford. It was also not as cold as I had expected or feared, which was decent for pictures. Maybe next time we can do something warmer. Like the North of Africa…

3rd December 2025: Josefov, the National Museum, and a Light Show {Prague, December 2025}

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The city of Prague [Praha] has a rich history, and some of it is dark. Nevertheless, it cannot be ignored just because it is uncomfortable.

The day did not start well. After breakfast, I checked the plane tickets for the following afternoon’s return, and ran into the same issue as before – a message saying “you must check your bags”. Seriously, it felt like extortion, but I decided to let it go and pay up. That put us behind schedule – my mistake, I misunderstood the time we wanted to be out. On our way, a guy helped us out with directions, and offered money exchange. He was standing at the door of a legit shop. I did not trust him, but a second later my parent was talking to him! Remember my parent’s obsession with the bad exchange rate they claimed they had received from the bank? In the end, they got scammed out of a couple hundred bucks, as the guy gave him Russian roubles instead of Czech crowns. That was not a nice experience, and the day was still going to get a bit more difficult.

Since my parent just pocketed the money, we did not realise it was not valid until they tried to use it to pay for our first spot of the day in Josefov, the Old Jewish Quarter. Today the quarter is luxurious and mostly full of 20th century buildings, after it was almost completely demolished at the end of the 19th century. However, it may have started with the arrival of the first Jews in the 10th century, and reached its peak in the late 1500s. Before the reconstruction, it was composed of narrow streets and brick houses.

Amongst the few remaining historical buildings and structures there are a number of synagogues, the old town hall and the cemetery. Our first stop was Pinkas Synagogue Pinkasova synagoga. Built in the gothic style, it was completed in 1533, and during World War II, it became a repository of religious paraphernalia after the Nazis banned Jewish services. Today, it serves as a memorial to around 80,000 victims of the Holocaust. Their names are written on the walls, and there is a collection of drawings by children from between 1942 and 1944 – most of the children ended up murdered in Auschwitz. I had understood that the synagogue was working as a social centre, so I assumed the drawings were by local contemporary kids. When I realised what they were, it broke me inside. The wave of feelings – and tears – makes the whole experience a bit of a blur.

Interior of the Gothic Pinkas Synagogue, with the names of the victims of Holocaust written on the walls.

All the synagogues in the area are managed by the institution Jewish Museum in Prague Židovské muzeum v Praze, so there is one combined ticket for all of them. There was a small security check at each entryway, but the security guards were all extremely nice and kind. The Pinkas Synagogue was in the same controlled area as the Old Jewish Cemetery Starý židovský hřbitov.

The cemetery is one of the largest of its kind in Europe, and it was used between the 15th and 18th centuries. Since space was scarce, there are layers upon layers of burials, and the headstones often refer to someone who is buried in the lower levels. This scheme has allowed for older graves to remain through time, as the layers were added on top of the existing ones. Despite my general liking of old cemeteries, I found the place oppressive – probably because of the recent shock to my system.

Old Jewish Cemetery, Prague.

We then walked a couple of minutes to Klausen Synagogue Klausová synagoga. It is the second synagogue built in the same place, erected in 1884 in the Baroque style. It was the only one in that style spared by the urban renewal in the early 20th century. It struck me then that, even if I was aware of architectural styles in churches, I had never thought that synagogues in Europe would go through the same architectural trends. Then again, up until today, I don’t reckon I’d ever been into a synagogue that could still be used as such.

Interior of the Baroque Klausen Synagogue, Prague.

I later learnt that there is no actual “right” way to build a synagogue, and that any group of believers can erect one. This is usually done in the architectural style of the time and place. Synagogues have a raised platform or pulpit, the bimah [בּימה], from where the Torah is read. The Torah [תורה] comprises the first five books of the Hebrew Bible [Tanakh, תַּנַ״ךְ], and, usually in scroll form, is read daily. When not in use, the Torah is kept in a chest or cabinet called the Ark [Aron Kodesh, ארון קודש‎], which dictates how the whole building is erected, as attendees are supposed to face Jerusalem for prayers. Many synagogues have an eternal light or flame, always lit somewhere in front of the Torah Ark.

Next, we visited the Old New Synagogue Staronová synagoga, the oldest active synagogue in the Czech Republic [Česká Republika], and one of the earliest examples of Gothic in the city of Prague [Praha]. It was originally the New Synagogue to an Old Synagogue, but when the latter was demolished, and even newer ones were built, hence the confusing name. It felt a bit closed off and claustrophobic, as it was accessed by a long corridor and packed with three tourist groups.

Interior of the Old New Synagogue, Prague, showing the curtain that covers the sacred texts.

We got a bit lost on our way out, so I was able to catch a glimpse of a bit of an oddity – the Prague Metronome Pražský metronom, a giant instrument that… swings. It holds no other function than moving along with time, it does not even click like a normal metronome would. It’s officially named the Time Machine and it was erected by artist Vratislav Novák. I saw it on the other side of the Vltava River, across the Czech Bridge Čechův most.

We finally reached the Spanish Synagogue Španělská synagoga. Built in the 19th century, it replaced the Old Synagogue, and its side, which used to be a hospital, is now the Museum. It was erected in a Moorish revival style, with two stories, several balconies and a lot of gold and golden. It hosts an exhibit about the history of Jews in the Czech Republic, but there is no tangible relation to Spain, the name seems to be a reference to the art style of Al-Andalus.

Golden interior of the Spanish Synagogue, Prague.

And for some reason (aside from him being Jewish, of course), there is a Statue of Franz Kafka Socha Franze Kafky standing next to the Spanish Synangogue. It is a bronze sculpture of the writer riding a hollow suit, based on the short story Description of a Struggle [Beschreibung eines Kampfes].

The last synagogue we visited was Maisel Synagogue Maiselova synagoga, currently a museum. It is Neo Gothic, after a previous building was destroyed. It has been restored recently, and hosts a very impressive display of menorah [מְנוֹרָה], a candelabrum with seven branches, symbol of Judaism since ancient times.

Gothic Maiselova Synagogue from the outside, Prague.

We set off then to try and find the nearby underground station, near the Jan Palach square and park Park u náměstí Jana Palacha. There are several buildings and views from the square. We did not stop for long there, and hopped onto the underground to get to Wenceslas Square Václavské nám. We had a bit of time before our lunch reservation, so we decided that the two-story souvenir shop at the corner was a perfect place to spend 20 minutes because it had heating. Afterwards, we walked down the square and crossed the Art Nouveau palace-turned-shopping-hub Lucerna Palace Pasáž Lucerna. Looking back, it could have been a cool place to explore with the idle time we had, but the pedestrian passage was not heated…

We finally got to the restaurant that my parent had wanted to try from the moment Prague [Praha] had been decided upon – Pork’s. As the name conveys, their menu is basically comprised of pork dishes, and reportedly they serve the best pork knuckle in town. The original restaurant, Pork’s Mostecká, is in Malá Strana, close to the Charles Bridge, and it was the one my parent had their heart set on… Unfortunately, it books out a month in advance. We had been able to find a spot in its sister restaurant Pork’s Vodičkova.

