Author Archives: JBinnacle

14th – 19th July 2025: Loarre & Zaragoza Summer University (Spain) {Dinosaur Eggs Loarre & Zaragoza, July 2025}

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Sometimes I get weird ideas stuck in my head. I usually let common sense override them, but this time the temptation was too great, so I allowed myself to do something slightly insane. I don’t regret it one bit.

Until a few years ago, my work projects rarely extended past June. Lately however, I’ve had to work well into July, which means I have not been able to sign up for any summer university course. Especially, one summer university course from the university of Saragossa Universidad de Zaragoza called Técnicas de restauración en paleontología a través de la preparación de los huevos de dinosaurio de Loarre: Palaeontological Restoration Techniques through the preparation of Loarre dinosaur eggs. Until now, I had been working through both editions of the course – usually until the very same day the four-day course finished. However, this year my last day of work was the day before the course started.

I started mulling… what if? What if I signed up? What if I directly drove from work to the site of the course? What if I did something crazy and went to Loarre? It would mean driving for a about four hours through the late afternoon / early evening of the 14th of July, the day before lots of holiday periods kicked off… right after a whole work session. It was not the best of ideas. It was not the most reasonable thing to do. What if I did it anyway?

I made up my mind – I would do it, sanity be damned. My family also offered to subsidise part of the course and accommodation as my birthday present, too (thanks!). I found out all the information and decided to try for the course on the 27th of April. Now, I just had to wait for admission to open, sign up, be accepted, and pay. It seemed to be a simple process, like any other course I’ve taken before.

Palaeontological Restoration Techniques through the preparation of Loarre dinosaur eggs

Except, it was anything but simple.

Sign-up for the Saragossa Summer University, Cursos de Verano UNIZAR usually opens the first Monday of May. That did not happen this year – because 2025 is special? Once I located the correct website, I checked every day – like keeping tabs on concert-ticket information – until a tiny banner reading “sing-ups will open on the 12th May” appeared. Since enrolment did not open a midnight, I deduced that slots would open at 9:00, so I was ready at the computer at that time. The online forms opened indeed around 9:20, but there were only five courses listed on the website, and none of them was mine. The rest opened gradually, but only as numbers… I kept refreshing the webpage until I finally saw my course just after 9:40. I filled in the information, and the webpage said that I would receive an email with confirmation and further instructions.

That email never arrived.

I gave the university a couple of hours, then phoned them up around 13:00. I was told there was a problem with the system and to call the following day if the email had not arrived. Thus, I called around 9:15 on the 13th of May, when I was informed that they had forgotten to activate sending the confirmation emails but not to worry.

On the 15th of May there was a webpage update, saying that the email that had never arrived held confirmation and paying instructions, so I rang the University again. They told me that they would send the information “manually” and “later”. Maybe. The conversation was not really reassuring in tone. I explained that I needed to book accommodation, and they checked again – I was number seven in the list, which meant I was in. They also informed me that there was a partner accommodation on the website – not really, there was a coding error and it did not display. I told the lady so, and she said she would update the webpage. I asked again if she was sure my enrolment had gone through, she insisted that I was in, and the email would come later. Definitely maybe.

I went on Google Maps to check for accommodation in town. Loarre is a 350-inhabitant village famous for its castle and since 2019, its palaeontological sites, where around a hundred sauropod eggs have been found. These eggs were the star of the course Técnicas de restauración en paleontología a través de la preparación de los huevos de dinosaurio de Loarre: Palaeontological Restoration Techniques through the preparation of Loarre dinosaur eggs, from the 15th to the 19th of July 2025. If everything worked in the end…

The accommodation recommended by the University was the campsite, but that was a bit out – it meant driving to the village every day, or a 35-minute walk each way. And that would be nice in the morning, but not after the whole day out. I sent an email to a nice rural cottage which never replied. Then I realised that the course actually was held in Loarre only for three of the four days, the last one would be in Zaragoza (Saragossa) itself. I tried to book at the recommended accommodation, but when they had not confirmed within 48 hours, I just went on a third-party site. I booked a place to stay in the heart of Loarre and a hotel near the university in Saragossa. Of course, a few hours later, the recommended accommodation replied, so I had to cancel. I still reserved everything with full cancellation, just in case. Can you tell I had little confidence in the whole process?

Of course, in between, work tried to change my schedule (already chaotic), because someone needed one of my days in exchange for the 15th of July, which I had to regretfully decline. I hope they don’t hold that against me, but after all the planning and the stress, I did not want to give up the chance to take this course to do someone a favour. On the 13th of June (Friday), the sign-up email arrived, with a payment deadline on the 23rd (Monday) – the course fee was 190 € (160 € discounted). I transferred the money right away, since the following day there would be a bank outage. I also sent proof of payment and a copy of the documentation that entitled me to the discounted price. A few minutes later, someone wrote to me to ask for the discount paperwork. I sent it again.

On Friday the 20th of June, I got a phone call from a long number at work. I rang back. It turned out to be an admin from the summer university asking me if I was still interested because I had not paid yet! I said I had transferred the money, sent the receipt, and the documentation. The person on the other side of the line was surprised for a second, then updated bank data or something, and it turned out that my payment had indeed gone through. Magic! Guess who emailed the University again to have confirmation on writing… It should not be so difficult to… enrol in a course from an establishment that has been offering them for literally almost a century.

To be honest, I was not 100% confident I was really enrolled until I saw my name in the roster the morning of the first day. But it was. Actually, that is a bit dramatic, as on the 7th of July 2025 I received an email from one of the course coordinators, Lope Ezquerro Ruiz with some information. In that email, he explained that some people had contacted them to try and organise transportation, so they were offering to drive people from Saragossa or Huesca on the first day, and back to Saragossa for the last session.

The truth is that public transport to Loarre was a nightmare. That is why I had decided to drive, even if I don’t like it that much, especially in the middle of the holiday rush. Had I known transport from and to Saragossa was a possibility beforehand, I would have planned accordingly. I might have considered taking a railway round trip to Saragossa instead of driving, but by then it was too late to rearrange and change the whole accommodation planning. Furthermore, it allowed me to pack for all kinds of eventualities (yay boot space). In the end, it was way more convenient to have the car, so I don’t regret it.

As the day approached, the weather predictions were al over the place. I decided to pack a bag for Loarre, and a different one for Zaragoza (Saragossa) that I would swap, I also prepared an isothermal bag with frozen water bottles, drinks and snacks – of course, the ice would eventually melt, but I had to leave the car outside while I was at work (and when I came back at 15:00, the the temperature it marked was usually 43 ºC), and I wanted to make sure no fizzy drink exploded. I finally readied an extra bag for “maybes” – extreme cold, extreme heat, rain, extra headwear…

Both the village of Loarre and the city of Zaragoza are located in the area of Aragón, a region of Spain which has gained a lot of traction in the palaeontological world due to the impact of Dinópolis and their exploitation of anything that can be even vaguely related to dinosaurs.

One of the things that surprised me, however, was how Loarre wants to attract tourists but does not seem to be willing to carter to them. I packed snacks for dinner because I was not sure I’d find a place to eat or a shop, and I was right. On Wednesday, we were too late for lunch and had to find alternative plans, and the Hospedería decided that they would not offer food in the evening because the cook had hurt her foot.


 
If you are interested in the “hard science” of what I learnt and will summarise here, I recommend these sources (in Spanish) by part of the course professors:

  • Moreno-Azanza, Miguel; Ezquerro, Lope; Pérez-Pueyo, Manuel & Gasca, José. (2021). Huevos de dinosaurio en las Sierras Exteriores de Huesca. You can read it here.
  • Díaz Berenguer, Ester & Canudo, José. (2024) El Museo de Ciencias Naturales de la Universidad de Zaragoza. Revista PH. 10.33349/2024.113.5663. Available here.
  • Pérez-Pueyo, Manuel; de Jorge, Laura; Ezquerro, Lope; Laita, Elisa; Moreno-Azanza, Miguel; Díaz Berenguer, Ester; Núñez-Lahuerta, Carmen; Barco, José; Cuenca-Bescós, Gloria & Canudo, José. (2023). Paleontología de proximidad: cómo fijar el patrimonio en el medio rural. Found here.
  • The museum-lab Laboratorio Paleontológico de Loarre website.
  • The company that manages the private side, Paleoymas website.
  • The Saragossa University Natural Science Museum Youtube channel.

6th July 2025: Brihuega, Yela & Cívica (Spain)

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I was supposed to go to Madrid, as I had a free ticket to see the restoration of the façade of the local museum Museo de Madrid up close, but I ended up cancelling due to having been in Madrid the previous day. I really did not care much about the visit, but I had signed up because it was a limited-time thing, and to be honest, I get FOMO when I read “for so long only”. However, I had heard somewhere that there was a chance that the lavender fields would be left fallow the upcoming years, so I guess I felt FOMO in the opposite direction. I had already visited the lavender fields in Brihuega, collectively known as Campos de Lavanda de Brihuega during sunset a few years back, and while in theory the view is prettier, I found that the lavender did not look… purple enough. Maybe it was the angle of the light, maybe it was too late in the summer already, but the flowers looked greyish. Thus, I wanted to see them during normal light once.

The lavender sown around Brihuega is Lavandula angustifolia, a herbaceous plant native to the Mediterranean areas. It grows in small bushes with narrow leaves, and it is popular for its uses – it can be applied in traditional medicine, in the kitchen (as herb or tea) and commercially, to produce lavender essential oil, which has hundreds of cosmetic uses: perfumes, soaps, balms… While it was the region of Provence, in France, which put “lavender watching” out as an activity, for the last 15 years or so, the village of Brihuega has made a name for itself during July as a tourist destination.

I drove to the fields and I reached the makeshift parking lot around 9:00, when there were few cars and just a bus of tourists. I wandered around for around an hour and a half, doing my best not to damage the plants and get a good picture or two – including macros of bees. For the first while, I stayed in a smaller field to listen to the sounds, but then I moved onto the bigger fields for better views.

An inmense field full of purple lavender flowers with some patches of green because the photographer is too short to get the great angle with endless purple

Lines of flowering lavender bushes that reach the horizon

Close up of a lavander plant and a blurred background of endless purple

Close-up of a bee on a lavander flower


 
When I felt I was done, I hopped back on the car and set off towards a nearby place I had always wanted to see. The Sat-Nav sent me through Yela, a tiny hamlet with a Romanesque church Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de los Llanos and two medieval fountains. Technically, it is a neighbourhood of Brihuega, and it has a horrible road. However, it was still better than driving through Brihuega itself, which I had to do on my way back.

Reconstructed Romanesque church

Fortunately, I did not come across any other car in the opposite direction, but I did breathe in relief when I got to the larger road, from which I accessed Cívica, population 14. There are remains of a Roman villa, and in recent times rumours spread of Medieval knights and Jews in hiding, but this Brihuega district is famous due to a structure built in the mid 20th century.

Though quite a few websites rant on about the “mysterious ruins” in the hamlet, their history is well-documented and widely known in the area. Between 1950 and 1970, a priest from a nearby village convinced a number of neighbours to buy the rocky land lot and work on it. He wanted a sanctuary, a bar, a chapel, all of the above at the same time. It was to be a magnificent complex. What the priest managed was to transform a karst rock wall with natural caves into an interesting façade with carved interiors that would serve for celebrations and debauchery. During the 1980s, it was all the rage amongst celebrities and rich people to go partying there, though it eventually lost its importance and closed down. Its ownership was inherited by a group of siblings who did not find it worth of any effort. A few years ago, it was bought by an entrepreneur who hopes to turn it into a rural hotel – and who shows it around at weekends for 2 € per person. There was a phone number to contact them for a visit, but I had no signal. Fortunately, I ran into the owner as he was starting a visit, so I joined in.

The façade of what can be called Caserío de Cívica has several arched doors (similar to the Visigoth arches in the Brihuega wine caves), balconies and stairs. The interior hosts bars and shelves. Deeper areas, the original caves, can double as wine cellars where drinks could be kept cold when they were still served. Though the Internet keeps saying that “the ruins are abandoned”, this is no longer true – they can be visited by appointment or at the weekend, especially if you are lucky enough to have signal to phone the owner so he shows them to you.

First we were shown the original bar, outside the property itself. Then we went in towards the second bar and the “caves”. Afterwards, we visited the party area, including the booths, which today are a dishevelled garden. Finally, we climbed all the way up to the modern caserío (homestead). Thus, the visit starts on the ground floor, next to the road, and you ascend through the different levels – the garden, the balcony and the upper area, where you can actually walk into one of the natural caves used for food storage in the past. To be honest, after reading so many conspiracy theories on the Internet, hearing the actual mundane story of the “ruins” was almost disappointing. However, it was really cool to check the inside, something that could not be done before – at least not legally.

Cívica, a venue built into a vertical wall, with balaustrades and balconies, from the ground

Cívica, a venue built into a vertical wall, with balaustrades and balconies, from the garden

Cívica, a venue built into a vertical wall, with balaustrades and balconies: walking around the balconies, which were carved into the rock itself

Cívica, a venue built into a vertical wall, with balaustrades and balconies: walking into the halls and tunnels

After the tour, I hopped into the car, and the Sat-Nav directed me back through the village of Brihuega itself. If driving there is difficult already (I ended up having to park outside the town last time), with the lavender activities, and it being a weekend, traffic was chaos. I was lucky I had the right of way so I could leave quickly, and I was soon on the speedway, having watched the lavender and learnt the secrets of Cívica.

5th July 2025: Cheese, archaeology, pancakes (Madrid, Spain)

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I am not completely sure how the conversation came up. My sibling said something about cheese tastings. I mentioned something about knowing about a shop in Madrid which organised them. Next thing I knew, I had been tasked with planning an escapade to try. However, closing on dates is not something my family is fast at doing, so by the time my sibling confirmed, the June date we wanted was sold out and I had to book for July.

The final date was Saturday the 5th of July at 13:00. The evening before, there was an explosion and fire in a factory in an area alongside both the speedway and the railway lines, and that forced me to reevaluate transportation – the warehouse worked with lithium batteries, which burn for a very long time. In the end, I decided to try for an early train, with a plan B to drive to a station halfway and meet my sibling there. While you could see the smoke from the wagon, there was no weird smell or anything and the train ran smoothly for once. Maybe we were five minutes late to Madrid? Funny, when I was warned at the station that there were delays. I had planned an extra activity in case we were early.

There was also Pride to take into account, as it was the main Parade, and that causes a cascade of station closures, including Recoletos, the station we had to go to. That would only be an issue to consider when we had to go back though, since they started at 18:00. We could always get the underground and find our way to Atocha.

We started off at the Museum of the National Library Museo de la Biblioteca Nacional. I had seen the museum already, but I had read that there was a temporal exhibit. However, we were unable to find it – it’s been apparently “temporarily closed”. It worked to pass the time out of the heat though. We were done at 12:30 – a bit too early to directly go to the store, but too late to try to see anything else. We decided to walk towards the shop, and we missed it at first, but we soon backtracked and walked into… a literal fridge.

Formaje (an old-fashioned Spanish word for cheese) is a specialised / delicatessen cheese shop. Created in 2020, it aims to “create community around artisan cheese”. They work with farmers, craftspeople, and traditional cheesemakers to distribute environmentally-conscious cheeses from producers who respect the natural processes, the landscape and of course the product. The store is designed to be a warehouse too, so it is… cold. Good thing I was carrying a jacket.

Formaje Castelló: Shop. A cheese shop full of pieces and whole cheeses

We waited in the shop, trying not to obstruct the customers, and gawked at all the types of cheese in display, all of which could be bought, and tasted beforehand! We saw some regulars who had their thermal bags ready for their shopping and debated getting a cheese subscription, and people wandering in out of curiosity. Around 12:55 a lady came to check us in. I was the closest to her, so I was able to take a picture of the whole set up and find a seat closest to the speaker. I have way too many attention issues not to want to be close to someone who is going to do some explaining I care about.

The tasting Cata de Quesos Edición Primavera involved fresh sourdough bread, butter, seven types of cheese, sweet quince paste, red and white wine, and “ice cider”. I am not a fan of alcohol in general, but the ice cider was magnificent. I am not going to gush about how all the cheeses were delicious. Assume I loved them.