The place was full and bustling, but we had our table ready for us. We ordered two signatory dishes – pork knuckle with mustard, horseradish, crispy sauerkraut Vepřové koleno, hořčice, křen, křupavé zelí, a salad (Lettuce salad with grilled goat cheese, beetroot and marinated pear Listový salát s grilovaným kozím sýrem, řepou a marinovanou hruškou) and a weird potato thing I had seen and was extremely curious about – Potato pancake with sour cabbage, fried in pork fat from our knuckles (Bramborák s kysaným zelím smažený na výpeku z našich kolen), which turned out to be a sort of waffle sandwich (I loved it, because I’m weird like that). The knuckle was all right but I had to peel off some of the fat because it made the dish too heavy on the stomach. For dessert, we shared some apricot dumplings – Homemade fruit dumplings with cottage cheese, sugar and warm butter, Domácí ovocné knedlíky z tvarohového těsta, tvarohem a cukrem sypané, máslem přelité.

Pork knuckles portion with cabbage and mustard.

We left the restaurant around 15:00 and my parents, who were still a bit on the upset side, decided to go to the hotel, claiming they wanted a break before the light show at 19:30. Since my sibling was up to anything, I decided to head out to the main building of the National Museum Historická budova Národního muzea. We would not have time to do the whole thing, but at least we could wander for a couple of hours and snoop around.

The main or historical building was designed by architect Josef Schulz and erected between 1885 and 1891, when it was inaugurated. It is a magnificent structure in the Neo Renaissance style, grandiose and decorated with gold and frescoes. It feels like a palace, and honestly, it does not look like a museum at all. The building was damaged during the succeeding conflicts in the 20th century, so it ended up closing between 2011 and 2018 for extensive renovations. At the moment, it hosts four permanent exhibitions: the Hall of Minerals, Miracles of Evolution, Windows into Prehistory, and (Czech) History, though the latter seems to only cover from the Middle Ages to the first half of the 20th century. Thus, I guess that it doubles as natural history and archaeology museum.

Prague National Museum building, huge constructiond ecorated with gold, white and marble.

We started at the Hall of Minerals, which is a traditional collection of minerals in vintage cases. The meteorite collection is pretty good, especially the moldavites. Moldavite vltavín is a mineral derived from a meteorite impact (a tektite), around 15 million years ago. It is a green gemstone, local to the area of Bohemia. It is not uncommon, but not widely available in the world (and unfortunately none was for sale in the gift shop).

We got to the prehistory ward, and it was really fun. As far as huge diversity goes, the exhibit was not impressive, but what they lack in actual stuff, they make up for with models. We entered through the Paleocene room with a mammoth (technically there is a baby mammoth too but that had been moved to another exhibition) and the skeleton of a woolly rhinoceros, almost complete. The latter is either haunted and has tried to escape, or someone seriously mismeasured its case, because the horn had cracked the glass at some point. Some other models included a sabretooth cat and a scene of steppe wolves hunting.

We went back in time towards older epochs. There was a mosasaur hunting an ammonite, along with a number of fossils from both invertebrates and vertebrates. We reached the Age of Dinosaurs. They have literally one bone, a femur, of an ornithopod dinosaur, similar to an iguanodon. From that, they managed to describe a whole species, Burianosaurus augustai (2017), similar to an Iguanodon. Upon studying the specimen, scientists also discovered that there were shark teeth marks on the bone, so someone recreated a whole scene of the poor beast dying and being torn apart by sharks. I’m not even kidding.

Further back in time, and deeper into the museum, we reached the wall of national fossils – trilobites. There were cases about the primitive oceans, with dioramas and replicas. From there, we entered the world of evolution and biodiversity, which again had great models but humble actual exhibits.

The History Exhibit starts in the 8th century and lasts until World War I. It held a lot of interesting artefacts that reflected how life was at the beginning of the 20th century, including some fascinating objects such as toys. The Prehistory area was a bit more strange, with lots of human remains in reproductions of burials (I really hope they were reproductions and nobody had relocated a whole necropolis…).

Prague National Museum: Bone and reconstruction of burianosaurus - the reconstruction is a dead dinosaur being eaten by sharks.

Prague National Museum: Skeleton of a Wooly rhino, reconstruction of a mammoth, colourful corals and marine mammal reconstructions (seal, walrus, sea lions).

Prague National Museum Historical displays: old town clay tiles, Medieval book, religious sculptures, carriage and toy sewing machine.

We left the museum to head back towards the hotel. There was a small Christmas Market at the end of Wenceslas Square Václavské nám, and we passed by yet another one: the regular market Havelské tržiště had been turned into a festive checkpoint, but most of the stalls had the same stuff at the same prices. It was still packed though. We made a stop at the Choco-Story shop to see if they had started selling the Christmas-tree sweets we had seen made the day before, but no such luck.

We went back the hotel to regroup and find out what time they were picking us up the following day. Later in the evening, we left once more to find Broadway Theatre so we could watch the WOW Show Black Light Theatre Prague. Notice the English name, it was clearly aimed at tourists, but the only one my parents found advertised at the hotel. Doors opened at 19:30, but placement was free, so we wanted to be there around 19:15. As we checked in, we were given some glow sticks. I don’t think my family had ever held glow sticks in their life…

We had to go down a couple of floors worth of stairs to get to the actual theatre and when we got to the stalls, we ended up getting pretty horrible seats for some reason or another. Soon the venue began to fill up. There was a huge group of young tourists who had obviously been raised in a barn. They yelled and burped and, when lights went off, they decided to start throwing the glow sticks. One got me in the back of the head, and damn, those things hurt.

Prague’s black light theatre (černé divadlo) works with black backgrounds, UV lights and fluorescent elements to create visual illusions. Basically, you only see brightly coloured bits, either props, face paint, or clothing. It was… weird. Not what I was expecting at all. The idea was that a guy came back from work, watched some TV, then went to sleep, and we got to see all his dreams, in dance version. At some point, the actors bounced some big balls at the audience for us to play with, and the rude macro-group decided to play dodge-ball with them. Some dancers also played spiders which had to move over the audience. All in all, it was an interesting experience, a bit ruined by the company, but I did not like it much. A bit too surreal for me.

Dinner was again at the shopping centre – not much choice, at the only open sandwich place. One of these days, my family will realise that buying snacks in advance is a good idea. That day was not today.

2nd December 2025: From the Pražský hrad Castle, downwards {Prague, December 2025}

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It was a grey morning in Prague [Praha] when we headed down for breakfast. The buffet was packed and the coffee horrible, but I was able to find cranberry juice, hard-boiled eggs, bread and cheese. The goal of the day was visiting other areas within the UNESCO World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Prague, starting from the castle to make our way down. Thus, we jumped onto the public transport system – my parents could ride free due to their ages, and my sibling and I bought tickets. The ticketing system allows you to ride for a set period of time after validating, which is done at the gate. We rode the underground to the Malostranská stop, at the foot of the hill where the castle was built. This area of the city is called Malá Strana, the Lesser Town – it is a historical name, because there is nothing “lesser” about it.

Prague Castle Pražský hrad is the largest ancient fortress in the world – a huge complex of buildings delimited by a defensive wall. It hosts the official residence of the current President of the Republic, and in the past it was the place from where the kings of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperors ruled. Construction began around 870, with the establishment of a walled church on top of a hill overlooking the area. The current palace was built under the reign of Charles IV (Karel IV), who also reinforced the fortifications. The enclosure hosts several notable areas and buildings, such as the Cathedral and the Golden Lane.

The first step was, however, climbing up from the underground stop to the castle itself – literally. This was done via stairs, which fortunately were not frosty. They were… steep, steeper than they looked, considering how wide each step was. I was a bit out of breath by the time we were up… and once at the gate there was still more uphill way to walk!! We reached the ticket office and decided on a “Prague Castle – Main circuit” (Pražský hrad – hlavní okruh) ticket, which included the four key sites: the Old Royal Palace, St. George’s Basilica, the Golden Lane, and St. Vitus Cathedral.

Right next to the ticket office there was the access to the Golden Lane Zlatá ulička. It was originally an area where the castle guards lived. Today, it is a narrow alley with coloured houses, many of which have been converted into souvenir shops or tiny ethnography museums, trying to show how people used to live there – the seamstress, the alchemist, the goldsmith, the fortune-teller… Some famous or important historical figures have dwelt there, most notably writers Franz Kafka – with a bookshop where he used to dwell – and Jaroslav Seifert (1984 Nobel Prize in Literature), and the fortune-teller Matylda Průšová. There is also a collection of weapons and armours.

Golden Alley and reconstructed dwellings: a bedroom and the alchemist's office.

Our next stop was the Basilica of St George Bazilika svatého Jiří. Despite its Baroque façade from the late 17th century, the inside is purely Romanesque. The church is actually the oldest surviving building in the castle complex, consecrated in the year 921. Fortunately, the interior has been kept Baroque-free, and it displays a severe limestone appearance (though it had to be restored after World War II) with frescoes behind the altar.

Baroque exterior of the church of St George and Romanesque frescoes inside.

The crown jewel (in my not-so-humble gothic-loving opinion) of the castle is the Cathedral of St. Vitus – formally the Metropolitan Cathedral of Saints Vitus, Wenceslaus and Adalbert Katedrála svatého Víta, Václava a Vojtěcha. The current building is Gothic, and dates back from 1929. No, that’s not a typo. Although construction started in 1344, it did not end until the 20th century! The current building was erected over a previous Romanesque church when the latter became too small. It was sponsored by Charles IV (Karel IV) of Bohemia and originally designed by Matthias of Arras, who obviously did not live enough to see the work completed.

Gothic Cathedral of St Vitus.

Prague’s Medieval history was heavily influenced by the Hussite Wars. The Hussites were reformists, an early movement of what would later become Protestantism, founded by Jan Hus (who ended up burnt to death for his trouble). The Hussite Wars lasted between 1419 and 1434, and were rather complicated, with people changing sides, a civil war, foreign interventions actually called “crusades”… In the end, the “moderate” Hussites allied themselves with the Catholics to defeat the “radical” Hussites, and eventually rose to power as George (Jiří) of Poděbrady was crowned the first protestant King of Bohemia in 1458. While the king himself was a Hussite, he was a moderate and thus tolerant of the Catholics and their rites.

However, with the Hussite uprising, works of the cathedral came to a stop. It stood half-built until the 17th century. Finally, the early 20th century saw serious efforts to finish it in time for St. Wenceslaus’ Jubilee in 1929. Despite its 600 years of construction, the building is simply magnificent, even if there was no sun to shine through the coloured windows. The pointed arches are just perfect, and the stonework has that lovely patina that they’ve cleaned out from Notre Dame in Paris.

The final building included in our ticket / pass was the Old Royal Palace Starý královský palác, a magnificent Gothic – with some Renaissance touches – building dating back from the 12th century. The Vladislav Hall, built in the 14th century, is vaulted, with gothic nerves. There is a small room with a throne and replicas of some of the crown jewels. Upstairs, rooms with frescoes. To the side, there was a long queue to see the “Defenestration Window” – during the Hussite Wars, people developed a taste for throwing other people out of windows. In 1618, during one of the many Protestant-Catholic moments of tension, two regents and a secretary were pushed out of one of the windows in the palace. They survived. According to the side who tells the story, they were either saved by angels or by falling onto a pile of cow dung.

Interior of the former Bavarian Palace, with gothic vaults.

The family decided to get going. We passed by newer buildings, where the President lives, and headed down the hill. We found a restaurant that my parent seemed to like and we were lucky enough that they had room for us. The staff at U Dvou slunců was pretty nice, and despite me thinking I wanted some dumplings, I ended up ordering Smažený obalený sýr, fried breaded cheese with chips and homemade tartar sauce – just because I love cheese. It was delicious.

After lunch, we went to Malostranský chrám svatého Mikuláše, the church of St. Nicholas Church in Malá Strana. It is considered the most important Baroque church in town. There are frescoes all over the ceiling, and the decoration is not extremely over the top. The dome is 20 metres in diameter, and the columns are actually made of fake marble, but I would never have been able to tell. It hosts two organs, one of which was currently out of service for restoration.

Baroque interior of St Nicholas Malá Strana church, with frescoes on the ceiling.

Then, we headed to the Church of Our Lady Victorious and The Infant Jesus of Prague (mouthful) – Kostel Panny Marie Vítězné a Pražské Jezulátko. The church was founded in 1584, and it is also Baroque. It is famous because it hosts the statue of the Infant Jesus of Prague Pražské Jezulátko, a small wooden sculpture of Spanish origin from the 16th century, which somehow made its way to Bohemia through the House of Habsburg. The centre of one of the major pilgrimages in Europe, the figure is about half a metre high, and it is displayed wearing embroidered vestments. On the day of our visit, the clothes were purple, as it was Advent. The church also has a display of nativity scenes and a small museum with different garments for the Infant Jesus that have been donated by wealthy benefactors. I have to say though that the poor thing is… hideous.

Baoque interior of Our Lady Victorious and the Child Jesus sculpture.

The sun was setting and it was time to cross Charles Bridge Karlův most over the Vltava river. It is a Medieval stone bridge, built between 1357 and 1402, over 500 metres long! There is a tower on each side – Malá Strana Bridge Tower (Malostranská mostecká věž) and Old Town Bridge Tower (Staroměstská mostecká věž), both gothic, and 50 statues along the way. There are also gas streetlamps that are manually lit during Advent! Unfortunately though, since the lighting is a thing, the bridge was swarmed, and it was extremely difficult not to lose each other, so we did not get to see much.

Charles bridge, with an official lighting a gas streetlight.

Back in the Old Town Staré Město pražské we got to see the Klementinum, a Baroque astronomical tower and library that I would have loved to visit, but it was not in the schedule – I would have prioritised it over the churches, but as I mentioned, I had not done any of the planning. My parents decided they were done then, so my sibling and I stayed behind again, after arranging to meet at 19:30. We explored some candy shops, and eventually caught the Astronomical Clock Pražský orloj at 17:00.