Formaje Castelló: Cheese tasting. Long table and a tray full of sourdough bread

To begin with, there was real butter from the farm Airas Moniz in Chantada (Lugo, Spain). Made from the raw milk of Jersey cows grass-fed in the north of Spain, it was fresh, yellow, creamy and salted, and the bread was delicious. The first cheese was Olavidia (from Jaén, Spain), made from goat milk. It had a small layer of smoked wood halfway through. Even if I don’t care much about “the proper order you should eat things in”, I discovered that goat-milk cheese is supposed to be a “soft-tasting” cheese, I have always found it pretty strong. The cheeses were organised from softer to stronger, which apparently is how you should consume them.

The second cheese was a Camembert (protected designation of origin, AOP from its French acronym) from the region of Normandie, France; it was creamy, made from raw cow milk, with a slight moulded rind (with Penicillium camemberti) which protects the inner creaminess.

Then came a Manchego (protected designation of origin, DOP from the Spanish acronym), made with raw sheep milk. It originated in a farm called Finca Valdivieso (Alcázar de San Juan, Ciudad Real). In my opinion this one was the weakest cheese, as I am a fan of older Manchego and this was less than a year old, though still nice.

Number four was a cheese I had not heard about before, Tronchón (from cheesemaker Los Corrales, Almedíjar, Castellón). Tronchón is generally made from raw sheep milk, though sometimes it might be made with goat milk or a mix of both. The one we tried was made from goat milk. The rind is dark and unappealing on sight, but it was nice enough. Despite my ignorance, this cheese is old enough that it was mentioned in Cervantes’ Don Quijote.

Another discovery was the German Blossom Hornkäse. Hornkäse comes from the Bavarian region of Allgäu. The cows that provide the milk are fed with local grass and they don’t have their horns cut (Did you know that a cow’s horns are connected to her throat and they are part of the digestion process?). The cheese is made in wood recipients using only wooden tools. This version comes with a crust of dry flowers which makes it… just amazing.

Sierra Sur was… the icky one. It smelled like literal stable – and not a clean one. It is made with raw goat milk and you have to fight yourself a little bit to take a bite of the rind. It is a seasonal cheese, which I wouldn’t be able to say whether it has gone bad… It did look like it had gone bad… But it was nice enough, if you could ignore the smell. Not something I would buy on my own though.

The last cheese, Savel, came from Chantada – like the butter at the beginning. It is made from raw cow milk, from Jersey cows, injected with Penicillium roqueforti. This was extremely strong, but really good, especially with the bread, and the ice cider called Bizi-Goxo. Though this one brand comes from the north of Spain and is made from Errezile apples, ice cider originally comes from Canada. To produce this particular spirit, the apple is kept through the winter on straw mats, and it does not rot. The resulting drink is stronger and sweeter than a regular cider.

Formaje Castelló: Cheese tasting. Seven small pieces of cheese perfectly aligned on a tray

We spent some time chatting with the lady who had given the explanations, then went on our way. We walked to the archaeological museum Museo Arqueológico Nacional, where they were running two temporal exhibitions. One was a personal-turned-public collection of Egyptian Artifacts called El Egipto de Eduard Toda. Un viaje al coleccionismo del siglo XIX (Eduard Toda’s Egypt: A trip to collecting in the 19th century). Eduard Toda i Güell (1855 – 1941) was the Spanish Vice-Consul in Egypt for a couple of years, during which he amassed a rather impressive collection of artefacts, which he eventually donated to public institutions. The bulk of what he owned is now held in the archaeological museum as part of both the permanent collection and the archives. He had antiques, carbon copies of reliefs, photographies and a hefty number of fakes – apparently, knowing they were so.

Treasures from an Egyptian tomb

The second temporal exhibition we wanted to see was Alas para la guerra. Aratis y la Celtiberia: Wings for war, Aratis (a town, now an archaeological site) and Celtiberia. This one focuses on the Celtiberian culture and how it warred, using soldier helmets as a storyline. These particular helmets have a convoluted history – it turns out that between the early 1980s and 2013, someone used metal detectors to find artefacts from the ancient town and sell them out. This “gang” found and illegally auctioned up to 6,000 artefacts, including twenty helmets which had been forged between the 5th and 2nd century BCE. The archaeological site of Aratis, now called Aranda del Moncayo, would have been probably the most important Celtiberian site after Numancia if these guys had not systematically destroyed it.

The Aratis helmets are the most complete items of their kind that have ever been found. They were not really used for war, but were part of funerary treasures. Truth be told, Germany sounded the alert at some point around 2008 about the legality of the auctions, but the Spanish government did not stop them. Seven of the helmets were returned to Spain in 2018 thanks to the European buyers who learnt that they had been illegally exported, and 11 more have been located. The seven helmets are deposited now in the Museum of Saragossa, but that one is currently closed due to construction work (scattering some of its collections to be shown elsewhere), so they have been lent to the Archaeological Museum.

Celtiberian helmets with decorations on the sides

The exhibition also holds other weapons, parts of armours, and Celtiberian artefacts such as coins and brooches. I had seen some of the messed up spears in the museum in Tiermes, which makes sense, considering it also held Celtiberian items.

Afterwards, I finally (finally!) managed to find the reproduction of the Altamira Caves Neocueva de Altamira open! It just had not worked any other time I had been in the museum for the last ten years, and I had seen it once when I was really young, and something similar in the museum on site a lifetime ago. It was smaller than the one I remember from both times… And it makes me sad that I will never be able to see the real thing, because there’s a waiting list you can’t even get into any more, and only 50 people per year see the actual cave…

Reproduction of the Altamira Cave, with bisons, horses and bulls painted on the ceiling.

My sibling was not ready to go home just yet, so I thought they might like a stop at Kawaii Café before we turned in. We could take the underground and in under a change and 30 minutes – since I had been there just a couple of days before, I remembered the underground station. I was not sure whether there would be a queue to enter or not, but we were lucky. We alighted at Tirso de Molina and went into the café without problem – it was half empty at the time, around 16:30. They really wanted to order something cute – which is not hard. In the end, they chose teddy-bear-shaped pancakes with chocolate spread Ositos rellenos de Nutella, with chocolate syrup, whipped cream and banana slices. This time I went for a matcha frappé.

Two drinks with cute rabbits drawn on top, and pancakes decorated to look like teddy bears

Afterwards, we walked down to Atocha Station down one of the shopping streets. We made a few stops, and reached the station just before the Pride Parade blocked the streets. There, we settled to wait for a train. On the way back, the factory that had had the accident was still smoking, but the dark cloud seemed weaker. However, I never thought I would have to consider “lithium explosion” in my adventure planning, to be honest…

2nd July 2025: Sabina’s Hello & Goodbye (Madrid, Spain)

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Lots of things came together on the 2nd of July. First of all, due to weird work schedules that I had no control over, I had a day off in the middle of the week. Second, I had a doctor appointment in the morning – lucky how I could fit it there. Third, Jurassic World: Rebirth, the new film in the Jurassic Park franchise came out. Finally, back in January, I had bought tickets to watch a concert in the goodbye tour by the singer who composed the soundtrack of my teenage-angst years.

So it was just a stroke a luck that work just happened to give me the day off because of unrelated reasons. It would have been luckier to have the following day off too but what can one do? Actually, I propose an unpaid leave called “I had a concert yesterday and it’s not that I’m tired or sore or anything, but I don’t want to go back to reality just yet, I deserve to bask in post concert ‘the world is okay’ bliss.” Think about it, it’s a great idea.

Since I had the doctor’s appointment, I could not plan a whole day out. Once I was done there, I changed clothes and then drove off to the train. Of course, there were delays, what else is new? Halfway, one of the doors got stuck open and we could not start until that got closed manually. But instead of blocking it, they allowed it to keep opening at subsequent stations – so it got stuck again and again.

I reached Atocha just in time to change trains and get to Sol using the same system without a wait, so in a few minutes later I was out in the heat. The original idea had been a light lunch at Yatai Market, but the air conditioning in Kawaii Café was stronger. I had been to another of their shops before, and the food was all right, so I thought why not? I ordered a strawberry frappé and a “sleepyhead bunny” Conejito Dormilón – a Red Velvet crêpe filled with strawberry compote and decorated with cheese cream and blueberries, along with a vanilla-jello bunny mascot. Adorable and delicious. Quite pink, too, due to all the strawberry…

A collage of pink café and a meal - a strawberry frappe with a cute koala face drawn on it. and a crepe which looks like a bedding with a sleeping rabbit on top

When I finished, I headed towards the nearby Yelmo Cines Ideal to watch Jurassic World: Rebirth, a monster movie with a homage to the Jurassic Park book. I guess the film is better if Scarlett Johansson is your type. The film retcons the whole “Jurassic World” premise: now the dinosaurs are dying (and nobody cares about them any more!) and only surviving on an island near the Equator. It turns out that they somehow hold the key to cure heart disease. And then the palaeontologist says that they need to collect samples from the three biggest dinosaurs: Patagotitan (okay, it’s famous now), Mosasaur and Quetzalcoatlus, both of which have already been featured in previous films and are not dinosaurs. Then there are mutated freaks and a Tyrannosaurus with the head of a xenomorph and some extra arms, because the dinosaurs can’t survive, but the “mutated experiments gone wrong” are alive and well? The best from the film was a scene taken from the book, with a Tyrannosaurus and a raft. Unfortunately, this new Tyrannosaurus was not Rexy. Furthermore, the special effects are… not good. Too much bad CGI makes the creatures less believable than those in the 90s instalments, which is… a huge faux pas.

I am glad I saw it on opening day, though – I was able to avoid most spoilers and went in with an open mind. It was not a good film but I didn’t hate it. I will just probably ignore it exists (until the next film comes out, we all know that). Points for the pro-planet message, but it falls a bit flat when you know that Michael Crichton, the original author, was pretty much anti-science…

The film was around 133 minutes long, but oh god, the previews were long. Thus, I left the cinema around 19:30. I had to take the underground, and I knew that some stops would be closed due to Pride. However, last year I had learnt that you’re still allowed to transfer even if you cannot enter or exit the station. I used that knowledge to get myself to Movistar Arena Madrid for Joaquín Sabina’s final tour Hola y Adiós (Hello and Goodbye). I am happy I bought the tickets when I first saw them, because most concerts have sold out, and I got quite a good seat considering the event and the venue.

Joaquín Sabina is a Spanish singer and songwriter born in 1949 in Jaén, in the south of Spain. When he finished his studies, his father offered him a present, and he asked for a guitar. Due to his leftist ideas he had to exile himself in London for a few years during Franco’s dictatorship. When he came back, he lived a life of debauchery, mostly in Madrid, and he probably was not the best role model. But between 1994 and 2000, when I was an angtsy teen, his music was important to me, though I eventually moved away from it. When I heard he was retiring (again) early in the year, I thought I wanted to see him at least once, despite the fact I have not consistently listened to his music much in a couple of decades – there are a few hits in my car playlist. And then there is ¿Quién me ha robado el mes de abril?, Who stole the month of April from me?, which hit me very hard during Covid lockdown and I’ve skipped since then, but never had the heart to delete from the playlists.

Security let me in with my tiny water bottle, thankfully, and I found my seat about 45 minutes before the show was due to start, and 15 minutes after doors – it was weird, I had expected a larger crowd, and I had been a bit stressed leaving the cinema 20 minutes later than what I had calculated. I was on the side stalls, on a ninety-nine-euro spot. There is a whole etiquette about concerts with seats, and while I am quite happy to stand up when it is appropriate, and in this case, I decided I would stand up when people in front of me stood up. Pretty easy.

Sabina Hola y Adiós Madrid: empty stage

Setlist:
 Un último vals (One last waltz; recording and MV)
  1. Yo me bajo en Atocha (I’ll alight in Atocha)
  2. Lágrimas de mármol (Marble tears)
  3. Lo niego todo (I deny everything)
  4. Mentiras piadosas (White lies)
  5. Ahora que… (Now that…)
  6. Calle Melancolía (Melancholy Street)
  7. 19 días y 500 noches (19 days and 500 nights)
  8. ¿Quién me ha robado el mes de abril? (Who stole the month of April from me?)
  9. Más de cien mentiras (Over a hundred lies; band intros)
  10. Camas vacías (Empty Beds; vocals: Mara Barros)
  11. Pacto entre caballeros (Pact amongst gentlemen; vocals: Jaime Asúa)
  12. Donde habita el olvido (Where oblivion dwells)
  13. Peces de ciudad (City fish)
  14. Una canción para la Magdalena (A song for Magdalene)
  15. Por el bulevar de los sueños rotos (Through the Broken Dreams Boulevard)
  16. Y sin embargo te quiero (And yet I love you; folk copla song; vocals: Mara Barros) + Y sin embargo (And yet)
  17. Noches de boda (Wedding nights) + Y nos dieron las diez (And the clock struck ten on us)
 Encore:
  18. La canción más hermosa del mundo (The most beautiful song in the world; vocals: Antonio García de Diego)
  19. Tan joven y tan viejo (So young and so old)
  20. Contigo (With you)
  21. Princesa (Princess)
 La canción de los buenos borrachos (The good drunkards’ song; recording)

Well, what can I say? Sabina has got old since I was a teenager. His voice has cracked – after all, he is a smoker – and he has swollen up. But his concert made me feel 30 years younger, and I enjoyed it immensely. I’ll freely admit that I bought the ticket back in January purely out of FOMO. However, I am happy I did. I did not get any of my personal favourites, and I am okay with that. Most of what he sang was part of those times.

Sabina Hola y Adiós Madrid: musican ensemble

The concert started with Yo me bajo en Atocha (I’ll alight in Atocha), a description and homage to the city of Madrid, which the singer holds particularly dear – despite the fact that he has a bad record with concerts in the city – he once had a panic attack and another time he literally fell of the stage and ended up in hospital. He started sobbing right at the end of the song. Figures.

The venue, of course, cheered and applauded, and stood up to bounce to Lágrimas de mármol (Marble tears), which has too dark lyrics for how… perky the music is, but I guess the message of “survivor, yes, damn it” is what matters. It was during Calle Melancolía (Melancholy Street) when the old guard took over, so Sabina turned the microphone towards the attendees, which did not only sing chorus but brought down the dome with their voices. He was visibly moved.

Good thing that next came 19 días y 500 noches (19 days and 500 nights) a getting-over-a-break-up song during which people can yell, and broke the spell. That made me strong enough for ¿Quién me ha robado el mes de abril? (Who stole the month of April from me?), the first time I’ve actually listened to the song since 2020 – “who stole the month of April from me? I kept it in the drawer where I keep my heart” did not sound so threatening surrounded by hundreds of other people.

Sabina Hola y Adiós Madrid: playing guitar

During Más de cien mentiras (Over a hundred lies), which is a list of all the good things in life and “over a hundred lies that are worth it”, we got the band introductions. Sabina sang himself, and played the guitar for some songs – he stayed sitting down on a tall stool. Safer for him. Antonio García de Diego played guitar, bass, and harmonica; Jaime Asúa Abasolo and Borja Montenegro also played guitar; Josemi Sagaste played sax and non-drums percussions; Pedro Barceló played drums; Laura Gómez Palma played the bass; and Mara Barros did the choruses and had some solo vocals.

Sabina retired to rest for two songs, alleging that it had always been a dream of his to have a song of his sung by a beautiful woman – Camas vacías (Empty Beds), performed by Mara Barros – and by an actual “rocker man” – Pacto entre caballeros (Pact amongst gentlemen) with Jaime Asúa on vocals. Soon after Sabina’s return came a song which holds one of the song lines that has impacted me the most in my whole life: Noches de boda (Wedding nights) hopes that “the end of the world finds you dancing”. I really hope it does.

I guess part of the fun of a concert is that you feel special. Of course that the singer has a speech for every city, and holds each one close to their hearts, or are the best or whatever. But this one did hit differently. I guess my inner child enjoyed it immensely, and even if neither of the songs of the encore did much for me in terms of nostalgia, I was incredibly grateful and happy that I had been able to attend. If it is the last tour indeed, I will have said my hello and goodbye, even if it has been 30 years after the time Joaquín Sabina’s was the only music that played in my room.

Sabina Hola y Adiós Madrid: waving goodbye to the public

Also, another extremely convenient thing: though I went by train, I had a ride home, as my parents were in town and driving back around the same time. Which was great, considering that a storm was brewing, and that there were many underground and train stations still closed due to Pride…

8th June 2025: Atienza & its Drove of Horses (Spain)

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Though today Atienza is a remote village with fewer than 500 inhabitants, during the Middle Ages it was an important fortified villa. It was a strategic site in Castile, close to the frontiers to both Aragon and Muslim-controlled areas.