After the 17 bell strokes, I proposed my sibling to go to the chocolate museum, Choco-Story: Prague Chocolate Museum. It is not big, and it features different stages in the history of chocolate – its use in Pre-Columbian cultures, how the Spanish introduced it to Europe, and how it became a popular treat amongst the higher classes, then it became democratised. The last room was explicitly about a Czech company that used to sell chocolate. In the second-to-last exhibit there was an unlimited chocolate tasting station. Yes, the person at the entrance used the word “unlimited”. We of course took pictures with all the available props. And ate chocolate.

Choco Story Prague scenes related to chocolate history - from the Mayans to the Victorian to the present day, with the tasting station.

We eventually left the museum, and that placed us in the right place-and-time to see how they made candy from scratch. The two guys started with blocks of different colours – green, white and reddish. They worked the material until it was almost viscous. First, they made three “triangles” with the green material, which they put on top of each other. Then, they filled up with white until they had a cylinder, and wrapped that in red and green – it was a Christmas tree in the middle of a snowy circle! They ended up with something that had around 20 centimetres in diameter. And then suddenly they started pulling and pulling and made sweets that were no bigger than 1 cm, with the Christmas tree in the middle. It was astonishing!! And even better… they shared samples!

Candy-making show. The sweets have little Christmas trees inside.

On the way out, we decided to be weak and bought the blueberry tartlets we had spotted the day before, along with some souvenirs. I got a silly Christmas bauble. We headed back to the room to eat the tartlets, and at 19:00 we dropped by our parents room to regroup. At first we considered having dinner in one of the Christmas Markets, but in the end, they decided that they did not want to eat standing up, and we went to a random sandwich shop the Palladium Prague shopping centre.

To end the day, however, we did go to the Christmas Market in Náměstí Republiky square, but not for food, just for a drink. A typical drink – traditional honey wine, which I didn’t know (because I don’t drink), but it is just another word for mead. So instead of gentle mulled wine, we got a kick out of Tradiční medovina. Boy, did we sleep well that night.

Honey Wine.

Before going to sleep though, I had been tasked with booking tickets for a light show the following evening, which was a bit of a challenge on the phone – no way I’m putting my credit card on public Wi-Fi – with a website that kept trying to change its language from English into Czech.

1st December 2025: Way too much food {Prague, December 2025}

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I stayed over at my parents’ house so they could shave 15 minutes off driving, because 15 minutes of extra sleep at 5:00 matter. I gulped down a coffee and loaded my luggage in the car. We picked my sibling up and drove to the airport before the traffic jam even formed. We got on the shuttle a minute after parking, reached the terminal, and went through security without a hitch. There was really nothing noteworthy to the journey, really, once the check-in-your-hand-luggage extortion had been paid. We were picked up at the airport in Prague [Praha] and driven to the hotel, where we could not check in yet.

Thus, we headed to have lunch first. There was a restaurant in front of the hotel which served traditional Czech food, called La Republica, where my plenty and I shared a Staročeský talíř pro 2 osoby – Old Bohemian plate for two people, which comprised a duck leg (kachny), pork knuckle (vepřový kolena), pork ribs (vepřový žebra), smoked pork belly (uzený bůček), sausage (klobása), dumplings (karlovarský knedlík and houskové knedlík), white and red cabbage (zelí), with crispy onion liberally sprinkled on top. One kilo of food! Way too much!

Czech knedlík are somehow of a national staple – boiled dumplings, quite heavy on the dough, with optional fillings. Both houskové knedlík and karlovarský knedlík are considered “bread dumplings”, with a base of stale white bread, flour and eggs. They are supposed to be eaten dipped in the sauce that came along with the plate, and they were delicious. So were the pork ribs, and I’m not even a rib person!

Plate of meats and dumplins for two. Way too much food.

After lunch, we checked into the hotel, dropped our things at the room, and set off towards the Old Town Staré Město pražské, the preserved Medieval area of Prague [Praha], part of the Unesco World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Prague. The city is the capital of the Czech Republic [Česká republika], and formerly of the region of Bohemia. The origins of Prague can be traced back to the Palaeolithic, but it was around the 5th century BCE when a Celt tribe settle nearby and gave the historical region of Bohemia its name. During the 1st century BCE, Germanic tribes took their place, and in the 6th century CE, they too were replaced by Slavic tribes.

The city was a fortified settlement by the 9th century CE, when the castle construction started. After the turn of the first millennium, the city became an important trade point, and many Jews settled there. The first bridge over the river Vltava was erected in 1170 (though destroyed during a flood later) and building of the cathedral started in the 1340s. It was Charles IV (Karel IV), Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia, who, between 1346 and 1378, brought the city its Medieval splendour.

After his death, his son Wenceslaus IV reigned, and though there were great achievements, such as the construction of the astronomical clock, it was a time of civil and religious unrest. This lead to a few centuries of wars, even while important artists and wise men lived in town – German astronomer Kepler comes to mind. When the 18th century arrived, things had calmed down, the city thrived, and its population increased. The area, which comprised different municipalities, eventually merged into one large city.

Prague served as the capital of the newly-formed country of Czechoslovakia after World War I. In 1939, it was occupied by Nazi Germany, which lead to the killing of most of the Jewish population. During allied bombings, many structures were damaged, including the Old Tow Hall, and Czechoslovakia as a whole rose against Nazism in 1945, shortly before the end of the war. The country became part of the Soviet Union until the Velvet Revolution in 1989, a moment in which peaceful protests ended up the Communist State. In 1992, the historical centre of Prague was declared World Heritage, and at the end of that same year, Czechoslovakia split in two countries (the Czech Republic and Slovakia) in a process called the Velvet Divorce, a stark contrast to the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the Balkan Wars, which seemed to peak at that time.

The hotel was a minute or so away from the square Náměstí Republiky, with tram stops, an underground entrance and a Christmas market. To the side stands the beautiful classical concert venue known as the Municipal house Obecní dům. Almost next to it we found the first gothic building we would see in the city – the Powder Tower Prašná brána. It is one of the original gates to the walled city, and construction dates back as far as 1475. Whether it was ever actually used to store gunpowder or not has been disputed. We crossed it and found ourselves in the main shopping street, named Celetná, flanked by traditional houses transformed into tourist shops and joints.

Powder Tower: A Goth defensive tower and Wall Gate.

We reached Staroměstské náměstí, the Old Town Square, the neurological centre of the Old Town Staré Město pražské. There stands the Gothic Church of Our Lady before Týn Chrám Matky Boží před Týnem. I am used to churches having… squares in front, but this one is literally encased within other buildings, one of which is an art gallery. It was already too late to visit, unfortunately, but we could snoop through the glass doors. There has been a church in the square since the 11th century, though the present building, erected in Jagiellonian Gothic, was only finished around 1450. Its most striking characteristic is the design of the two towers on the west façade, which feature what I can only describe as pinnacles on pinnacles. I am fascinated by those pointy towers.

Our Lady Before Tyn, inside and outside. It is a two-towered church with spikey twers and a white interior with a baroque altarpiece.

At this moment it was 15:55 so we hurried to the side of the Prague Old Town Hall Staroměstská radnice. There stands the bell tower, and on its wall, the famous Prague Astronomical Clock Pražský orloj, extremely hard to read and understand. Each hour, a Death figure rings a bell, the apostles walk around, and a bell strikes as many times as the 24-hour-clock’s hour.

Prague Astronomical Clock, a complex structure with two spheres.

After the 16 tolls, we entered the Old Town Hall Staroměstská radnice, which was a bit underwhelming (it turns out that only the guided visit gives you access to the cool areas). There is a beautiful but tiny room full of frescoes, and the ascent to the clock tower – something that for a bit extra can be done on a lift. From the top of the tower we had a lovely view of the square below, the Christmas market and Our Lady before Týn against the night sky.

View from the clocl tower: Christmas Market and our Lady Before Tyn.

Back on the ground, we snooped the gift shop, then tried our luck at the church of Saint Nicholas in the Old Town Kostel svatého Mikuláše (this got confusing during the planning stage because there are actually two Saint Nicholas churches in town). Today, this Baroque monastery-and-church is used for worship and concerts. It was unfortunately closed.

We had a run at the Christmas market, which sold snacks, drinks, sweets, decorations, souvenirs and Christmas baubles. I actually got myself a beautiful one. My parents decided to head back to the hotel for a break then, but my sibling and I were still good to go. We resolved to snoop around the market some more. It was cold but not aggressively so – it was dry and there was no wind whatsoever, so it was not that bad.

Since I had not prepared anything beforehand, I had no idea where we could go or what we could do. We explored along Celetná, where we found a chocolate and candy shop that lead to the chocolate museum Choco-Story: Prague Chocolate Museum (at first I thought it was a branch from Chocolate Nation in Antwerp, but it is a different shop – though apparently a franchise?). I fell in love with some blueberry tartlets, but I had like zero stomach-room for them. There were also a couple of guys making candy from scratch.

We looked at a couple of shops and then my eyes fell on a Horus Guard from Stargate. My sibling was game to go in and meet him – and that is how we ended up in the Steel Art Museum, which is apparently another franchise. And not only did they have a Horus Guard, there was also an Anubis Captain. The Steel Art Museum has two completely interactive floors, with different sections and 120 items. Everything in the museum is hand-sculpted using metal scraps. There are full cars from luxury lines which you can sit on, in, whatever you want. The only issue is that steel can be a bit slippery. There is a replica of the Throne of Swords from Game of Thrones, Optimus Prime and Bumblebee from Transformers, along the aforementioned Stargate soldiers on what I guess was the fantasy and sci-fi section. But then there were… dinosaurs, some more cartoonish, some more accurate, like a Ceratopsian (styracosaurus, probably). Unfortunately for me, steel is also heavy, so I could not take it home…

We proceeded to the upper floor, full of pop figures, Alien references, and even Marvel’s Avengers. We saw motorbikes, Ninja Turtles, Minions, and characters from films we did not recognise. Despite not knowing everything, we had a blast climbing – or trying to – on anything we could.

Steel Art Museum Prague: Stargate Anubis Warrior, Willy Coyote with a help sign, Transformer Optimus Prime, a quadruped dinosaur with a big frill, and a sportscar.

We headed back to the hotel, and looked around Náměstí Republiky and the Christmas market there. At first we thought it was just a few stands selling food and drinks. Later we would realise there was another part on the other side of the square. We also peeked into the shopping centre Palladium Prague, because it meant we could walk a few minutes in the warmth instead of the cold street.

We regrouped at my parents’ room, and after an hour or so, we headed out to find the restaurant we had booked for dinner – and that one of my parents wanted to try. Výtopna Railway Restaurant is located in Václavské nám or Wenceslas Square, which was currently half fenced off for renovation.

Wenceslaus I Václav I is known for the Christmas Carol Good King Wenceslas, but he was not actually a king. He was the son of the Duke of Bohemia, and lived in the 10th century. When he came to power, he used Christianity as a way to establish his position, which would eventually have him reach sainthood, and when he was later assassinated, martyrdom. The Christmas Carol tells the story of Wenceslas and his page witnessing a poor man gathering wood in winter, and going to his house to bring him a good dinner.

On the way to the square, we passed by Jindřišská věž, another gothic bell tower which has a restaurant and an observation deck. It would have been cool to eat there since the restaurant was at the top. I however did not propose it because it would probably be booked out and I did not want to cause any strife – good thing, too, because it turned out to be pretty expensive.

We found Výtopna Railway Restaurant to the side of the Václavské nám square, in a commercial gallery. Entrance was an absolute chaos. The restaurant is located on a first floor and the stairs were absolutely flooded. They did not take walk-ins as they were fully booked, so there was a queue of people waiting to see if something opened. However, the reservation-checking and seating system was slow, creating a jam. There was a group behind us who decided that, since they had a reservation (too), they could cut the whole line. We let them through, because the stairs were not a place to have a discussion and they were not open to reasoning.

The whole point of Výtopna Railway Restaurant is that food comes to you riding on little trains. They have 900 metres of small tracks and twenty or so tiny trains that bring your order to you. It’s really cute. The “motto” of the restaurant is “meat & beer on rails”. I don’t drink beer, but I really wanted to try the goulash. Unfortunately, I was still very full from lunch. Instead, I opted for a salad with goat cheese (salát s kozím sýrem): green salad with grilled goat cheese, sour apples, walnuts, honey dressing and focaccia bread. It was all right, and the trains moved fast! You had 15 seconds to take your food from the wagons – and any pictures you wanted. So I let the family grab the food while I photographed everything.

Little trains and railways carrying food and drinks.

We undid our way from the restaurant to the hotel, where I took a very long shower and got into bed. I did not sleep much though.

1st – 4th December 2025: Prague (Czech Republic) {Prague, December 2025}

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After last year the family went to Vienna, my parents came up with the idea of trying again. While the first idea was Lisbon, our first discussion happened around the time the local scenic funicular had a catastrophic accident. Somehow, the plans veered towards Prague [Praha], in the Czech Republic [Česká Republika], since my parents thought it was a “very doable” city for a couple of days. They also made clear that I was expected not to meddle with planning and just go along whatever. I had apparently unintentionally stepped on some toes in Austria, and I absolutely did not want to bruise anyone’s ego, so I took a huge I step back from preparation. I did not check out neither landmarks nor timetables, I did not look into exchange rates, and only offered opinions when they were explicitly asked of me.

My parents went to talk to our travel agent at Viajes El Corte Inglés to get an airplane-transfer-hotel pack. The original plan was travelling during the long weekend in December, but I was between projects and my sibling said they could get some time off easily. Choosing the alternative dates of 1st – 4th December brought the price down around 800 euro. Too good to let it pass.

Once the package was booked, my parents built an impossible itinerary, I made note of it, and left them to their own devices. They found a couple of restaurants they wanted to try, and the weekend before departure they enquired if I thought we should reserve. My take is that if you really want to check out a place, the best thing is booking, especially in this day and age when you can cancel the reservation with a click.