When Sancho III of Castile died in 1158, his eldest son became Alfonso VIII of Castile, being three years old at the time. It was a time of instability, a civil war broke between the two most important Castilian noble families, and the neighbouring kingdoms took over territories and cities taking advantage of the situation. The young king was hidden in several towns to protect him from “the enemies” by several “allies” – who the loyal guys were depends on the story you read. One of the hiding spots was the villa of Atienza.

The king of León besieged Atienza in order to retrieve Alfonso. In order to get him out of the city, on Pentecost Sunday 1162, the Brotherhood of Muleteers requested permission to hold a short pilgrimage (romería) to the small hermit church outside the walls. The attacking army agreed – religion is weird, I guess – and the muleteers snuck the royal child out of the villa. The fastest riders then galloped for seven days to get the king to safety in Ávila. The scheme worked, and Alfonso lived until 1214.

Nowadays, the Brotherhood of the Holy Trinity Cofradía de la Santísima Trinidad carries out a similar pilgrimage, in traditional clothes, on Pentecost Sunday to “honour their ancestors and their feat”. There are several events: a cavalcade – the romería on horseback – a mass at the hermit church, a communal meal, dancing, and at the end of the day, a joust tournament. The whole festival is called “Drove of Horses of Atienza” Caballada de Atienza. As I was driving past the village on Saturday I thought that maybe my sibling would be interested in dropping by, and could do the driving.

On the way, now that I knew where to park, we could stop for a little while next to the reservoir Embalse de Alcorlo, whose dam was opened back in March so it became part of the reason the river Río Henares had so much water. The reservoir was still pretty full.

Alcorlo Reservoir, bustling with water

It was clear from the get-go that we would only stay for a couple of hours. Since we were improvising, staying for the whole thing, without lunch reservations or a definite plan, in the heat, would not have been a great idea. I just wanted to get the gist of how the festival went and how many people there were. Surprisingly, not as many as I thought. We dropped the car off at the entrance of the village and followed the signs towards the centre. We knew we were going in the right direction when we started seeing horses.

Entrance to the Medieval village of Atienza, with the name of the village, the Spanish flag and a castle in the background.

The festival starts at 10:00. The Brotherhood is called into order and they bid to carry the flag and open the pilgrimage behind the musicians. The brothers wear black suits and some are allowed to wear capes – not sure how the horses feel about that. This happens in a narrow street with way too many people and nervous horses. We decided it was safer to stay at the corner rather than trying to approach the scene – we had already witnessed a couple of them getting spooked by oblivious passers-by.

Caballada de Atienza: Horse parade in a Medieval Village. Senior brother carrying the flag

Caballada de Atienza: Horse parade in a Medieval Village. Three riders with to hats and black capes.

Caballada de Atienza: Horse parade in a Medieval Village. Senior brother with the flag, followed by musicians on mules.

Caballada de Atienza: Horse parade in a Medieval Village. Two lines of brothers along a street.

We watched the departure of the pilgrimage, and then jogged to a couple of other places for photos. We decided not to follow the cavalcade to the hermit church, because the return would have been at noon – way too hot. We waved the riders goodbye next to the remains of St. Francis’ convent, the ruins of a Gothic apse Ábside gótico del convento de San Francisco.

After the romería rode off towards the hermit church, we decided to explore the village a little. We went back to the Old Town Casco Antiguo de Atienza to have a look at the local monuments. We crossed the Medieval wall Muralla de Atienza through the arch Arco de la Virgen.

Atienza Medieval Walls

The Main Square is called Plaza del Trigo (Wheat Square), surrounded by traditional architecture, including the old council houses, a covered gallery, and the church of Saint John The Baptist Iglesia de San Juan Bautista. The current church was erected in Renaissance style in 16th century by architect Juan de la Sierra, to serve as substitute as the previous Romanesque parish.

Atienza Main Square: Plaza del Trigo, in severe Castilian architecture

Church of St John the Baptist, with a baroque altarpieceand rebuilt plaster vaults

Next to the church, serving as an exit from the square, stands the arch Arco de Arrebatacapas, the cape-stealing arch. Due to the configuration of the two squares it joins, a wind tunnel forms in the small alley – known to blow away capes or any other unsecured piece of clothing.

Medieval arch in Atienza

From an alleyway we got a good view of the castle – I’ll leave the visit for another time, when all the museums are open, and it is less hot. On the way out, we had a great view of the whole villa before we drove back for Chinese food and cold drinks.

Ruins of the Atienza Castle

7th June 2025: Tiermes Archaeological Site (Spain)

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For a while it felt that this day trip was cursed or something. Whenever I decided to schedule it, something happened – a family emergency, a weather alert, work hiccups, car trouble, you name it. I finally got everything ready on Friday and hoped for the best on Saturday morning. The weather was all right, family was okay, the car had passed its check, and work was calm for a minute. Off I went!

The Tiermes Archaeological Site Yacimiento Arqueológico de Tiermes is located in the municipality of Montejo de Tiermes, in the area of Soria. The ancient city of Tiermes was first inhabited in the Bronze Age. Before the Roman conquest, it was a Celtiberian dwelling, and during Scipio’s campaign around 134 BCE to conquer the Iberian Peninsula, it became an ally to Numancia. After the Roman Empire’s victory, the town was assimilated. In the year 98 BCE, Tiermes became a municipuim with two forums, a theatre, an aqueduct and several houses built to maximise the utility of the rocks of the area. In more recent times, a Romanesque hermit church was built nearby.

The site is located around 1200 metres high, in a sandstone landscape with flats and erosion cliffs. Both Celtiberian and Romans built around and into the rock, to the point that there are several “rock houses” which have been excavated into the mountain, with literal furniture carved out of the stone.

While the Romans made sure to keep the legend of Numancia alive – as it made the victory more glorious – Tiermes was eventually forgotten after it was abandoned, probably when the area ran out of water. The ruins were first excavated in 1960 by Teógenes Ortego and Juan Zozaya. It was however the work of José Luis Argente Oliver, between 1975 and 1988, which really brought out the ruins into the spotlight. There were new findings from 2008 onwards.

The drive was just shy of two hours, and since I left on a Saturday around 8:00, the roads were rather empty. I drove past the reservoir Embalse de Alcorlo, but the parking spot to look at the structure was behind a curve and I missed it. I also passed by the Medieval village Molina de Aragón, which had a festival the following day. I had an idea…

It was not extremely hot, and the drive was easy, even if I did not take the speedway. There was a stretch of the road which was really badly paved, and almost as soon as I drove into Soria it became pristine. I reached the parking area a bit before 10:00 – my Sat-Nav was way more on spot predicting the times than Google Maps. Though some of the roads had a speed limit of 90 kph, there was no way you could do more than 40 kph on them.

There is an area to park next to the hermit church Ermita de Santa María de Tiermes, the newest construction of the site, dating from the 12th century, which has a small cemetery associated to it. The little building looks like a 3D puzzle with its bricks and arches. It has a covered outer area, which indicates that at some point it was ready to receive pilgrims. Unfortunately, the church was closed so I could not snoop inside.

Tiermes: Romanesque Hermit Church in brick with decorated arches

Instead, I set off for the walking route, which starts at the Roman forum. When the Romans took over the city, they transformed it according to their customs, and two forums were built throughout the Julio-Claudian and the Flavian dynasties (27 BCE – 68 CE and 69 – 96 CE). Most of the forum was erected above the ground and now it is gone.

Tiermes: Ruins of the forum; a number of square foundations that would have been shops

The same happened to the House with the Aqueduct Casa del Acueducto, though in this case you can walk into the different rooms – and there are reliefs on some rocks that comprise the basements and foundations of the structure. The original house would have had 35 rooms in different levels, with stairs to move around them. The plinth was made out of the red sandstone that comprises the area and the walls were built with wood.

Tiermes: Ruins of a mansion called Aqueduct House

As Tiermes was partially built into the mountain, it has two levels. The upper one, with the forum and the Aqueduct house, and the lower one, where you can see (and enter) houses carved in the rock. I was on the upper part, heading towards the vertical wall to descend onto the lower area. In order to do so, I had to go down the West Gate of the city Puerta del Oeste, which now is just a small gorge between the levels, with a steep slope.

Whilst I was walking towards the Gate, I heard bells, and when I got to the edge of the rocks, I saw that there was a herd of sheep walking underneath, along a shepherd and five huge mastiffs. There was no way I was going to walk near the herd and bother the dogs, so I stayed in the upper part. One of the mastiffs gave out a warning bark, and at first I thought it was directed at me. However, I realised that the dog was barking at a couple of griffon vultures which were circling for any food available, namely if they could snatch a lamb, I guess. And then, one of the vultures decided to circle me instead of the sheep.

Herd of sheep with a giant mastiff guarding it

Griffon vulture gliding for lunch

When the herd was at a safe distance, I went down and crossed the Gate to walk alongside the rock wall, which has houses carved into it. Not only that, there is a whole underground aqueduct Acueducto y Túnel de Tiermes dug into the rock. And you can actually explore its whole length! I went in. It was completely dark except for a couple of ventilation holes, and at the end of it I found myself at the Aqueduct House. I decided to backtrack using the same way in order to continue the route and not miss anything by accident, or because the whole experience was wickedly cool. Take your pick.

Tiermes: Aqueduct and houses carved in the rock


 
From the entrance of the aqueduct, I walked alongside the rock wall and explored the houses built into it – Casa de las Escaleras (The House with Stairs), actual apartment blocks up to seven floors, Casa de las Hornacinas (The House with Shelves) and Sección Rupestre Sur (Southern Area), which was built half into, half onto the rock. Most of these date from or were repurposed during the Roman area, so it is difficult to point the original Celtiberian work.

Tiermes: houses carved in the rock, including staircases

Tiermes: Houses built from the rock outwards

A bit away from the rest of the town stands El Graderío, an area with sitting terraces carved onto the rock that could have been a meeting place or a theatre. Then, I found another of the gates Puerta del Sol, which again gives way to the upper area.

Tiermes: terraces carved into the rock where people could have sat

There was also the reconstruction of the Roman wall, with… a couple of pieces of the original defensive wall, and a lot of new ashlars that looked quite fake, so you could see what was original and what was not. As far as archaeological sites go, though most of what can be seen in the town is Roman, it was cool to see so much standing – especially the aqueduct – considering how little of Numancia exists on site, though the reason is probably the constructions into the rock.

I got back to the car and backtracked a little to the museum Museo Monográfico de Tiermes. The small hall exhibits pieces of pottery and artifacts recovered from the nearby necropolis Necrópolis de Carratiermes – brooches, weapons, and other burial paraphernalia which are indeed Celtiberian. The museum was free since it was a weekend.

Tiermes: Museum. Collage showing swords, spears, ceramics and brooches

On the drive back, my Sat-Nav made a weird noise. It speaks everything except… Well, route changes. It decided to propose a different route, that is what the sound meant. I think it’s a new update or something, because it had not done it before, and it has a couple of items since then. As I could not check it – it was not safe – I missed my turn for the easy secondary road and had to take an alternative route. I ended up in Jadraque.

While it is true that the castle Castillo de Jadraque is amongst the places I need to visit at some point, it was high noon. Too hot, even if you can drive nearby, for a castle which is closed for restoration. I’d rather wait till it is reworked. I did stop at a viewpoint for a couple of pictures.

Not long afterwards I found my way to the highway and it was easy to get home from there, though I do prefer the secondary road to all the lorries in the highway. I got home by lunchtime to wait out the heat and have a post-hike lunch.

Jadraque Castle, a Medieval fortress on top of a hill

30th May 2025: Retiro Park, Alice’s sushi & Jurassic World (Madrid, Spain)

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I had been on the waiting list to buy tickets for Jurassic World: The Exhibition in Madrid since it accepted sign-ups, so I was able to be amongst the first to buy tickets – albeit a few days later than originally scheduled due to the blackout. Thus, I got tickets for the first session on opening day, at 17:00 on the 30th of May. Exciting! And – almost as important – it guaranteed a spoiler-free experience…

I decided to fill the morning beforehand, and I arranged to meet some relatives at Retiro Park Parque del Retiro north-east corner. There stands one of the Romantic constructions of the park – the artificial mountain known as Montaña de los Gatos. It is a space that can be used as an exhibition venue erected during the 19th century, when follies where all the rage. A folly is a decorative building placed in a garden, usually extravagant or out of context, without a real use save from looking cute for the owner’s amusement.

The artificial mountain is literally a hollow mound covered in flowers, with a waterfall that was turned off, a sad-looking pond with a duck family, and a glass ceiling to illuminate the inside. It was closed so I could not snoop the “archaeological remains” that were found during the recent restoration.

Montaña de Los Gatos in Retiro Park, artificial mound covered in flower

Next to the mountain there is another folly, La Casita del Pescador (Fisherman’s little house). Besides that stand the remains of an old church Ruinas de San Pelayo y San Isidoro. This tiny hermit church was originally erected in Ávila during the mid 1200s. Built in the Romanesque style, it was first dedicated to Pelagius of Córdoba, and then this was changed to Isidore of Seville. During the Spanish confiscation of the Catholic church properties, it was dismantled and eventually rebuilt in Madrid as Romantic decoration in a project directed by Ricardo Velázquez Bosco. It looks weirdly out of place, but rather pretty.

Ruins of the Romanesque church Ruinas de San Pelayo y San Isidoro, in brick

The yearly book fair Feria del Libro de Madrid had started, but as my relatives were late, we could only have a quick walk before we headed off to Wonderland – The Kaiten Lab – , a running sushi restaurant with hot-dish orders on the side, with decoration inspired by Alice in Wonderland, with a twist. According to the restaurant “you step into Alice’s mind, though Alice was a psychiatric patient”. I am not sure how I feel about the mental hospital thing – I think they were just trying to cash on the entrance that was already there when they bought the venue. However, I can state that it’s a pretty mediocre sushi restaurant. With a menu price about 10 € over a Runni sushi, I was expecting something at least as good, not worse. It sells the decoration, and that is the only thing that makes it special.

Wonderland – The Kaiten Lab –. A funky restaurant themed around Alcie in Wonderland which serves sushi

We went somewhere else for dessert, and I had a smoothie. Afterwards we said goodbye and I headed off towards Espacio Ibercaja Delicias for the opening session of Jurassic World: The Exhibition, which was full of parents with children and a bunch of actual fans, some of them being parents too. I was actually the first in line to enter, but they pulled me to the side to wait for a card called “credit photopass”, which was a free perk from having been on the list. Unfortunately, the fact that they did not have that ready put a bunch of families with kids in front of me. I got my photo taken against a green screen and they added digital dinosaurs later.

As we were waiting, the whole “dinosaurs are for kids” thing popped up again. I knew things were not going to be as awesome as expected when one of the “park guides” said that her favourite dinosaur was Mosasaur. Despite what Jurassic World: Rebirth claims, Mosasaurs are not dinosaurs, but marine reptiles, which lived in the Cretaceous period (94 – 66 million years ago).

Like the previous show, the experience starts on the ferry to the island, which then opens to the main gates with a Brachiosaurus peering from overhead. The whole exhibition runs on the story that you’re a VIP visitor to the Jurassic World complex, getting a special tour. A couple of guys and myself stayed a bit behind to take pictures without kids and families, and the “ranger” scolded us because “we were going to miss the explanations” in front of a pachycephalosaurus. At that point I felt that they were herding us like cattle…

The second room is the laboratory, with Mr DNA included. There are reproductions of eggs, amber, and baby parasaurolophus, one of them a puppet brought out for kids to take pictures with. The staff did not seem to keen on catering to anyone older than eight, again…

The following two rooms were the Jurassic World movie velociraptors (Deinonychus, in real fossils): Charlie, Delta and Echo were in their confinements and there was a bit of a “training show” with Blue and Owen Grady.

Then there was a bit of a “reprieve” room with fossil replicas and a make-believe excavation, where they brought out a puppet of Bumpy, the baby ankylosaur from Camp Cretaceous. Afterwards came the hybrid Indominus rex jungle, which had a hilarious moment when a kiddo shouted “Hello Indominus, I love you” while the thing was supposedly mangling its food. This was probably the best-made animatronic, it looked a lot like the beast they invented for the movie.

The next room held the Gyrospheres from the Jurassic World film, and a baby velociraptor puppet. This one I could take a picture with after all the kids had had their turn.

Jurassic World The Exhibition. Gate with a Brachiosaurus peering above: Collage showing the velociraptors, a carnivorous dinosaurs skull, the Indominus rex and a Gyrosphere

Jurassic World The Exhibition Baby Bumpy the ankylosaurus

Finally, the last room was Rexy the Tyrannosaur – scars from the first movie and all. In universe, she almost broke containment and almost escaped. There were noises and sparks and roaring, honouring the exhibition’s motto: the closest you’ll ever be to real dinosaurs.

Jurassic World The Exhibition Rexy the T-rex. We know she's the one from the first movie because she has scars down her cheek and neck.

All in all, the dinosaur animatronics were amazing, but the staff had instructions to get everyone in-and-out in one hour, so it felt rushed and, as I said before, herded. And honestly, I am not going to listen to “park rangers” who don’t know their dinosaurs from their reptiles… Which would later be one of my beefs with the upcoming Jurassic World: Rebirth movie anyway…

However, there were dinosaurs, and they felt pretty real, especially the Indominus and Rexy. I missed the mosasaur, though (even if there was a super-cute plush toy in the souvenir shop). All in all, the exhibition was really fun. The animatronics were very lifelike and Bumpy looked exactly like she does in the animation. All in all, it was a good day with ruins, sushi, dinosaurs and geeking out. There’s not much more anyone can ask for…

26th May 2025: Sliema & the return {Malta, May 2025}

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It was my last day in Malta. My return plane was mid-afternoon, so I had to head towards the airport at noon the latest. For that morning, I had planned a leisure stroll along the beaches towards the east of Saint Julian’s | San Ġiljan and Sliema. I had breakfast, grabbed my backpack, and set out along Ballutta Bay, Exiles Bay and St Julian’s Bay.

Balluta bay - a tiny sand beach with buildings on both sides

Limestone beach with waves breaking against it

There is a watch tower at the edge between both towns Saint Julian’s Tower | Torri ta’ San Ġiljan, built to protect the bay in 1658, though today it is a restaurant. After looking at the waves for a while, I walked along the coastline until I found the Roman Baths, which to my disappointment, are not Roman but Victorian artificial pools, from the time Malta was a British colony – they were upfront about this though, unlike the Birżebbuġa ones.

Sliema Roman baths - rectangular pools carved into the limestone

I can look at waves for hours, and that’s exactly what I did. I passed by Sliema Point Battery (now also a restaurant; I would have liked to try it to be honest, just because it looked cool) and eventually reached the Sliema Promenade. There, the scenic ferries leave to take tourists around the bay, and the actual ferries sail off to Valletta, which can be seen across the water from the Panoramic View Of Valletta point. There is a cute little building, the Sea water distilling monument, the remains of Malta’s oldest water distillation plant, used after its construction in 1881 to provide drinking water to the population. Fresh water was obtained by boiling sea water to separate the actual water from the salt.

Views of Valletta across the bay

I still had a little bit of time, but I was next to the correct bus stop, and it was almost time for it to pass. Thus, I decided to take it, get to the airport, grab a coffee, and visit the Observation deck.

As I stopped by the airport’s Costa Coffee I got talking to a couple who had just landed and were figuring their way out after a change of plans. When they heard I was going home, they immediately asked where my next adventure was. I found it both endearing and hilarious – do I look that travel-minded? I should have told them that I planned to go dig dinosaur eggs or something…

I drank my vanilla latte at the Observation deck, then I went through Security and checked the book shops for a copy of The Little Prince in Maltese for my parent. I found a quiet place to sit – and damn it was freezing, so I ended up wearing all my layers until I boarded the plane.

In the end, I carried my bathing suit for nothing, but I have to admit that despite the inconveniences on Saturday, I had a blast in Malta. While it had never been on my radar as a potential destination beforehand, I am really glad I chose it. I did not miss having a car, because the public transport was convenient enough, and the weather was superb. Gozo was not as spectacular as I expected, but I wouldn’t mind coming back to the country to explore the rest of the temples – especially the Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum – and the one main city I did not visit – Mdina. Next time around though, I don’t think I’ll book any tours and organise everything myself. Given some time, I think I can make a great itinerary for a second visit. Oh, and I will try to find a hotel in a non-party area or destination.

25th May 2025: Gozo Tour {Malta, May 2025}

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I had booked a second tour, in order to get to know the Island of Gozo. This time around though I had a very clear pick-up point, which I hoped would work out, unlike the previous day. Fortunately, the instructions from Gozo Tours were extremely clear and I knew exactly where the pick up point was, without any non-working links. There were other people from my same hotel, so we got nervous together. The driver was not too late though. We were driven in a mini-van towards the passenger terminal in the north of the island, Cirkewwa. There, we waited for pick-ups from other parts of the island. We had a charter high-speed boat that crossed the Gozo Channel and dropped us off at the Mgarr Harbour terminal in the second-biggest island of Malta (country).

Gozo | Għawdex is less urban than the Island of Malta, so I had decided that maybe the Full Day Jeep Safari Of Gozo could be a good way to get a feeling of the island, without having to plan much and depend on public transport. In hindsight, it was probably unnecessary but it eliminated the need to plan. All in all, the tour was convenient, but not something I would choose again – the landscapes were beautiful and dramatic, but not as crazy as I had expected.

I became really amused at how many people (read: most everyone) were unaware of the speed a speedboat reaches. I was glad that the boat was so fast; it glided over the wind-waves, and there was no swaying. That was good, because said wind would have made the trip miserable at a slower speed. However, there was a group of Italian girls who were absolutely petrified.

We reached Mgarr Harbour in Gozo and separated into small groups for the different jeeps. I was placed with four Londoners and an English guide, which suited me just fine. I don’t remember whether I actively chose the English-speaking tour, or I got assigned to one because I used the English webpage. There must have been tours in other languages. Apparently, all the jeeps go to the same spots at different times of the day so they don’t run into each other, so we followed a bit of a zigzagging route, with specific spots in different cities and towns. The information said there would be a “swim stop” during summer, I was just not sure whether the 25th of May would count as summer. I carried my swimsuit and towel anyway.

The first stop was barely five minutes in: Qala Belvedere, a panoramic spot in the town of Qala, which allowed us to catch sight of Comino, the third-biggest island in the archipelago. Afterwards, we got back on the jeep and headed off towards Ramla Bay in Xaghra. As he was describing the landscape, the guide at some point mentioned volcanic rock, which threw me off, as I believed that the islands were sedimentary. I thought maybe he meant there was some tuff. However, everything I have read about the geology of the islands agrees – the whole of them is sedimentary rock, in five main strata. From oldest, at the bottom, to newer, these are coralline limestone (Żonqor), globigerina limestone (Franka), blue clay mudstone (Tafal), greensand sandstone (Ġebla s-Safra) and coralline limestone again (Qawwi ta’ Fuq).

The Upper Coralline limestone formation (the most recent) is pale and grey, and it is embedded with biological structures. The most important rock is the globigerina limestone, which is golden and between 23 and 14 million years old. It is called so because it contains a lot of globigerina – a type of plankton – fossils (I did see a lot of shells in the rocks, but I was not carrying anything to dig the fossils out). This is the majority of building material in the country, even in a lot of the prehistoric temples. It has been designated a Global Heritage Stone Resource, something I did not even know existed until now. The blue clay is also key in Gozo as it is the one that allows for the creation of freshwater aquifers through the filtration of rainwater. The thing with limestone is that it erodes very dramatically, creating very capricious forms which are the base of the striking landscapes in the island.

The shore of Ramla Bay is one of the few sand beaches in the country. It is called Ramla il-Ħamra (Red Sands) because of its reddish colour due to the presence of iron clay in the area. The beach is locked by two rocky formations / cliffs that protect it from the waves – unfortunately, not from real estate developers.

Ramla Bay - a small reddish sand beach inbetween rocky cliffs

We continued towards Xwejni Bay in Żebbuġ. It has a small beach of pebbles, with a promontory to one of the sides, and a dramatic walk along the other side which leads to the salt pans. Unlike the ones from Birżebbuġa, these pans are commercially exploited. Between May and September, each pool is filled, individually and manually, with sea water which proceeds to evaporate and leave behind the dry salt crystals. With good weather, salt can be harvested once a week, and it is sold as flakes without further processing – rather nice, I’d say. We also were shown to a small shop that had tastings in hopes you bought stuff, and I did try the salt and the oil.

Xwejni - a beach made by the erosion of limestone, with salt pans excavated into it

We drove by Basilica of the Blessed Virgin Of Ta’ Pinu | Santwarju Bażilika tal-Madonna ta’ Pinu, though we did not stop. The current building is Neo-Romanesque – construction started in the 1920s – and it looks like something from a fantasy cartoon. However, it is a serious Catholic temple, dating back from the 16th century at least, even if it kind of stands in the middle of nowhere.

We crossed the town of Għarb and made a short stop at the SG 8 globigerina limestone quarry. It made me sad that the SG did not stand for “Stargate” but what can you do? The quarries through the island extract the rock which is used as construction material in many buildings through the country.

Limestone quarry

Instead of going to the other side of the galaxy, we headed off to San Lawrenz to see the Inland Sea | Qawra, a lagoon connected to the sea through a cave fault in the cliffs. When the weather is nice, there are boats giving you a ride past the archway and out to the sea, but not this time around – there were some pretty decent waves coming in, so it was too dangerous to sail the crossing.

Small lagoon connected to the ocean by a cave

We drove through Għarb again, where I could catch a glimpse of the Basilica and Collegiate Parish church of the Visitation of Our Lady, and continued towards Xewkija where we were to have a “three-course course light lunch”. This consisted on a Ricotta Pastizz (pastry stuffed with ricotta cheese), Maltese Bragioli | Beef Olive (stuffed beef roll), and vanilla ice-cream, along with wine that I did not have, I went for water instead. Food was all right, I was not hungry so it was fine. Afterwards, the guide offered to take us to a gelateria to have “the best ice-cream ever”.

Pastizzi (pastry filled with cheese), and a meatball with potato wedges

Before that, we crossed the scorching square to see the Rotunda St. John Baptist Church | Basilika St. Johannes der Täufer, which had recently been struck by lightning. This is a Baroque church established in 1678, though the building was erected in limestone in the mid-20th century. The new building actually encased the original church, which now is a small chapel to the left side of the main altar. St John is the Spiritual Seat of the Knights Hospitaller.

Neoclassical church with a dome

The next stop was Xlendi Bay and the beach town of Xlendi. There stands Xlendi Tower, built by the Knights in 1650, restored in 2010. The natural landscape was stunning, but the town itself was just a touristy beach town. The promised ice-cream parlour was a chain called Gelateria Granola, where I decided to try the cookie ice-cream, because it was something I had never come across before, and I had next to no time to choose, it felt – I have no idea how I ended at the front of the crowd.

Xlendi: cliffs and breaking waves

Ice-cream happily consumed, we drove off. We stopped in Fontana where there is a natural water spout called the Knight’s Wash House, halfway between a historical landmark and a local fountain. As a curiosity it was all right. We continued to Victoria, whose historical seed is called The Cittadella | Iċ-Ċittadella, the Citadel. The area comprising the Cittadella was first inhabited during the Bronze Age, and it probably went on to become the Roman acropolis and eventually a castle in the Middle Ages. The castle defences were reconstructed in the 17th century, but they were not considered the best – the Cittadella actually surrendered in the 1798 French invasion and counterstrike, without much resistance either time.

Our allotted time there felt too long for just a walk and too short to the whole thing, unfortunately, so I could not snoop around the museums. Furthermore, the Cathedral of the Assumption – The Matrix, Parish Church, Sanctuary, Collegiate and Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven | Parrocca Matrici, Arcipretali, Santwarju, Kollegjata Insinji u Katidral ta’ Santa Marija Assunta was closed. The whole area looked like it would be awesome to be able to sleep over there – especially because walking uphill to visit it would be hard in the sun.

Fortification made in limestone with a baroque cathedral

The hour approached to head back to the quay. We started making our retreat with two short stops on the way, in the town of Għajnsielem. The first one was for the guide to take our pictures with the Monument to the bench in the village square, a metal bench showcasing a pair of grandparents, a young woman with a smartphone and a cat begging for attention. The bench is located in front of the Għajnsielem Parish Church. The second stop was a panoramic view of Gozo Straight and the Church of the Madonna of Lourdes | Knisja tal-Madonna ta’ Lourdes. There was no swim stop in the end, so late May is not summer yet. All in all, we started off around 10:00 and were done by 16:00, and it cost 80 €.

We made it back to Mgarr Harbour, where we took the speedboat back, first to drop off some passengers in Comino, which gave us a peek into the Blue Lagoon there. Again, I was glad for the speed, because the waves would have made a leisure trip miserable. Afterwards, we were driven back our points of origin. Back in my hotel, I snacked on some salt-and-vinegar crisps from my favourite British brand that I had found in the supermarket.

The turquoise water of the blue lagoon in front of the island of Comino

Around sunset, I went out to explore Saint Julian’s | San Ġiljan a little further. I had considered some of the typical restaurants there, but since I ate the crisps I was not hungry. What I did was walk around Spinola Bay, along Spinola Slipway and Saint Julian’s Promenade, and past the Fisherman Monument – with yet another cat begging. I tried to reach the marina, but it was all uphill and taken over by the luxury hotels.

A sculpture of a fisherman cleaning the nets while a cat looks eagerly at him, and a view of an urban bay front

Instead of dinner, I had another snack, and then headed off back for a shower, some sleep and… yes, another 5:00 wake up call. Talk about jet lag without changing your time zones!

24th May 2025: Megalithic (self-guided) Tour {Malta, May 2025}

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The group of drunk people was back again, at 5:00 once more. Joy. However, this time I could not get an early start because I had booked a Megalithic Tour with a company called Visit Malta, as at first it had felt more convenient than navigating the buses. They confirmed and sent me a ticket saying that pick up was at my hotel, and a Google Maps link that did not work. Thus, I assumed that they would pick me up at the hotel. I tried to contact them via email previously, but I had no reply, so I told myself not to be paranoid, and trust them.

Twenty minutes after the pick up time, I called them. They yelled at me that I was in the wrong place. I informed them that my ticket read “pick up at the hotel”. They told me there was nothing they could do for me. So I was upset for about 3 minutes – that was 50 € down the drain. However, it was only 9:30 in the morning, so I had time to take matters in my own hands and go see the temples on my own. And I could even squeeze an extra one! I felt… I don’t know… gleefully spiteful. I was going to see the temples out of revenge! I know it sounds strange, but it took me back to what happened in Cappadoccia, when there was nothing I could do to fix the issue. This time around, I had lost some money, but I would not miss on the experience.

Of course, this would have been much more efficient if I had organised the visits originally on my own, since the Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra Archaeological Park | Il-Park Arkeoloġiku Ta’ Ħaġar Qim u L-Imnajdra is in Qrendi | Il-Qrendi, quite close to the Blue Grotto. Conversely, that also made it easy for me to get there, since I knew the bus route already. But I decided not to dwell on the inconvenience and just “save back” the lost 50 € back not buying whims or mementos.

The Megalithic Temples of Malta are a World Heritage site, and it still blows my mind that they are older than either Stonehenge or the Giza Pyramids. The Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra Archaeological Park | Il-Park Arkeoloġiku Ta’ Ħaġar Qim u L-Imnajdra might be the most well-known complex, or at least it was the one with most tourists.

The temples Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra are located very close to one another, and they share an entrance with a small museum, thus forming one archaeological park. Both were first officially described by officer J.G. Vance of the Royal Engineers (British Army) in the 1840s. Unlike Ħal Tarxien on Thursday evening, these two were packed with visitors – more than a few of them happily touching the stones out of curiosity or for support as they walked. I got there in bus 201 and reached the entrance just before a big tour bus entered. The guide lady tried to go past me, but my face must have told her that I was not in the mood to be messed up with, and my turn was respected. The museum mostly had information about the environment, and pieces of pottery that had been recovered from the sites – similar to what the Archaeological Museum in Valletta.

Ħaġar Qim was erected using the ever-present globigerina limestone, a soft sedimentary rock, golden in colour, formed around 23 – 14 million years ago. As this and other temples have weathered out, they have taken a more reddish or brown colour. To protect the remains from deterioration, many have been covered with protective tents.

The temple has several inner chambers within a retaining wall that can be crossed through a trilithon. The whole site has a keyhole shape, and it has been associated with fertility rituals. The main temple was built between 3600 and 3200 BCE, with remains of older ruins. As construction went on, the shape became distorted. It holds the largest stone in any of the Maltese temples, and an altar probably for animal sacrifices. It was hard to get into the magnificence of the temples with so many people swarming them after the Ħal Tarxien experience. However, the structure is quite impressive in itself.