Unfortunately, if you find an instagrammable restaurant online, booking three days in advance is just not going to work, because 99% of the tourists will have also heard about it. The place, Pork’s Mostecká, books out a month in advance. Fortunately, it has a sister restaurant, Pork’s Vodičkova, less “traditional”, but with the same recipes. As one goes there to eat pork knuckles, it had to be booked for lunch (or risk a bad night of indigestion – my parents are firm believers in food-at-Spanish-times). The problem was that to book it for lunch on the day we were around there, we had to displace the other desired restaurant, Vytopna Railway Restaurant. Finally, we managed to find a dinner and a lunch to accommodate both visits.

A big issue was that our plane flew out at 8:45, which is a horrible time to brave the airport-area traffic jam. For my France / Monaco trip, I left at 6:30 and reached the parking a bit before 8:00 (theoretical driving time is 42 minutes), for a plane at 9:40. Thus, we had to leave before that time, so the jam had not formed yet – and, after discussing pros and cons, it was agreed we would drive off at 5:30 to pick my sibling up, and evaluate alternative routes on the way. My non-driving parent wanted the new route to avoid the traffic jam, but also did not want it because they were worried about getting lost.

After a lot of going back and forth, we bought some Czech crowns (Kr) from the bank, though my parent was unhappy with the rate – they got something around 21.5 Kr per euro while the official rate was on the vicinity of 24.5 Kr. Thus they got into their head that, once in Prague [Praha], we had to spend those crowns fast and then exchange more euros. I don’t get that logic, but again, I had promised to step back.

The one thing I was in put in charge of was checking in for the first flight. As it was early on a Monday, the travel agent would not be at work 24 hours earlier to do so. They expected me to do it on the computer, but I retrieved the booking data on my phone to add my frequent flier number. Before going to bed on Saturday night, I opened the app to see whether the free check-in was open, and since it was, I decided to go through it. Unfortunately, a message popped up – since we were in the last group to board, we either had to check in our luggage (for free) at the counter or pay for an upgrade. My sibling and I were travelling with backpacks, which would not take any overhead bin space. Queuing at the counter to check in two trolleys would mean an extra hour at least, hence leaving at 4:30, and lots of added stress. Therefore, I decided to unilaterally pay for the upgrades. I honestly think it is blatant extortion, and I was not happy to do it, but at that moment, it was the lesser evil. I did consider only upgrading two tickets, but then I would have gotten caught.

After the mini-flood in Monaco, I made sure to pack some boots and extra socks, along with sturdy winter clothes. I have to say we were really lucky with the weather, though. It was cold but not insanely so. Unfortunately, I forgot to use lip balm, and paid for it dearly.

I have not been this unprepared for a trip since I was a child, but I think that what my parents wanted was feeling in charge of the family again. I did my best not to step on any toes this time around (though I am not sure I managed). When I was asked what I wanted to visit in Prague [Praha], I went with the most famous sights in their schedule. The only action I took was downloading the map on all the phones. Well, and the plane upgrades, but you will keep my secret, won’t you?

26th November 2025: Ningyō Exhibition (Alcalá de Henares, Spain)

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Dolls have probably existed for as long as humans have been humans. The earliest known were found in Egyptian tombs from the 21st century BCE. Romans had rag dolls already around 300 BCE, and dolls with moving parts and removable cloths existed around the 200 BCE. They are not just children’s playthings, throughout history they have been used to teach, in rituals, and / or been infused with magical and spiritual meanings. The oldest Japanese dolls date from the Jōmon Period [縄文 時代], probably as early as 8000 BCE. The country has had an extremely long and strong connection with dolls for millenia.

Ningyō: Art and Beauty of Japanese dolls is a travelling exhibition by The Japan Foundation, designed to broadcast that connection. The word ningyō [人形] is composed of two kanji: 人 nin, which means human or person, and 形 gyō, form, shape or figure. Together, they translate as doll, puppet or marionette, particularly when referencing the traditional Japanese dolls, but literally mean “human shape”. It is not a bad description.

If one were to relate Japan with a religion, this would probably be Shinto – though it is more a philosophy rather than a religion. Shinto is greatly based on symbolism along with the respect of nature. From early times, paper dolls with vague human shapes were used in its purification or protection rituals. Later on, wooden dolls became decoration, depicting Imperial weddings or armoured heroes, to wish good growing to children.

As dolls grew more and more popular, craftsmen and artisans became more prominent. Different shapes and styles were particularly favoured by royalty, and the different Japanese regions developed their unique doll fashion. Complex traditional dolls are still made by hand – artisans create the individual parts and a final craftsman assembles them. More simple shapes are created and hand-painted by the same expert. Tradition spread to modern times with the arrival of plastic dolls imported from the US, which eventually gave way to the industry of collectible figures.

Dolls depicting the Renjishi (Two Lions) a kabuki dance with two men wearing long wigs, one white and one red, and bulky kimono.

Fuji Musume (Wisteria maiden), a Japanese doll wearing a pretty kimono.

The Japan Foundation has two sets of dolls circulating throughout the world. November saw one of the sets in Alcalá de Henares, in the exhibition hall and former hospital called Antiguo Hospital de Santa María la Rica. The hospital was established in the late 13th or early 14th century bringing together several already-existing houses. It later passed onto a religious brotherhood and focused on tending to pilgrims until in the 19th century, it closed down. In the year 2000 it became the seat of the Cultural Council, and it is now used for travelling exhibitions.

Wooden Kokeshi dolls.

The exhibition displays about 70 pieces, all of them modern and mainly created by the same artisan, Mochizuki Reikou, whose studio was established in 1936. There was also a video explaining the same information that was displayed on the signs, but accompanied by testimonies of actual doll-makers and experts from the Tokyo National Museum (Tōkyō Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan [東京国立博物館]). I quite enjoyed it, but I would not like to be in that room alone with dimmed light… some of the dolls could be creepy.

Japanese wish dolls - you draw an eye when you make a wish, and the other when the wish is fulfilled.

Japanese dolls depicting the chold Oniwakamaru catching a fish, and an oiran (courtesan).

There was not much going on in town, as it was a weekday in that period in which everyone is getting ready for Christmas. However, it was the only free time I could muster within the month the exhibition was open due to work and other trips. I did not even stay for lunch, but headed home right after.

22nd November 2025: Expogema & Wicked: For Good (Madrid, Spain)

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Wicked: For Good was released on Friday the 21st of November, and this time around I decided not to hit the cinema on opening day as I did for the first part, but to head out on Saturday. That way I could make a day out of it, combining the film with a mineralogy and gemology event. I had to work on Friday morning anyway, so there was no way I could make it to the first session even if I tried. Unfortunately, the weekend coincided with planned railway maintenance – which meant no trains whatsoever.

Getting to Madrid with the train system out (albeit scheduled) was not an odyssey, but close to it. I got to the coach station with 20 minutes to spare, and I had to queue up in a long line. Fortunately, I made it to the bus – good, because I had a timed ticket I had bought online. I learnt later that you can buy a ticket “for the next bus” on site and it’s actually cheaper… There were extra coaches running at the same time to make up for the lack of trains, which makes sense. The train company had arranged coaches of its own, but it charged “train money” for “bus service”. Well over a hundred people had decided, just like me, to take a bus at bus price.