Hagar Quim Neolithic temple: a roundish construction surrounded by a wall made out of limestone. Inside there are chambers and open holes working as doors, along a thriliton as main gate.

Mnajdra | L-Imnajdra is made from coralline limestone, a harder kind of stone, so as a construction material, it can be used in smaller blocks. Mnajdra might be the most representative temple in the archipelago, as its altar is depicted in Malta’s 1, 2 and 5-cent coins – though it is not the one which kickstarted the Unesco protection. Mnajdra consists on three temples arranged in a clover-leaf disposition. The structures are joined but not connected. They were erected between 3600 and 2500 BCE – so they could be over 5,600 years old. Even with the sheer amount of people around, there was something special about the complex. The temple plays light tricks on the equinoxes and solstices, and the decoration of one of the stones could be interpreted as a lunar calendar (with a lot of imagination, if you ask me). Probably, out of all the temples I visited, this one was the one I found more impressive – even if the first one I saw will forever remain my emotional-favourite.

Mnajdra Neolithic temple: a reddish limestonestructure with trilitons and low walls made out of brick-like structures

I was done before schedule, so I went back towards the bus stop. I returned to the airport and then took another bus (119) to Birżebbuġa. There I could see the Għar Dalam Cave and its museum. The Cave is home to some of the oldest evidence of human presence in Malta, around 7,400 years ago (the oldest comes from Mellieħa Cave, dated as 8,500 years old). Għar Dalam Cave is about 144 metres in length, and it also contains remains of animals that have been long extinct in the island, found in distinct layers of sediment at the bottom of the cave.

There is a base layer of clay, older than 167,000 years. Over that lies the “Hippopotamus layer”, showing remains of two extinct species of hippopotamus, deer, dwarf elephants… One of the hippos, Hippopotamus melitensis, was a “dwarf” hippo (only 900 kg) endemic to the island. The remains are very mineralised (almost fossils) and worn down. This is also called the “Breccia layer”. Breccia is a rock composed large angular fragments of minerals cemented by a fine-grained matrix, only in this case the fragments are ancient hippo bone.

Covering the “Hippopotamus Layer”, there is a band of pebbles, without any remains. Over that one lies the “Carnivora Layer”, with remains of several of the previous animals along with foxes, wolves, bears, and smaller creatures such as voles, shrews, bats, turtles… These range from around 167,3000 to 151,200 years ago, and are less mineralised and worn down, just like the following band: the “Deer Layer”. Here there are remains of three different species of deer, some bovines, equines, and small animals. The two upper layers, starting 7,200 years ago, hold remains of small wild animals, domestic animals – sheep, goats, pigs, cows and cats – pottery and other human artefacts, and human remains.

Għar Dalam was first investigated in 1865 by palaeontologist Arturo Issel. Subsequent researchers expanded the excavation and knowledge, identified an all-new species of dwarf hippopotamus, and systematised the museum adjacent to the Cave. Said museum, called the George Zammit Maempel Hall presents hundreds (thousands, maybe) of the remains dug up from the cave. However, the most important ones, amongst them the skull of a Neolithic child, were stolen in 1980. The Cave itself is creepy and damp, and the excavation shows the different layers for the spectator to see. One wonders what lies beneath the end of the visitable area… I would believe the cave be haunted much easily than the Grand Master’s Palace.

Ghar Dalam museum: samples of rock with bones, and cleaned bones and hundreds of small bones in display cabinets.

Ghar Dalam cave - deep cave with excavated ground where you can guess the layers of bones and remains.

Across the valley from the Cave, you can see the remains of a ruined Roman villa Ta’ Kaċċatura, but it cannot be reached, and it’s hard to distinguish rocks from the actual ruins.

By now, I had seen all the temples included in the original tour, so I had a bit of a victory moment. And yet, I had more to do. I loaded up on sun lotion, then headed towards the nearby Borġ In-Nadur, barely ten minutes away on foot – plus some extra to cross the street so you are on something similar to a pavement to walk on. Borġ In-Nadur is another small megalithic structure, with a cemetery, and the remains of a Bronze Age village, with remains ranging from the years 3000 to 700 BCE. Entrance to the Megalithic site was included with the visit of Għar Dalam. The temple was first excavated in the 1920s by archaeologist Margaret Murray. It is the most dilapidated site I visited, but I was again alone – except for a couple of chickens from an adjacent farm. You are allowed to go into the niche or stone circle, and unlike the other temples, it is not covered (yet?).

Borg in Nadur, a roundish collection of megaliths vaguely disposed in a circle


 
Near the temple, at the limestone beach of St George’s Bay | Il-Bajja ta’ San Ġorġ, I found silos and cart ruts, also thought to date from the Bronze Age, and Roman Baths directly carved into the limestone. They are not really Roman baths, as in dating from Ancient Rome, these are artificial pools were excavated into the rock during Victorian times. And yet modern people think they’ve invented something…

Different constructions near the sea shore: cart ruts, round silos and square artificial pools

Not far from there, I found the bathing beaches, the commercial harbour and the salt pans, a traditional way to produce salt letting sea water evaporate from shallow pools in order to harvest the salt crystals. They did not seem in use though as they were either full of litter or used as sunbathing spots.

Rows of rectangular salt pans - shallow tidal pools - near the ocean

I still had some time and energy, and decided to invest them on getting to Birgu. This Medieval city is located across the Grand Harbour from Valletta, and it was the first place where the Knights Hospitaller settled. It has a bunch of historical palaces and museums. I would not get there before closing times, but at least I could see the town layout and some buildings from the outside. These included the Gate of Provence, the Inquisitor Palace, the Birgu Waterfront and Maritime Museum, and finally Fort Saint Angelo, a key fortress during the Siege of Malta. Today, use of the fort has been granted to the modern version of the Knights. There was a sign reading “Jurassic World: Dominion” was filmed here, but I did not recognise the backdrop.

Walled entrance to Birgu

Ruins of the Birgu Waterfront overlooking the ocean and Valletta

I found a convenient bus to head back to Saint Julian’s | San Ġiljan. I freshened up and headed for dinner. At first, I tried to get a table at a restaurant right at the entrance of the hotel. Since they decided to ignore me and give the table to someone else, I moved along. I found Salt & Pepper, a nice grill with an ocean view and an outdoor sitting area. There, I was able to try Stuffat tal-Fenek (fried rabbit in garlic), a typical Maltese recipe (considered the national dish, actually) – pan fried rabbit, simmered in wine, tomato paste, garlic, peas and olive oil, served with roasted potatoes. I wanted to try it, but at the same time I was a bit reluctant, as I am not a big fan of neither garlic nor wine. In the end, I have to say I enjoyed it more than I thought (as long as I kept my mind away from it being actually… rabbit).

Rabbit cooked in tomato sauce with peas and herbs, and wedged potatoes on the side.

Afterwards, I walked around Spinola Bay for some nice views before I turned in for a shower and some sleep… only to be woken up at 5:00. Again. But hey, this time it was a group of girls.

23rd May 2025: Valletta {Malta, May 2025}

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Around 5:00, I was woken up by a group of guys singing, and I thought they were outside, drunk and going back to their hotel. It turns out that Saint Julian’s | San Ġiljan is a party area. I had absolutely no idea – I would like to chalk that up to the improvisation again, but to be honest the concept of a “party town” is one that had not even crossed my mind till then. I did not sleep much afterwards, so a bit after 7:30, when breakfast opened, I headed there, then I took the bus towards the capital, Valletta.

My first stop was a compulsory one – the City Gate | Bieb il-Belt which I had to cross to walk into the city. The capital of Malta was declared a Unesco World Heritage in 1980 under the name City of Valletta because with 320 monuments in 55 hectares, it is one of the most concentrated historic areas in the world. The city was erected by the Knights Hospitaller around a watch tower that was demolished to create a large defensive fort. After said fort fell during the Great Siege of 1565, the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller Jean de Valette decided to build a grand fortified city with plans by Francesco Laparelli. Neither Valette nor Laparelli saw the city complete, which happened in the 1570s, when it became the capital. The Gate is the entrance to the fortification itself, separating Valletta from the city of Floriana. Protected by its the walls, Valletta thrived and though 17th the century it became filled with manors and palaces, some of which have now been repurposed as hotels or museums.

One of such buildings is the National Museum of Archaeology, which hosts artefacts from the Neolithic (around 5900 BCE) to the Phoenician period (circa the 6th century CE). On the ground floor they have all the items that have been removed from the Neolithic temples for protection, including some of the carvings from Ħal Tarxien Prehistoric Complex. A tiny clay figuring called The Sleeping Lady captured my attention. It was a lovely detailed little representation from the so called Temple Period of Maltese history (4000 – 2500 BCE), which was recovered from the Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum. There are also headless bodies and bodiless heads found at other temples.

Archaeological Museum Valletta: pieces taken from the Temples in order to protect them: carved rocks, statues (most of them of bodies without heads), trilithons...

Archaeological Museum Valletta: Sleeping lady. A small figurine of a woman sleeping made in clay

I proceeded upstairs, where there is a small exhibit on “cart ruts”, a network of tracks in the rock. The analysis seems to show that they were made by carts with wooden wheels eroding the limestone. However, there are no… traces of whatever pulled on them – no tracks, no trails, nothing but the wheels. There is another room displaying Phoenician civilisation, and one showing some amphorae from a shipwreck off Xlendi Bay in the island of Gozo, at a depth of 110 m. The ship sank in 700 BC, it was discovered in 2007 and it was finally excavated between 2018 and 2021.

The final room I saw hosts a few skulls from the Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum. I might have to return to Malta just to finish exploring all the prehistoric sites – aside from that, there is sea, the food is delicious and when you open the tap, the water is warm. I felt right at home, really. Anyway, some of these skulls are described as “elongated” and for a while there was even a conspiracy theory about them being alien… They are not. The elongation was not artificially created, like in some Mesoamerican cultures. They belonged to a few individuals who had… long heads. Which is a bit anticlimactic, but only a few remains have been recovered from the calculated thousands, so there is very little that can be inferred from whomever was interred in the burial chamber.

Archaeological Museum Valletta: Phoenician pottery, skulls from the Hypogeum, anforae from the shipwreck

There was actually a last-last area, a ball room from the Baroque palace, but that was under construction and I could barely have a bit of a look. Afterwards, I walked towards the St. John’s Co-Cathedral | Kon-Katidral ta’ San Ġwan. The Catholic co-cathedral shares responsibilities with the one in Mdina, and was built between 1573 and 1578 in a Mannerist style. The interior was redecorated in the 17th century in a very Baroque style and lots – and I mean lots – of gold and golden decoration. Downstairs, there is a crypt where some Grand Masters of the Knights Hospitaller are buried. On the main floor, the nave is surrounded by nine chapels, eight of which are dedicated to the different chapters of the Order and their patron Saint, and the last one is dedicated to and one to the Virgin Mary. .

Though you can get tickets online, there is no chance to buy same-day tickets but on site. I queued for a while, maybe 20 minutes or so, before I was scanned for… guns and explosives… then I was allowed in. There were small restoration works being carried out. Not a Baroque person in general, but I have to admit it was impressive. I declined climbing to the dome because the fun views are from across the harbour, not from inside the city itself.

The co-cathedral holds two pieces of art by Caravaggio – The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist and Saint Jerome Writing, both in the chiaroscuro style – with high contrasts of light and dark. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571 – 1610) was one of the maximum representatives of chiaroscuro, with usually violent and gruesome topics, usually disguised as hagiography.

Baroque interior of the cathedral, with dark walls decorated with frescoes and golden wood

After I exited the cathedral, I headed down a small alley opposite for something that is not a monument but… made me happy anyway. Malta has Costa Coffee – something which, unlike the plugs, I had thought of checking beforehand. I actually had a shop near my hotel. Had I known that, I might have skipped booking breakfast. What I did worked really well though, so no big deal. I managed to balance breakfast and dinner, which made my moving around more convenient, not needing to find a place for lunch. Of course, a medium vanilla latte from Costa does not count…

My next stop was the Grand Master’s Palace | Il-Palazz tal-Granmastru. It was the first building erected by the Knights Hospitaller around 1574, and it is considered the seed of both Valletta and the country of Malta itself. The building was first the residence of the eponymous Grand Master of the Knights of Malta until the 18th century, then the residence of British Governors, the Seat of the Parliament, and it currently houses the Office of the President of Malta. That explains why the security is tight enough you’re not even allowed a bottle of water in.

The building was designed by Gerolamo Cassar. The exterior is Mannerist, severe and simple, but the interior is richly decorated with paintings and frescoes. Some of the rooms have coffered ceilings and tapestries on the walls. There is a huge armoury, organised chronologically, and a throne room, which felt a bit out of place for a republic. The building has two courtyards – the so-called Prince Alfred’s Courtyard has a clock tower which is claimed to date from the 1530s. Oh, and apparently, it’s haunted? I did not feel anything out of the ordinary, not even a temperature drop. That would have been handy.

Grand Master's Palace - clock tower, throne room and corridors decorated with frescoes

After the Palace, I walked down Valletta’s narrow streets and until I reached St Paul’s Pro-Cathedral | Il-Pro-Katridral ta’ San Pawl, the Anglican “temporary” cathedral, established in 1839 – and still in use. It is a Neoclassical building with a very characteristic steeple and an organ imported from England.

Interior of the cathedral, with corinth columns and a small altar.

I then took a walk towards what is called Lower Valletta, at sea level. I walked around Elmo Bay and reached Fort Saint Elmo | Forti Sant’Iermu. The origin of the star-shaped fort was defence against the Ottoman Empire (which would eventually yield to Türkiye), and it is a large structure in limestone. It was key in the 1565 Great Siege of Malta and the Maltese victory. However, the interior is a War Museum, and I did not quite feel like that. Instead, I walked around and went down to the beach to enjoy the waves and the views of Fort Ricasoli | Forti Rikażli across the bay.

Fort St Elmo - a sea-side fortification made in golden limestone

Later, I found the Lower Barrakka Gardens | Il-Barrakka t’Isfel, a green terraced with trees, monuments and fountains, along with a nice view. I was heading upwards again, towards Upper Valletta.

Lower Barrrakka Park: Mediterranean plants, a temple-like building and a pond.

I thought I ought to get some food as I passed by the Valletta Food Market | Is-Suq Tal-Belt, but I did not find anything I fancied. I bought a soda in a small market in the basement, where I was charged 10 cents for the “reusable cap” (fair) and 10 extra cents for buying a chilled drink (LOL). The soda gave me calories and hydration enough to continue on, so I found the Upper Barrakka Gardens | Il-Barrakka ta’ Fuq. Aside from a nice mixture of architecture and nature, the gardens are linked to the Saluting Battery | Batterija tas-Salut, which stands under the terraced area of the gardens as part of the St. Peter & Paul Bastion. It was constructed in the 16th century for ceremonial gun salutes. Today it hosts cannon replicas that are fired at 12:00 and 16:00. I was there for the Evening Salute, with the firm plan to watch from above.

Then a nice gentleman in a nifty uniform said something akin to “for just 3 € be the closest to a firing cannon you can be in Europe” and there went all my restraint. I mean it was only 3 € and being the closest to a firing cannon you can be in Europe. Yes, I’m easily distracted. Yes, I paid the 3 €.

Entry included a brief explanation, including what a “smooth-bore breech loading 32-pounder gun” is: basically, a cannon designed in the 1880s with a smooth barrel, which can be loaded from the breech end of the barrel and… can fire shells weighing 55 pounds (24.95 kg). They were made modifying guns that could only shoot 32-pound shells though. The soldier-actor explained about cannons, how to load them, what the process was and the security protocols. Oh, and that the weapons were anything but accurate in real life. That was cooler than I thought it would be, so I was happy I had decided to get the ticket.

Saluting Battery: cannons and still of the shooting


 
When the demonstration was over, I left the gardens. I walked past the Tower Port and The Lascaris War Rooms, another war museum, on my way to the Herbert Ganado Gardens and the Kalkara Steps. Doing this, I temporarily left Valletta and stepped into Floriana, then walked back into Valletta until I found The Valletta Waterfront, a group harbour warehouses from the 1700s which have been converted into restaurants, bars and souvenir shops. Since it was that silly time when the restaurants have closed after lunch time and are not yet open for dinner, it was almost empty, so it was nice to see all the buildings.

Valletta Waterfront: a line of neoclassical warehouses and buildings turned into shops and eateries

I had two options then – one was walking back towards the city centre to see two churches that I had missed, or head back to Saint Julian’s | San Ġiljan. Since I was quite closer to the bus station than to any of the churches (Shrine of Our Lady of Mount Carmel | Bażilika Santwarju tal-Madonna tal-Karmnu and The Collegiate Matrix Parish church of Saint Paul | Il-Knisja Kolleġġjata Arċipretali u Matriċi ta’ San Pawl), I decided to return.

Once in Saint Julian’s | San Ġiljan, I had the largest pizza I’ve ever had the pleasure or disgrace to be served. I mean, good thing that I ordered a plain Margherita (in all honesty, it was the house special with extra cheese) because I would not have been able to eat anything with toppings, even after having basically skipped lunch. I somehow made space for ice-cream afterwards…

Huge Margheritta pizza

22nd May 2025: Blue Grotto, Tarxien & Saint Julian’s / Sliema {Malta, May 2025}

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My flight departed at 9:55 from Madrid-Barajas, which is actually a very bad time for a flight, as you have to drive to the airport through the daily rush-hour traffic jam. However, for a change, I was given a lift there instead of driving myself – my car failed a few days before and I was not feeling too trusting. The inbound plane was delayed, and we ended up landing at Malta International Airport around an hour late.

It turns out that Malta has done a smart thing – the airport is also a coach hub, and there was a bus which went directly where I wanted to go first 20 minutes afterwards – that was lucky because the bus only comes every hour. It did not take long to reach the Blue Grotto | Taħt il-Ħnejja in the village of Qrendi | Il-Qrendi.

I got off in an aptly-named bus stopped called Grotto, next to which stands Xutu Tower | Torri Xutu. The history of Malta cannot really be understood without mentioning the Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, the Knights Hospitaller, today also known as the Sovereign Order of Malta. This Catholic military order was founded during the Crusades in the 12th century and the knights were established in Malta between 1530 and 1798, acquiring the name. They fortified the island and created the city and defences of Valletta, so-named after Grand Master La Valette. The knights built hospitals – along with medicine schools – and turned Valletta into a centre of art and culture with a university, a school of navigation, and a school of mathematics. Through the centuries, the order transitioned from a warring and defensive army to an organisation centred in humanitarian, medial and social assistance.

Xutu Tower | Torri Xutu was one of the towers built during the operation to fortify the coastline of Malta, probably around 1650. It is a two-story tower with a square ground plan and vaulted ceilings inside, setting the example of the towers that would be built afterwards. As many buildings in the island, the tower was erected using limestone, and restored in 2014 using the same type of material. It also yields to impressive sights – even without climbing it – of the ocean and the islet of Filfla, uninhabited and turned a bird sanctuary.

Qrendi cliffs, made if whiteish - grey rock, over a calm dark-blue ocean

I bought a ten-euro ticket to sail to the Blue Grotto | Taħt il-Ħnejja from the Blue Grotto Boat Service. This is just a way to amalgamate all the captains and boats who do trips to the caves, I think, and not a bad one. It is a quick trip that does not even take half an hour and charters you to snoop the different caves, created by the erosion of sea water and waves against the cliffs. Each has its name: Blue Window Cave, Circle Cave, Calscave, Honeymoon Cave, Cat’s Cave, Reflection Cave and the main archway which gives the name to the whole area, the Blue Grotto. The water is very clear and since the sun was out, there were extremely beautiful reflections. I stuck my hand in the ocean a few times when I was not taking pictures.

Blue Grotto: Sea level caves with bright blue water

Afterwards, I decided to stop for food. I was not really hungry, but I wanted to tackle the walk to the viewpoint, which was 15 minutes. I thought it would be more efficient to have a late lunch first. There were a couple of restaurants and I chose Step in Malta. It had a terrace, was less than half full, and most importantly: offered calamari fritti. When I researched Maltese food, I read about this dish – fried squid with garlic and parsley mayonnaise, and I really wanted to try them. I think I broke the poor waiter’s brain when I told him I did not need the menu and ordered directly. They were delicious.

Calamari fritti: a plate of breaded and fried squid

I then did the short walk to the Blue Grotto Viewpoint – and though I won’t be mentioning it much, just assume I just used a lot of sun lotion all the time. It did not take as long as I expected, even if the shortcut was closed down. It yield to pretty views, but not as impressive as expected.

Blue Grotto viewpoint, showing the cliffs from above

I was about to go back towards the original spot to wait for the 201 bus again, when a Valletta-bound bus stopped by. I hopped onto that one to use the Wi-Fi and replan the rest of my evening. An idea had been to head towards Valletta indeed, but instead I decided to try my luck to reach my first Megalithic temple in Tarxien | Ħal Tarxien. The Blue Grotto is actually quite near another archaeological complex, but that one was covered by the tour I had booked on Saturday.

The trip to Tarxien turned out to be a great idea. When I arrived, I was surprised by the sheer amount of Christian images that were in the streets. That weekend the Catholics celebrated the Feast of the Annunciation. Malta is officially a Catholic country with over 80% of the population adhering to the religion, so while it was slightly surprising to see so much decoration, it is not shocking. I wanted to get to the Ħal Tarxien Prehistoric Complex | Il-kumpless Preistoriku ta’ Ħal Tarxien because it had a closing time.

A street crossing in Tarxien, with a movable Catholic altar brought out. The houses on the corners have flags with religious motives, and the altar is guarded by angels carved in wood

The Megalithic Temples of Malta are considered amongst the oldest free-standing structures in the world. They were erected between 4100 and 2500 BCE (making them older than Stonehenge, whose rocks were placed between 2600 and 2400 BCE), though the remaining structures probably date from the 3600 – 2200 BCE. In 1980, the UNESCO created the Heritage protection for one of the temples, and in 1992, the Site expanded to six temples / structures in total.

The Ħal Tarxien Prehistoric Complex | Il-kumpless Preistoriku ta’ Ħal Tarxien has been dated between 3000 – 2500 BCE, and it is considered the greatest example of the Temple Period (4100 – 2500 BCE). It was first excavated by Maltese archaeologist Themistocles Zammit around 1913 following complaints of a local farmer that he kept hitting stone while ploughing. The main excavation and restoration took place between 1915 and 1920, and some of the most delicate structures were moved to the Malta Museum of Archaeology to protect them from weathering. The site is covered by a protective tent that makes it look a bit alien, and being alone made it even more magical.

The temple is built in limestone, showcasing three constructions which are independent but attached to one another. The rooms are round, and there is evidence that they had a roofing. There are several chambers, and in some of them there are spiral decorations and domestic animals carved into the rock. There is even a small hearth where fire could be lit. I spent about an hour there, nearing closing time, which meant I was almost alone. I was extremely happy to be there.

Hal Tarxien temples - ruins of Neolithic temples with round rooms and trilithon entrances, from outside

Hal Tarxien temples - ruins of Neolithic temples with round rooms and trilithon entrances, from inside, showing spiral decorations and areas that have been restored, such as a hearth

Relief of a bull on a limestone wall


I could not visit the related Hypogeum of Ħal-Saflieni because tickets are released – and sold – months in advance, and this whole trip was planned in a couple of weeks. But I could explore around.

Due to the festivities, some of the bus stops were out of order, so I followed the bust route until I found one that was in use. At some point there I crossed my first “invisible frontier” between the village of Tarxien and Paola. Still in Tarxien, I stopped to look at the Catholic sculptures, and in Paola, I came across the Minor Basilica of Christ the King | Il-Bażilika ta’ Kristu Re. The church was erected at the beginning of the 20th century and, compared to the buildings around it, it feels huge – over 80 metres long, 40 metres wide and 60 metres high. It was full, which I found strange for a weekday at 18:00, but then I thought it might be part of the Feast of the Annunciation programme.

Minor Basilica of Christ the King: a Neoclassical basilica with two towers on the outside, and a sober interior design

I took a bus again and after a few changes I reached my hotel in the town of Saint Julian’s | San Ġiljan. Though I was driven through a few towns, it felt like a huge stride of buildings one after the other, with no real break. It was weird, that the whole area is just one big urban sprawl. I found changing buses easier than I expected, even not knowing the layout of the area. I got to my stop, Ballutta and checked into my hotel.

Aaand at that point I realised that there was a consequence of “British colonisation” that had not even crossed my mind – Malta has Type G plugs. So on my supermarket run I had to add an adaptor (despite having a few at home) to my bottled water and sandwich shopping list. I dropped the groceries at the room and then I went off to explore the coastline. That way, I inadvertently crossed to Sliema. I walked along Ballutta Bay and Exiles Bay, two of the three lobes that make up the larger St Julian’s Bay. I was a bit surprised when all the beaches were made of rock and limestone, which made them great to walk on. I had a lovely walk – except at one point, when I slipped and realised that my totally-sensible-for-airport shoes were not the best choice for limestone beaches. Eventually, I went back to the hotel to eat my supermarket-bought dinner.

Balluta Bay at dusk. The ocean is calm, and the buildings at the other side of the water have started turning on their lights

22nd – 26th May 2025: A taste of Malta {Malta, May 2025}

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Last-minute trips are weird. You start looking at an Ireland itinerary, but for some reason hotels are 200€ a night. You check for alternatives and end up booking at a place you had never considered before. In my case, it was the tiny country of Malta, an archipelago with eight islands: Malta, Gozo | Għawdex, Comino | Kemmuna, Manoel Island | Il-Gżira Manoel, Cominotto | Kemmunett, Saint Paul’s Island | Il-Gżejjer ta’ San Pawl, Filfla and Filfoletta. It turns out that Malta is both the country and the main island. Only Malta, Gozo and Comino, that is inhabited – and there are just two people living in the latter.

Malta is located in the Mediterranean Sea, a handful of kilometres south of Sicily. It is one of the smallest, and most densely-populated countries in the world – actually, in the island of Malta you literally cannot tell where one city ends and the next begins. The inhabitants speak English and Maltese (I will use this order for bilingual references, English | Maltese, as I did above with the island names). Malta as an independent country was established in 1964, when it gained independence from the United Kingdom.

Humans first reached Malta during the Mesolithic, around the year 6500 BCE. Due to the island’s geostrategic location in the middle of the Mediterranean, it has been lusted after by many powers and alliances – from the Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans to the British Empire and everyone involved in WWII. The successive populations have heavily influenced the islands and its architecture.

My original plan was to stay in Valletta, a fortified city mostly from the 16th century and the capital of the country. However, I only found apartments in basements for a decent price. I finally found a hotel in Saint Julian’s | San Ġiljan. Once that was booked, I focused on what to do and see in Valletta, but the more I read about the island, the more intrigued I grew.

In the end, I decided to balance some landscape watching (22nd and 26th) with historical Valletta (23rd), prehistoric ruins (24th) and a guided tour through the smaller island of Gozo (25th). There were a few things that did not work out as intended, but all in all it was a good trip with lots of new experiences, but a tad of necessary improvisation made it less efficient than it could’ve been. Fortunately, everything that went wrong could be fixed.

13th May 2025: Three free niche exhibitions (Madrid, Spain)

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I planned a little escapade to Madrid. There was nothing really special going on, it was just going to be a sunny day with no rain forecast and I could go to a museum and have lunch. When I say nothing special was going on, I mean there were a couple of exhibits I wanted to see, but it would have been just as easy to visit them the previous or following day. I just timed it for the best weather forecast of the week.

I had a small work-related thing early in the morning so I ended up leaving the house half an hour later than I would have liked. The trains were around 10 minutes late and the underground was packed, but none of that is news. I reached my first stop, the Museum for the Blind Museo Tiflológico de la ONCE, around 11:30. This museum hosts models or miniatures of famous monuments in Spain and around the world, designed to be seen with one’s hands. That way, people with low or no vision can get an idea of how they are. It is part of the ONCE inclusion program for the blind, and I think it is a brilliant idea.

ONCE stands for Spanish National Organisation of the Blind in the local language, Organización Nacional de Ciegos Españoles. Its history and works are a bit convoluted, but keeping it short, the Organisation was established in 1938 with the goal of providing equal opportunities for the blind and people with visual impairments. One of its main income sources is the lottery known as El Cupón de la ONCE.

While the museum itself is free to enter and very relaxed, when you arrive at the building you have to fill out a questionnaire, for statistical purposes, I guess. I did find it a bit off putting that I was outright asked why I wanted to see the exhibition. Because I’m curious, all right?

The museum has three distinct sections – one with the reproductions of the monuments, one with works by low vision, blind, or artists with other disabilities, and a historical area. In turn, the monuments are divided in national (Spanish) and international landmarks. The models are faithful to their smallest detail, and just like the Eiffel Tower is made out of metal, the Taj Mahal is made out of marble! Some of the monuments were reproduced in different scales, such as the Alhambra in Granada or the Aqueduct in Segovia. This should give an idea of both scale and detail. However, I don’t think I would ever be able to imagine something like that without being able to see it.

There were lots of sculptures by artists with disabilities, with a disturbing amount of naked ladies, but whatever. I also saw paintings and a homage to Braille that was sort of abstract but was really cool. The historical section hosted a number of items to learn and write Braille through the years, general studying tools such a 3D map of Spain, and a few historical runs of the lottery ran by ONCE. In general, it was a fascinating visit.

Museum for the Blind - national monuments

Museum for the Blind - international monuments

I did some shopping afterwards, and while the sales lady was really nice, she worked rather leisurely- That, and all the pedestrian lights being red on the fifteen-minute walk, put me seven minutes behind for my lunch reservation – and I swear, they phoned me. I was reaching the door of Comic Planet at 13:07 and they were already calling to check I was coming. People wonder why I’m paranoid about reservation times with them… They decided to change my table to “a more private one” to keep me away from a family with toddlers, and I had no problem.

I got to try the last item that I wanted to try from their menu – the Aquaman Burger, which had caused me some morbid fascination when I first read about it– Beef and king prawns? Garlic and pickles mayonnaise? It could be… either really good or really bad, I thought, and I really wanted to check it out. It was all right, I guess. There was much less of a flavour contrast than I expected, so it was most of a normal burger with a bit of an edge. And the edge was that the buns were blue. I also ordered a Vanilla Coke just because I could, and the waiter was nice enough to offer me tap water when I asked for some too. Cool.

Comic Planet Aquaman Burger

After lunch, I took the underground towards Fundación Telefónica which is running an exhibition called “Echoes of the ocean”, Ecos del Océano. I liked the idea better when I did not know that half of it was done using AI. It was – or tried to be – an exhibit centred around cetacean vocalisations. The first room was a mindfulness thingy in which a lady told you to become one with the ocean and then called you fat – “your body enlarges. You’re huge. You’re a humpback whale”. It made me laugh as it broke all the concentration thing. I also cackled when the voice told me that I went “deeeeep” as a sperm whale and met leopard seals there.

Then there were several huge screens with computer-generated graphs that imitated a sea prairie, dolphins and whales. That was the part that was made using AI, and it could have been a CGI or an actual video just as easily. The important part was that the images on the screen moved along the sounds of actual cetacean vocalisations. A room at the end hosted two actual underwater microphones, and headphones to listen to recordings of different creatures – sperm whales, seals, humpback whales – and ice sliding (this is important because for a long time, the sound of ice on the ocean was unidentified and it yielded to a lot of wild explanations / conspirancy theories).

Echoes of the Ocean screens

On the way out, there was a sculpture with glass reproductions of different microorganisms that love in the ocean: diatoms, anabaena, coccolithophores, dinoflagellates… Yes, this was totally me geeking out and identifying all the tiny little critters. The final room had to do with some photograph and schematics of a particular blue whale that had been tracked by the organisers.

Echoes of the Ocean plankton

I left the building and headed towards Palacio de Cibeles, which this time, was running an exhibit on its own architect Antonio Palacios. The exhibition is aptly named “An architect’s dream: Madrid as a metropolis” Madrid metrópoli. El sueño de Antonio Palacios. It uses photographs, designs, and models to present the works Palacios projected for Madrid – the ones that were built, the ones that were not, and the ones that have disappeared. It was an interesting collection, and the visit was free! Of course, I wandered the building a little before heading to the train station.

Antonio Palacios exhibit - models of buildings

Antonio Palacios exhibit - framed façade designs

Antonio Palacios exhibit - façade design and photograph of the actual Palacio de Comunicaciones building

On the way, there was a classic book fair Feria del Libro Antiguo y de Ocasión, but everything was way too expensive for me. I guess that in general it was a very budget-friendly day – three free exhibitions – if you do not count tiny shopping spree in-between, and it was around 20 €.

11th May 2025: Ruta SPG-24: Bosque de Valdenazar in Spring (Yebes, Spain)

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After the rainiest spring in ages, I had a couple of hours in a free morning – or actually, I just needed to do something for a little bit before I could become productive again. And the Internet helped supplying the information of this little route that could be done in under a couple of hours.