The trip was uneventful with few stops, and I reached the terminus Avenida de América before I had to take the underground to get to Ríos Rosas. That placed me at the ETSIME Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de Minas y Energía around noon, total peak time. The place was packed with people who had heard about the Expogema event but had no idea what they were getting into – and were therefore “upset” that the event only had “rocks”, and that they were expensive (“lady, I cannot sell you a 400-euro tourmaline for 60 quid” was one of the sentences that echoed in the chambers). I had to take three walks around the fair in order to just see what was on display. I could not afford most of what was being exhibited anyway and for a change, I left without buying anything. I would make up for that on the 2026 Expominerales in the end…

Expogema is the fair dedicated to exhibiting and selling gems and gem-adjacent items such as jewellery. It is organised yearly by the Spanish gemological Institute, Instituto Gemológico Español IGE is a non-profit organisation, created in 1967, as a jewellers’ association. Today it independently certifies and appraises gemstones and jewels, especially diamonds. It works with individual owners, insurance companies, and anyone who is interested in a particular piece. It emits super-complete certificates which describe any gem to boot. Unfortunately, since their analyses are purely physicochemical, the one thing that cannot be certified is the ethical origin of the rocks.

The ETSIME hosts two big fairs a year, Expominerales and Expogema. I missed Expogema last year, because while it’s usually held in late-November or early-December, it happened in September. This year, I wanted to have a look, and I could combine it with other events happening that weekend. Besides, I like the ETSIME, with its little classic museum of mining and geology (Museo Histórico-Minero Don Felipe de Borbón y Grecia) and its eclectic architecture by Ricardo Velázquez Bosco. The building seems to be in perpetual renovation though, but it has a beautiful cloister, which this time around was packed with curious onlookers.

Interior of the ETSIME - two floors of arcades and a glass and iron ceiling.

I left the school and walked out towards a former water cistern, now turned into an exhibition hall Sala Canal de Isabel II. The public company Canal de Isabel II manages the water supply in Madrid, which includes the structures around the River Lozoya. In 1858, the first water deposit was inaugurated in Madrid, designed by engineer Juan de Ribera Piferrer. Three more deposits were constructed, even though an accident during the works on the third one caused 30 fatalities and 60 wounded.

This last deposit was not built underground. It was designed by engineer Diego Martín Montalvo and materialised by Luis Moya Idígoras in 1907. It was a tower made out of mostly brick, and with a height of 36 metres. At the top there was a metal sphere which could hold up to 1500 cubic meters of water. It was used until 1952 to store water, then abandoned, and eventually turned into an exhibition hall in 1986.

In the year 2000, maybe as an operation to improve the reputation of the entity, the foundation Fundación Canal was established, to divulge culture, art, environmental knowledge and the importance of water. Legally, a Spanish foundation must serve “general interest” purposes and must be a non-profit. It might have served as a cover-up or money laundry point, considering that during the 2010s, Canal de Isabel II was involved in several monetary scandals and corruption cases.

The former deposit was hosting photography exhibition, a sample of the archives they have, called 14 millones de ojos. Colección, fotografía, público (14 million eyes. Collection, photography, public). It was a great excuse to explore both the building and the adjacent park, though most of the area was closed off as it was the weekend. The exhibition was a bit strange, with images all over the place, but some of them were very cool. It is apparently… a collection of pictures that people have taken of items that have been exhibited in the venue before? I am not completely sure… There was a disturbing amount of portraits of people pretending to be naked though…

Water deposit turned into exhibition venue - high brick tower with a spherical top.

After a walk around the park, I took the underground and headed towards the central district of Madrid. Since I had started a Christmas ornament collection, buying one in Paris and one in Monaco, I decided to try my luck at finding one for Madrid too. The quest was… surprisingly difficult, but I found a bauble in the seventh souvenir shop I checked.

Afterwards, I found a spot at Kawaii Café for a light lunch. Though they were extremely busy, they had a spot for me and given the choice, I actually like their food. Plus, they’ve got discount cards now. I had a smoothie and a salmon bagel which was more than worth its price. Once I was done, I had the time to check out a couple of shops before I headed to Yelmo Cines Ideal to watch Wicked: For Good, the second part of the Wicked film duology, starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. I like Ideal because most of the individual cinemas have enough of a slope that I manage to see above the head of the person in the row in front of me.

Bagel and smoothie from Kawaii Café.

I ended up with conflicting feelings about Wicked: For good. On the one hand, the film felt about 45 minutes to an hour too long. There were reprises of scenes and extra focus on interactions – especially the love triangle – that I could have done without. Also, random spotlight on characters that I know, but don’t even remember if they were even featured in the first part, such as Elphaba’s nanny. On the other hand, there was no way the “ham” could have fit into just one film, considering how long the first part was already. Nevertheless, I do have the feeling they wanted to delve a little further into the authoritarian dystopia of Oz, and the character of the Wizard. After all, if you have Jeff Goldblum around, you want to feature him as heavily as you can. Either that, or the film-makers tried to show the power of propaganda in some modern societies. And not-so-subtly aim for an Oscar or two – the first instalment competed on ten categories and took home two statuettes, but the second one was not even nominated once.

Wicked: For good focuses on the second act of the Wicked musical, based on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. If the first half tells the story of how Elphaba “becomes” the Wicked Witch of the West, the second focuses on how that affects her. It surprises me though how come people were not anticipating the hit the Wicked film was going to be. When I went in for the first movie, it was just a regular release. This time around, we had a photocall and staff wearing witch hats and handling magic wands.

Wicked photo-op cardboard with all the main characters.

Cynthia Erivo does a good job on Elphaba, but in the end, it’s not that hard to portray her as a sympathetic character, since the watcher is the one privy to all her struggles and goals. However, Ariana Grande delivers a fantastic performance – I had watched the musical thrice at this point (four times now), and it is the first time that the character of Glinda has actually touched me. Grande’s approach gives a depth to the “good witch” that it’s often overlooked. The spotlight on her did not feel as a filler to me, and her voice breaking during I couldn’t be happier is a fantastic touch.

There is something I have realised though – if they decide to turn this into a franchise, I don’t think I’ll follow it. I would not have developed such a big emotional connection with Wicked if my first contact with it had been the films – they are way too long. The musical is just the bare minimum to tug at your heart, no fillers. How I wish I had seen the original New York production though…

The film has a few strokes of genius, mostly homages to the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz, especially how the character of Dorothy, who is only insinuated, is a carbon copy of Judy Garland’s rendition, down to the dress and hairstyle. Furthermore, the wink to Margaret Hamilton’s cackling laughter and Glinda’s reaction – akin to what new generations would have, being absolutely flabbergasted by it – is hilarious.

Speaking of new and generations. On my right, a group of university students who spent most of the film bawling. On my left, a couple – one of them was a fan, the other one had no idea what was happening, and guessing along the way. Further on that side, a little girl loudly wondering what was going on half of the time. The joys of going to the movies at the weekend.