The route inches into the oak forest Bosque de Valdenazar, mainly composed of Portuguese oaks (Quercus faginea) and holly oak (Quercus ilex). The track was designed and is maintained by the municipality of Yebes. It delves into the forest and runs parallel to a small stream with bulrushes (Scirpus holoschoenus), rubuses and black poplars (Populus nigra). The area is home to roe deer, small raptors, and foxes, but none of them were around to be found – probably due to screaming kids. I did see some deer tracks.

It felt a bit silly to drive somewhere for a walk, but it was the only way to get there. Google maps was missing three roundabouts, but my Sat-Nav got me there without a hiccup – and considering that I’ve needed to MacGyver a stand for it because the wire keeps coming loose, I think that’s a feat. I parked at the entrance and set onto the hike.

The first stage was a small picnic area, after which came a bit of a steep slope with makeshift stairs. The route is mostly circular and I thought following the arrows was the way to go. At first I was alone, but then I started running into other walkers. The problem was that of course, they were chatting – and the families being a bit loud – and that made any possible fauna sighting impossible.

Valdenazar forest pathway

Valdenazar forest, start of the route

I had a look at what they call the carboneras, a bunch of oak trees that were repeatedly cut and slow-burnt to create carbon. That caused the living trees so they had strange-looking trunks, with several thick branches growing from the stumps. I found the viewpoint to look at the whole valley for a bit, before I walked into the actual forest. There is a wide track that feels a bit like the forest near The Shire in The Lord of The Rings, with the light sweeping through the leaves and the light breeze.

Valdenazar forest trail

Valdenazar forest

Valdenazar forest trail

I reached the stream and deviated to a sub-track known as Senda de la Fuente (Fountain Trail), parallel to the water flow. I expected an actual fountain at some point, but there was just a small waterspout. After that, it was just a bit of an uphill walk to get to the picnic area again.

Valdenazar forest trail

All in all, I was there for about an hour and a half. It was pretty but not the spectacular walk I had read about. I’ve read that it is incredible in autumn, so I might have to check it out again by then, but the truth is that the weather has been crazy in 2025, so I’m not sure we will even have an actual autumn… But all in all, the hike was nice and it cleared my head, which was exactly what I needed at that point.

28th April 2025: The day everything went dark

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I never thought that I would be writing any more meta posts after the Covid and vaccination posts, but here we are, another unexpected and surreal event. With one of my parents away for a week, I was staying with the other one to keep them company. Since I was between projects, we had thought about trying a small trip somewhere, and Murcia by train had been an option. We discarded that, and thought do a Madrid day trip instead. Then I received a notification for a bureaucratic thing I urgently had to take care of on Monday the 28th. The letter scared the bettlejuice out of me, but it turned out to be something easy to deal with – and I was not at any fault – so afterwards we went to have a hot chocolate. It was a small celebratory second-breakfast thing.

We were back home when at 12:33, while I was halfway through my daily kanji review, the power went off. It is not uncommon around my parents’ place lately due to construction nearby. However, it was not the house. Nor the neighbourhood. Nor the town.

There had been a countrywide power outage. It was international too, as Portugal was knocked offline too. Part of France lost power too before they cut off the connection to stop the domino effect, and so did Morocco.

Have you ever considered the effects of a national blackout besides something you’d see in an apocalyptic film? All the traffic lights went off, creating circulation chaos. Hundreds of people were trapped in lifts, thousands on surface and underground trains. The suburban and commuting trains were easily evacuated, but some long distance ones just stopped in the middle of nowhere – and safety procedures sanction that passengers may not leave a stranded train unless there is an emergency inside. They had to wait for external rescue – the military, mostly. Had we taken the train to Murcia, we would have been amongst them.

A smaller number of people – window cleaners – got stuck outside buildings, and the police had to give rides to technicians to open stuck lifts all over. However, most lifts don’t have alarms any more, you have to call their rescue number. Within twenty minutes of the outage, phone lines, fibre, 3G, 4G and 5G became progressively knocked off. Before an hour had passed, there was no way to contact 112 in case of emergency. The only thing transmitting was the radio and they had no real information – though they kept patting themselves on the back that they were still on air.

My parent and I were home, we had a battery-powered radio, and a warm room to be in. We also had running water, but no line of communication with my sibling, who was at work, nor my other parent abroad. Big cities became mousetraps for anyone trying to reach the suburbs or adjacent towns – either to arrive home or to collect children from school.

Some shops and supermarkets could operate cash-only, and we heard the Mayor of Madrid say that people who had an emergency should walk to a police station or a hospital. Healthcare centres do not have power generators, but hospitals do. Around 14:00, the radio relied that restoring the power would take around nine hours, but they did not specify whether that would be from the blackout or the reset, which had to be done gradually in order not to overload the system and knock everything off again. Around 15:00, people who needed oxygen machines at home were directed to head to the nearest hospital.

My parent and I had a cold lunch, readied the torches and candles, and put the phones on plane mode so they did not waste battery trying to find the network. I regularly checked whether I could get any signal or send a text message to my sibling.

Hours passed. I built a 3D wooden puzzle I had around. Around 18:00, the Prime Minister was on the radio saying that the nobody had any idea why the outage had happened, that citizens were behaving spectacularly well, and to only trust official information, which was zero from the highest spheres, and incomplete from more local officers. Some regions asked for a special alarm level which means that they relinquish control to the State level. This is done because otherwise the army cannot be mobilised.

Thousands of people who had been due to take long-distance trains back home, and some who had been rescued from stranded trains were accommodated with a blanket and a sandwich in large train stations for the night. Hotels were only accepting cash payments upfront, so the so-called convenient cashless convenience collapsed – and some of them duplicated or tripled their rates. People who had their luggage in places like the one I used in Barcelona, which are opened with pin pads, could not retrieve their things.

We were fine.

The airports managed surprisingly well, with few cancellations, but passengers coming and going could not reach or leave. People walked along roads with signs stating where they were going in hopes a car gave them a lift. Petrol stations either had to close down or ran out of fuel. Restaurants and bars tried to serve anything that could be eaten cold or raw, and hoped that their freezers and fridges held, and power came back before the legal limit that would force them to throw away all their produce.

People were trapped in endless traffic jams or could not get their cars out of the garage, since the gates only worked automatically, or nobody knew how to open them manually. I wondered whether we should get our car out, but we decided we did not have to go anywhere.

High-schoolers walked home. Younger kids stayed behind until a parent could pick them up, with teachers staying with them, and in some cases even walking them home. News started coming on the radio that power had been restored in some areas of the north (thanks, France), the south (thanks, Morocco) and the east (thanks, Aldeadávila hydropower plant, which practises this exact scenario every three years, despite the government saying that it is impossible to lose all power. It was impossible until it happened.).

Late in the evening, the neighbours decided to light up a barbecue in the garden, and in the process they smoked up the whole neighbourhood. I really hoped for no fire because we were 25 minutes away from the closest firefighter station.

Evening, then dusk, then night. We had a sandwich for supper, illuminated by candlelight.

No more official news. Radio presenters gloated about how beautiful it was that families and strangers sat around transistors. Power crept back through the country, and when it came back people cheered and applauded. No idea what had happened. Sabotage and cyberattack seemed discarded – having someone to blame would have made for a juicy press conference, so it was pretty obvious that they had not happened from the lack of information.

Around 19:30, I managed to get a text message out to my sibling, but there was still no phone line. People were still stuck in trains and stations. We were following the radio, but it was completely dark outside. For a while I had been following which spots and municipalities got their power back, but around 23:30, it was just out of compulsion, it felt. We turned off the radio and went to bed.

It was around 1:30 when a beeping woke me up. The freezer in my parents’ kitchen was alerting that its temperature was higher than -18 ºC. It took me a second to realise what that meant. We had power, 13 hours after it had gone out. I found the button to press and spent the next hour or so catching up with / and checking on everyone I could. It was around this time when the last passengers were evacuated from trains.

I eventually turned in, and at 7:15 we got news from my sibling, who called to say they were all right and had made it home after a coworker dropped them off.

To be honest, I’ve never felt so… unsafe in my whole life. I still do. I was fine, and everyone I know was all right – maybe took hours to go back home, but a family died of carbon monoxide poisoning trying to get warm. There was literally no way to contact the emergency service. With the lights out, I kept running in my head how to get to the hospital, the fire station, the healthcare centre… without driving into a mousetrap if there was an emergency.

And what makes me feel unsafe still now is that… I have no answers. The official sources that I am supposed to trust just… try to find a scapegoat. They’re shutting down the nuclear power plants without a reliable alternative to keep the country running… after we have seen how it cannot run. Just because I had the luxury of being all right does not mean everything was fine.

Everything was most definitely not fine. The next day chaos continued. People were stranded in train stations as service got restored. People could not get to work because their underground stops were bolted down.

And the official position is we don’t have an official position. Yes, I’m quoting Independence Day. Spain is the country the aliens would blow up without resistance.

But hey, I got a stress-built wooden pagoda out of it…

Wooden pagoda model

15th April 2025: Kinetic art and Egyptian replicas (Guadalajara, Spain)

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Rain and school holidays having thwarted my hiking plans yet again, I decided to make the most of half a non rainy morning when I was going to be around Guadalajara to check out a free exhibition and the museum of a local artist.

Francisco Sobrino (1932 – 2014) was a conceptual artist whose sculpture can be framed into the kinetic art and constructivism styles. The museum Museo Francisco Sobrino hosts some of his smaller works, mostly in colourful vinyls and experiments with materials, textures and light. Pretty colours and shapes, but I guess you need more knowledge of art than I have to appreciate the works and see… something different from pretty colours and shapes. But the museum is free and it is hosted in a historical building, the former slaughterhouse, built in traditional brick and stone. Though I’ve been around a few times, I’d never visited it before…

Francisco Sobrino Museum Guadalajara

The exhibition on Ancient Egypt and King Tutankhamen’s tomb Tutankamón Secretos Revelados: La Exposición (Tutankhamen Secrets Revealed: The Exhibition) was endearing but lacking. It was located in another historical building, the traditional market Mercado de Abastos. It used to be a very successful local market, but the vendors lost most their clientele when it was closed for a few years to turn the place into a culture and bar hub. It was not successful at all, and now it’s a sad-looking place. The top floor hosted the exhibition, with a few posters with information and pictures, one of them being a very buff Anubis from the video-game franchise Assassin’s Creed. There were a few display cases with reproductions of Egyptian antiquated from private collections and books on Egypt. The largest part of the exhibition was a reproduction of several items found in Tutankhamen’s tomb: the wall paintings, a golden chair and the gold-plated sarcophagus. There were also a reproduction of the funerary mask, a brass tray and anything golden the curators seemed to have at hand, including a scarf. And the bust of Nefertiti for some reason.

Tutankhamun Exhibit Guadalajara

Tutankhamun Exhibit Guadalajara

I’m not going to say I was disappointed or that I expected more, it was a cute little exhibition that tried to do its best. Unfortunately, some of the information was inaccurate or outdated – they were showing a video from the 1980s, and archaeology has evolved a little since then.

However, I am still cackling at the low-resolution buff Anubis…

11th April 2025: Extant, extinct and extrastormy (Madrid, Spain)

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Since March was extremely rainy, I hoped that April would not be so. No such luck. However, there was a dinosaur exhibit in Madrid that I was keen on seeing, and I wanted to do it before Easter, because it would be packed during the holidays and I could not get there in May due to personal stuff. And since getting to the Casa de Campo area takes so long by train, I looked at combining it with something else around (it’s a four-hour roundtrip from where I am). What other thing was close? Somewhere else I never go because it’s far away by public transport and a nightmare to park around – the local zoo Zoo Aquarium de Madrid. There was after all only a 10% chance of rain…

Spoiler alert: while I was getting drenched (I’m being dramatic, of course. I had an umbrella) in the zoo, and later in the exhibit, the weather app said “partly cloudy” and there was no mention of storms nor rain. But the skies opened. Ask the peafowl…

I took the train and changed to the underground until I got to the Casa de Campo stop. There were not many people around since it was a weekday. There’s a bus that takes you to the zoo, but I found it more efficient to walk, since there is a pedestrian way alongside the road. I reached the zoo a bit after it opened at 11:00, and just as my ticket was getting scanned the first few raindrops fell. At first, it seemed like a small drizzle, but soon it started to rain in earnest. By that time, I had managed to get to the pandas, about 40 metres into the zoo.

I’d been to the Zoo Aquarium de Madrid twice in my life before. The first one I was very small. I have no memory of it, but there is a home video of three-year-old me chasing a peacock and a voice warning “come back, it’s going to bite you!”. The second time I was in third grade, and had my first camera. I remember that I was devastated because the pandas were very far away and I could only take a picture of a distant, tiny, black-and-white blur. That was decades ago, and I had never been back, though I had a recurring dream for years that involved one of the pools there.

The zoo opened in 1972 as an alternative to the “Beast House” or Casa de Fieras that used to be hosted in the Retiro Park, a few sad and crammed-looking cages that must have been horrible for the animals. As every animal park, Zoo Aquarium de Madrid is not free of controversy, especially related to the ethics of keeping great apes and cetaceans in captivity. They used to have dolphins, but those were surrendered and sent away earlier in 2025. Conversely, the zoo participates in over 60 conservation and breeding programs for endangered animals – they have breeding couples of owls, whose chicks are routinely released into the wild, and have succeeded in breeding pandas (they claim to be the most successful institution at breeding panda outside China) and white rhinos. They have non-breeding animals as ambassadors, such as a family of Iberian lynx.

The zoo is vaguely organised per continent – Europe, Australia, Asia, Africa and the Americas, and the home of actual wild animals such as storks and rabbits.

As I went into the zoo, the first thing I spotted was a small lake with flamingoes, pelicans and (squatting) storks. The storks are free to come and go, but they like to be in the zoo because they get free food, I guess. My idea had been to walk a spiral and try to see everything, but I got distracted by “Panda Land”, signalled by a big red gate – after all, they are the main attraction. I thought the pandas might be visible, and they were – much closer than I remembered indeed. I did get to see both the male and the female, who live apart within the same installation. I had time to take a few pictures before it started to rain in earnest. And no, they were not distant, tiny black-and-white blobs this time, and not only because I had borrowed a really good lens for the day. I had to put the camera away when the rain became too heavy.

Zoo Madrid - stork, flamingoes, panda

It rained for a couple of hours, and that impacted me a little. I ended up sharing shelter with a band of peafowl, and had to go from covered exhibit to covered exhibit at first. I found the orang-utan territory very sad, and I did not catch a glimpse of any gorilla. In the aquarium, I got stuck with all the school visits, but there were quite a few sharks and big fish in the ocean tank.

Zoo Madrid: peacocks and peahens sheltering from the rain

Zoo Madrid: Sea lion, small blue jellyfish, sharks

I ambled around the Australian area, where most of the animals were unfazed – especially the cassowary, which by the way is apparently the most dangerous bird in existence, even if I’m way more crept out (and fascinated) by emus. I did not see the koalas, and I walked past a tree which seemed fenced off just because. As rain cleared out, some of the animals started playing around, such as the binturong (Arctictis binturong), a distant relative of civets. At around 13:20, I had reached Africa, and I was in front of the hippos when it stopped raining. Awesome!

Zoo Madrid: Cassowari, binturong, Patagonian mara, and hippo yawning

Since I had borrowed a camera lens which is better – but heavier – than mine, I really wanted to try it out. Carrying it around without being able to use the camera due to the rain, at all, would have been a bummer. After the rain stopped, I was able to take quite a few good pictures though. Those included the Siberian tiger (Panthera tigris tigris), and its relative the domestic cat (Felis catus), whom I’m not sure is a resident or a squatter in the “farm” section of the zoo alongside the sheep, goats, and a very large pig.

Zoo Madrid: Jiraffes, zebra, black bear and Siberian tiger

Since I’d been to Emociones al Vuelo a few days earlier, I did not mind the lack of Raptor Flight exhibit due to rain. I did miss the Exotic Birds one, but I caught the Sea Lion exercise (hello, swimming pool from years of recurring dreams). Around 14:30, it had stopped raining, the animals had eaten, and I caught many of them. Unfortunately, most – especially the carnivores – were napping. I did however saw a very active red panda (Ailurus fulgens) around the tree that I previously thought was fenced off for no reason.

Zoo Madrid: Red panda, common rabbit, grey wolves, brown bear

By the time I left, the workers had also dropped off a few Easter Eggs throughout the zoo as the holidays were about to start. At 17:00 I had to be at Escenario Puerta de Ángel to see Saurios, a dinosaur exhibit, which turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. Most of the animatronics I had already seen as “Dino Expo XXL” – I recognised it because of the broken neck on one of the brachiosaurus. The exhibit had a first part with a few skeleton replicas – the coolest thing, as I had never managed to see a complete cast of a Spinosaurus before. Then there was an open area with some life-sized replicas and photo-ops, but it was completely made for kids. There were actors and activities for them, which I guess were extremely fun if you’re younger than five. Yet another “dinosaurs are for kids” activity.
Saurios Madrid - skeleton replicas

Saurios Madrid - models

And then it started storming again. A black cloud, a clap of thunder, and the skies opened. Thus, we all had to hurry to the last section, which was most of what I’d seen in “Dino Expo XXL”. I was really not impressed by the whole thing – remember folks, “for all the family” means “designed for kids”. I guess I would be more gracious had the weather been nice, but… having seen most of the exhibit before for half the price, I was not impressed. Fortunately or unfortunately, there is a Jurassic World Exhibition coming up soon…

Saurios Madrid - models

6th April 2025: Birds of Prey experience with Emociones Al Vuelo (Aranzueque, Spain)

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The 2025 Medieval fair in Tendilla had fewer animals than usual, as the farm was not there on Sunday. However, there was a stand by a birds-of-prey rescue. I was sad I had missed the demonstration on Saturday till I got talking to the lady there. It turned out the rescue had visits. And activities. And activities you could book and pay for. This is important because animal interactions tend to favour kids, which is good for environmental education and all, but makes me jealous…

Emociones Al Vuelo is an education centre and birds-of-prey rescue / charity established in the small village of Aranzueque. It was set up in 2016 to fill a gap and take care of birds which could not be recovered nor released into nature due different circumstances – for example, a kestrel born in the wild, but taken as a chick to be sold in the black market. Or what’s even more shocking to me, hybrids! There are weirdos out there JurassicWorld’ing birds of prey (Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should. Creepy). These animals often bounce from home to home as hunters acquire and then get rid of them, until the rescue intercedes. The rescue also takes care of animals that used to belong to negligent owners, with broken limbs, or out of breeders’ hands.

The organisation seems to be doing a good job. The birds looked relaxed and were allowed to… basically ignore their “jobs” until they were properly bribed with food, and if they did not want to “work”, they were properly excused. All the birds are tagged and have their names – all of them kind of nerdy: Star Wars, Game of Thrones… They seem to be quite comfortable with the handlers and with the strangers most of the time.

There are three ticket tiers: “basic”, “fly an eagle” and “emotion pass”, which allows you to hold – or be a perch for – five of the tamest birds, and fly the eagles on top of that. I decided that since the tickets were to support the rescue, I would make the sacrifice and get the highest tier… And we all know I’m lying, I totally got the highest tier because I was dying to play with the residents.

Birds of prey, sometimes called “raptors”, are a group of bird species who actively hunt and eat other vertebrates. These strict carnivores are fast flyers, have acute vision, and sharp talons and beaks to help them hunt. Some of them are also scavengers or piscivores. In general they’re characterised as active predators. Though the term “bird of prey” is not really “scientific”, it is very visual and easy to understand. They range from the smallest pygmy falcon, with a wingspan of around 40 cm to the largest Andean condor, whose wingspan can reach 3.3 m. In general, male and female of the same species are different in colours, and at the very least in size, with females usually bigger and stronger, even if usually raptors are lighter than their feathers make them look – on top of feathers having next to no weight, birds have hollow bones to help them fly. Fun fact: nocturnal raptors tend to have dark eyes, diurnal ones light-coloured eyes, and those which are active during dawn and dusk have reddish or golden eyes.

Birds of prey have been used for hunting – falconry – for over 4,000 years, with the earliest references coming from Mesopotamia and Mongolia. Writings from the 7th century CE describe it as widespread in Asia, but as it seems that nothing ever existed before the Europeans found out about it, one has to wait until Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor (1194 – 1250) wrote his treatise On the Art of Hunting with Birds for it to become commonplace. During the Middle Ages, falconry became a symbol of power and status, especially for recreational hunting, until the raptors were substituted by firearms. Falconry became popular again in the 20th century, and in 2010, it was added to the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

While the birds in Emociones Al Vuelo are somewhat trained to at least tolerate human presence, what the rescue does cannot be considered falconry. The birds fly from protective glove to protective glove in search of treats, but they are not really trained for tricks. One of the things that we visitors were told is that the birds “fly off” the gloves, not made to take off, as you see in films.

I arrived in Aranzueque around 9:35 for the 10:00 show, with gates at 9:45. It was a crispy morning, but it had been raining all March, and finally there was sun and a decent forecast. I was wearing layer upon layer anyway, and was happy to shed them off as the day warmed up. To be honest, when I booked the place, I did ask if there would be a rescheduling should the weather be miserable, but aside from some mud on my boots, I had nothing to worry about.

Once gates opened, visitors parked inside – people from the rescue have maximising parking space down to an art – and checked in. I had paid when I booked, and I received a lanyard pass and a paper bracelet.

The base activity lasts about three hours. The guests sit on benches arranged in a circle under a tree – I found a spot and made sure my back was to the sun for pictures. There was a brief introduction of very logical rules for the animals’ wellbeing. The activity – I feel reluctant to call it a show – brought out 14 birds of nine species and I got to interact with five different species, and a total of six – seven animals.

The first bird to come out was Sansa, the (Western) barn owl (Tyto alba). Barn owls are mostly nocturnal birds, white to reflect the moonlight, and with brown specks on their back for camouflage on the ground. They are not the biggest raptors, though they can reach a wingspan of almost one metre. They’re mostly recognisable because they have a heart-shape face, and black eyes. At first, Sansa did not seem to want to make friends, and she flew high up the tree, but after some bribing she agreed to come say hi. She was the first bird we interacted with, she flew from glove to glove to snack.

Sansa, the (Western) barn owl

Sansa, the (Western) barn owl

The second raptor was a tiny one – a little owl (Athene noctua) called Xena. In Ancient Greece, little owls were considered the companions to Athena, Goddess of War and Wisdom. They’re small birds with yellow eyes and brown-and-white plumage which mimics the bark of trees. Xena was happy to be walked around and set on shoulders and heads for her interaction turns. She did not approve much of my glasses for some reason.

Xena the little owl

Afterwards, Nymeria was brought out. Nymeria is a rescue hybrid, born from combining a lanner falcon (Falco biarmicus) and a peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus). She has never really flown and it was hard for the rescue to take care of her, since she had several congenital and behavioural issues when she was taken in. She’s still getting used to seeing people, but she is apparently getting better.

Nymeria the raptor hybrid

Another rescue was Ripley, a common kestrel (Falco tinnunculus). Kestrels can reach a wingspan of 80 cm, and though males and females look different, they tend to be chestnut brown with darker spots on the back, and lighter spots on the underside. They also have a black or darker mark around the cheek (malar stripe). Though they are not considered endangered, their nesting areas are protected in places like Plasencia. Ripley was chicknapped and ended up in a legal limbo – when she was found, she could not be kept, could not be released, until she found her home in the rescue. She was very happy to flop from glove to glove and snack on the fresh meat she was given as an incentive.

Ripley the common kestrel

The Eurasian eagle-owl (Bubo bubo) is a bird of prey that has always fascinated me, since I was really small and I heard that a) there was one in our attic and b) they could hunt and eat little children. Somehow, looking back, I doubt either of those statements were true. And despite it all, I was literally never allowed in that attic for the nine years we lived in the house… Eurasian eagle-owls are amongst the largest owls, with almost two metres of wingspan. They are easily recognised by their orange eyes and their facial feathers pointing upwards looking like “ears” or “eyebrows”. They always look like they disapprove of you. They camouflage really well against tree bark, being different shades of brown in spotted patches. The rescue has two of them – Dracarys, the male I got to hold, and Storm, a less tame female.

Dracarys the Eurasian eagle-owl

We then met Vader the common raven (Corvus corax). Ravens are not birds of prey, but are closely associated to them. In nature, when an animal dies, ravens are among the first scavengers to arrive. Their black-blue iridescent plumage is easily spotted by flying raptors, who come join the feast. Don’t get fooled, ravens are bigger than they look – they might reach a wingspan of 150 cm – but most importantly they’re smart – they analyse, problem solve, imitate, recognise individuals, and hold grudges. Vader has mastered the opening of lids in order to access snacks…

Emociones Al Vuelo Raven

Next came the oldie-but-goldie Blue, a female Eurasian goshawk (Astur gentilis), who was taken in from a breeder after 12 years of laying eggs for them. Goshawks are medium-large raptors (up to 130 cm) with a distinctive striped pattern across the underside, and a greyish back. They have piercing reddish eyes and one hell of an attitude. They are extremely territorial, and usually live in breeding pairs, though females are known for being able to kill the male if he does not bring food to the courtship.

Blue the female Eurasian goshawk

Later came Valyria the Red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis). She seemed that she would be happier chomping on fingers than perching on gloves. Red-tailed hawks are endemic to North America, and they are diurnal hunters of up to 141 cm wingspan, with females being much larger than males. They do not fly around for prey, but hunt from a perch, and their brown and dark plumage helps them camouflage against the bark of trees, their tail is predictably reddish when seen in flight.

Valyria the Red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis)

The final species we got to see was the Harris’s hawk (Parabuteo unicinctus), which I’d also seen in the Medieval fair in Alcalá de Henares. They can reach 120 cm of wingspan and are also quite intelligent. They originate from the woodlands and semi-deserts in the Americas, thus they tend to be brown and black, with a little spotted white. They live and hunt in stable groups with a dominant female and her mate. They have developed pack-hunting strategies, with half of the group scouting and half of the group doing the killing. They currently are the most popular raptor in Western falconry, often used to control smaller birds’ population. They are apparently easy to train and they are quite social. There were three of these animals we got to interact with – Tyrion, Winter and Arya.

We could go out to the “flying field” and “play” with them. Tyrion did not seem to want to play a lot, and had to be benched. He actually did only two or three flights – the first one was towards me, and I got to hold him for a while longer since he did not want to fly away. Something that surprised me was how light all of the birds were – I had been worried I would be unable to hold them, but as I mentioned before, feathers and hollow bones make them absolutely… unheavy.

We had a few flights, which yielded to cool pictures, and then some “games” which involve trying to get the hawk to fly between two rows of people, or underneath someone else’s legs. There were some more explanations about behaviour in the wild and the dynamics of the birds and their human caretakers. We actually got to hear a lot about how the different birds interact with each other and their humans throughout the three hours the activity lasted.

Harris's Hawks mid-flight, wings open

Harris's Hawks coming to the falconry glove

At the end, everyone – even those who had not got the interaction pass – could take a picture with one of the Harris’s hawks. I ended up signing up to another activity – a wildlife photography course – but that one was eventually cancelled due to lack of sign-ups. I drove back home, happy the weather had been almost perfect, and hoping I had not get sunburnt. I also managed to make it through the day without cracking a Jurassic Park joke, but obviously not a whole post – so I shall just remind you here that birds are direct descendants from dinosaurs… Or why do you think they chose “Blue” along all the Game of Thrones references?

31st March 2025: More Modernisme and the way back {FFVII Barcelona 2025}

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For our final day in Barcelona, I had planned some more architectural visits. I had adjusted my planning considering the underground issues the previous day, but it turned out, it had been a Sunday-only thing. We had breakfast and on check-out, the manager asked how the stay had been. To his merit, when we told him about the issue with the air-conditioning, he apologised and offered us free breakfast in compensation. After we declined – timed entry visit – he advised us to write a complaint letter for a discount next time. I didn’t think it was necessary.

Since the station we had to change at was open, there was no issue with the underground, so we were half an hour early. I had booked a locker for the luggage in the centre of town, as the hotel is very convenient for attending a concert at CCIB, but quite far from… everything else, really. The locker system was convenient: you book online and get a code which opens both the place and your assigned locker. I found it more trustworthy than leaving the bags in a random shop which “looks after luggage”. However, about a month later, there was a complete outage in Spain, which made me second-guess the convenience of these things, as I heard about a lady who could not go home because her luggage was inside one of those lockers. We’ll see whether I dare use them again.

We were to continue on my Modernisme route, visiting one of the works of Antoni Gaudí (1852 – 1926), considered the peak representative of the style – to the point that some of his works have been declared Unesco Heritage by themselves as Works of Antoni Gaudí. Gaudí originally found inspiration in orientalism and Neo-Gothic, but as he became more and more established, he turned to nature forms – seeds, branches, bones, catenary shapes… The UNESCO work we wanted to see was Casa Milà, a building commissioned to Gaudí by lawyer Pere Milà in 1906. The building itself was erected between 1906 and 1910, and it was nicknamed “The Quarry” La Pedrera. It is an eight-floor apartment building with a self-supporting façade, electricity, running and hot water. The building was designed around a central patio, and it has a very particular roof-terrace. Some people claim that Casa Milà does not even fit into the Modernisme category, but it should be classified as “organic naturalism”, or even “expressionism” all by itself.

La Pedrera, exterior

I found the building… underwhelming. We had a combined ticket for Sant Pau and Casa Milà at 39 €, but the normal ticket price for the building is 40 €, and this is only for one of the floors with a “recreated apartment”, the attic, and the terrace. At least you get to see the patio as you have to walk past it so you reach the tiny lift in which they cram you to take you to the 7th floor. The experience felt… like… not enough. I was for sure expecting something more.

La Pedrera, Interior

Do not get me wrong, the house is extremely cool, but you get to see really little in comparison to how big the place is. So even if it is pretty, it feels crowded and small, with way too many gift shops crammed in. The terrace is fun, with chimneys that look like ancient warriors – some people say they represent chess pieces, others that they hide religious undertones – Gaudí was very spiritual. Reportedly, they also inspired the stormtroopers’ helmets in Star Wars.

La Pedrera, terrace

Afterwards, we walked to the music hall Palau de la Música Catalana part of the Unesco Heritage Site Palau de la Música Catalana and Hospital de Sant Pau, Barcelona. The so-called Palace of Music was designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner a couple of years after projecting the hospital.

Palau de la Música Catalana

Everything that Casa Milá came short, the Palace passed with full marks. The building has an original entrance designed by Domènech, in dark brick with extensive decoration. The interior is laced with tiles and glass, and tinted-glass windows. The concert hall is amazing. At first, we could not access it, because there was an educative concert for children going on, but we were later allowed to sit at the paradise. There is a huge skylight / lamp in coloured glass, pegasus statues. The concert was incredible too, with four to six musicians playing classical music and… running around the stage too. Lady trotting up the stairs while playing the cello, you have my admiration. I loved everything about the palace, to be honest, except the creaky chairs.

Palau Música Catalana

Once we were done in the Palau, we walked to the market Mercat de Sant Josep (St. Joseph’s market), known as La Boquería (The Butcher’s). It used to be a regular marketplace, but now it has turned a touristic attraction. The main entrance is also part of the Modernisme route, designed by architect Antoni de Falguera, who also created the inner metal cover. Though I had half a mind about eating there, the prices were ridiculous, so we ended up at an Asian place a couple of streets down. On the way, I had been excited about the “Barcelona Aqueduct”, but it turns out it’s a modern construction with old ashlars, nothing historical in it at all.

Market La Boquería

After lunch, we had about an hour to kill, and we decided to try our luck in the hobby-shops area. The Norma Comics shop was open, and we spent a while looking at the books there. Then, we headed back to pick up our luggage and commute to the station.

We had to change trains, and there was an announcement that any passengers with a connection shorter than 30 minutes would be escorted to their train. Of course, that’s only PA, and you’re on your own – I asked a worker, who tried to divert us to the suburban trains, not our connection. From that conversation, I think that we were supposed to go out of the system and get our tickets scanned again, but we found our train before that. There was no one else to consult with, so I decided that we would get on it. My sibling was mortified, but we were not doing anything wrong. If anyone checked on us, we had a valid ticket. They had not lived up to their part of the agreement anyway – and I would have told them exactly that, had anyone even thought of scolding us.

But we made it, as I predicted nobody gave us any grief, and the drive from the train station was uneventful. All in all, it was an intense weekend – though I feel I could have squeezed in a monument or two more had we skipped the sit-down meals, but my sibling can’t handle that. All in all, I think everything worked out rather well.