Upon leaving the cinema, I would have usually walked to the train station, but I had no trains. Thus, I had to go to Puerta del Sol to catch the underground. It was packed. I had not realised that they were turning on the Christmas lights that evening! When I had to change, the crowds in the corridors actually felt dangerous, and I was relieved when I could get to the platform in the opposite direction. That was stressful for a few minutes. I was lucky, though, that the first station was not closed and I could get in.

Once in the Avenida de América hub, I bought a coach ticket to get home – thus learning about the “next bus” tickets. Afterwards, I boarded the first scheduled service, which was on time, direct and ran into no traffic jams. I had been fortunate enough to park near the coach station, so I was home within a little over an hour after boarding. All in all, despite the lack of trains, transportation worked smoothly. I saw everything I wanted to, and I had time to spare, the weather was nice and I saw the film spoiler-free. A rather successful day, I’d say.

17th November 2025: Nice is nice! {France & Monaco, November 2025}

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Yes, I’m sure the joke has been made before – ad nauseam. It still describes my experience pretty well. I was up and ready to go almost an hour earlier than planned, so I left my luggage at the hotel and set off towards Place Garibaldi, one of the hip places in town. Nice was waking up, people heading to work on a Monday morning. I walked by some interesting buildings, amongst them the Modern and Contemporary Art Museum (MAMAC), Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain, which, along with the Natural Science Museum, is closed for renovation. The square Place Garibaldi hosts a statue to the man in the middle, it’s surrounded by Baroque buildings with arcades, and crterminaiss-crossed by tram lines.

Place Garibaldi, with a statue and Italian-style buildings.

I continued towards the marina Nice Port and went along the Promenade a bit further north. All the private beaches along the Mediterranean Sea coast were closed off due to high waves. Despite that, it was not even 10:00 yet, and it was already warm. The temperature would reach 21 ºC. In late November. I guess that explains all the holidaymakers that crowded the area – the whole French Riviera got its reputation from mild winters, and today was a great example of that, even after the deluge on Sunday. I walked along the marina and Castle Hill at the Promenade level, going around Pointe de Rauba-Caupe, where the memorial Monument aux morts de Rauba-Caupe-Nice stands to commemorate the fallen in World War I. It didn’t take long to reach familiar territory, Quai des États-Unis, which I walked along until it turned into the even-more-famous Promenade des Anglais. I had taken off my coat by then, and the beaches, protected from the open sea, were again open.

The rocky coast of Nice.

Nice beaches, with waves breaking.

When I reached the luxury hotel Le Negresco, I walked into the city, looking for the Orthodox cathedral, Cathédrale Orthodoxe Russe de Saint-Nicolas de Nice, colloquially known as the Russian cathedral. It is an early-20th-century building, erected in a modern take of the Old Russian style by architect Mikhail Preobrazhensky. It was later declared Historic Monument due to its uniqueness.

St Nicholas orthodox cathedral

Afterwards, I headed towards the area of Cimiez, and after a couple of wrong turns, I finally reached the hill it comprises. Strolling by gated communities, up I went. I wanted to see the Belle Époque Ancien Hôtel Régina. Though today it’s an apartment complex, it was originally built as a hotel to host Queen Victoria of England when she spent time in town. A bit past it, I reached the top of the mountain. There is a green area there, Jardin des Arènes de Cimiez, home to several buildings, museums and ruins.

My first stop was the Roman amphitheatre Arènes de Cimiez. It was erected in the first century CE, with a capacity for around 4,000 spectators, in the Roman town of Cemenelum. Though it was abandoned in the 4th century, it was never completely forgotten, but it was not until the late 1800s that the ruins were first addressed scientifically.

Ruins of Roman amphitheatre Arenes de Cimet

A bit further away stands the Monastery of Cimiez, along with its church, Monastère de Cimiez. This religious place dates back from the 9th century, it was originally a Benedictine abbey, which was later turned into a Franciscan monastery. The current building dates from the 14th century, and in the 19th century Neo Gothic façade was added. The interior is decorated with frescoes from the 13thcentury, and the wooden altar gilded with gold.

Monastery of Cimet - gothic looking and with frescoes on the inside.

I then backtracked towards the archaeological museum Musée d’Archéologie de Nice / Cimiez. The museum itself is small, but entrance gives you access to the whole archaeological site Thermes romains de Cimiez, the Roman baths that served Cemenelum between the 1st and 4th centuries. The museum holds both original artefacts and reconstructions, and I was particularly smitten by a small sculpture of a faun.

Roman ruins of Cimet, Nice, and a small sculpture of a naked faun-

By the time I left the museum it was about 14:15. I headed back into town to pick up my luggage at the hotel and buy some lunch (I did remember this time to do it before I got to the transport hubs!). I took the train towards the area where the Aéroport Nice Côte d’Azur airport is. My flight boarded at 18:25, and I am just not used to airports having things to do around them. But this one did – there was a museum and a botanical / animal park nearby. I found the entrance to the latter, called Parc Phœnix, and walked into the glasshouse that hosts the tropical plants and animals. There were terrariums with reptiles, including crocodiles, pythons, and lots of tortoises. There was a cactus area, and after the orchid ward I suddenly saw a pink reflection – there was a flock of flamingos basking in the warmth of the glasshouse, in a small pond made for them.

There is an insectarium sprinkled with small Ghibli figures to adorn the different habitats. There also lived the axolotls and the koi fish. I then went to the outside area, where I was able to have my sandwich. In the garden, I could see the aviaries, and the free peafowls. I caught a glimpse of a wallaby, but probably the most exotic animal over there was the huge rat I spotted. And some very fun greater rhea (Rhea americana) who were very interested in the shiny camera.

Parc Phoenix - the glasshouse, flamingoes, an iguana, a goat and some greater rhea.

I spent a bit over an hour there, and even if I did not see all the animals, it was nice to have something to do which did not involve waiting at an airport lounge. It took me 15 minutes to reach the terminal from the door of the park. And for some reason, they have a sculpture of a wooden shark hanging from the airport ceiling.

Security went smoothly and boarding was fast and efficient. Since it was a regional flight, all trolleys became checked at the gate. I was carrying a backpack so I was allowed right through. It was the smallest aircraft I’ve flown in lately, and it surprised me that the trip was much faster than the one to Paris. Of course, I should have realised I was quite closer, after having crossed a good chunk of France by train on Saturday.

Once I left the terminal, I had to wait for the shuttle to take me to the parking lot. At first, I waited for a couple of minutes at the wrong stop – I guess I was a bit more tired than I thought. Then, when I was a the correct stop, the mini van stopped further than the road and left before I could reach it, until around 21:30 I finally got on board. I reached the car, and saw with relief that nobody had bust the window to steal my 2010 Sat-Nav which I had forgotten on the copilot’s seat.

Traffic was not too bad, so I was home within the hour. I got some food in me, had a shower and went to bed, still giddy from everything I had lived in such a short period of time. My only regret was wasting money on a new Lonely Planet guide, which was pretty much useless – it did point out all the hip spaces and places to eat and drink, but the information on historical sites was lacking… I miss the old guidebooks.