Tag Archives: Gothic

20th August 2021: A Monastery and a Castle… again {Spain, summer 2021}

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Sos del Rey Católico, formerly just Sos, is a small town still in the province of Zaragoza in Aragón. Its historical centre is so historical that it has been around since the 1400s. In 1452, the infante Fernando, who would go on to become the Catholic King, was born there. Back in the Middle Ages, the Kingdoms of Aragón and Castille became intertwined when Queen Isabel I of Castille and Fernando II of Aragón got married, earning the moniker of Catholic Monarchs due to their relentless fight against the Muslim Caliphates that had conquered the country long before. The trick of their marriage was that both of them remained the king / queen of their own kingdom in a very delicate equilibrium that sometimes was referred to as tanto monta.

A walk through the town yields to viewing a lot of Medieval buildings and palaces – too many to keep tack of. The wall is still standing in several places, built around the natural rock in order to make the most of the natural defences. There are a number of palaces that have been repurposed with new functions – the town hall, a school, and so on, and you can see them all in a short stroll, which we of course took. We left the hotel at around 9 in the morning because our breakfast turn was from 8:00 to 8:30 and there was not much else to do anyway.

The second reason why Sos del Rey Católico became known was the filming of an absurd Spanish comedy back in 1985. Thus, the village erected a sculpture to the director, Luis García Berlanga, Estatua a Berlanga.

The sculpture lies at the feet of the church of Saint Stephen Parroquia de San Esteban, which we could not enter, unfortunately, due to a scheduling conflict. The church has a Romanesque-style entrance carved in the 12th century, but protected from the elements by an outer portico from the 16th century. The church has an interesting shape, which tunnels and stairs, owning to the actual relief of the area.

Beyond the church stands the remains of the castle Castillo de Sos del Rey Católico, out of which the keep and a little turret still stand, albeit heavily restored. The old town was a frontier fortified area between the kingdoms of Navarra and Aragón, and it was a strategic point in Medieval times. This is why Fernando II’s mother fled there when the war started and why Fernando was born there.

The short climb yields to being able to survey the surroundings.

The whole “Fernando the Catholic King” was born here reaches its peak in the old palace called Palacio de Sada, where the King was born. Today they have turned it into an “interpretation museum” and holds some panels, an audiovisual, and reproductions of both the Catholic Monarch’s Last Will and Testament. The highlight of the palace is the Romanesque chapel and former Church of Saint Martin, Iglesia de San Martín de Tours, which still shows the painting and polychrome on the altar walls.

Shortly after 11 we went back to the car to drive to the other side of the Aragón – Navarra border, both the old kingdoms and the current areas. We had a booking for the monastery of Leyre Monasterio de Leyre at 12:30 and considering how much our Sat-Nav was trolling us we wanted to give ourself an hour of leeway. The device behaved itself and we arrived there at the right time.

Leyre is a still-active Benedictine monastery has been rebuilt and renovated, but at its core stands the church of Leyre. Standing in the middle of the mountains, it used to be a fortified monastery.

The church is based on an early Romanesque “crypt” whose goal was to flatten the terrain in order for the church to be built above it. It is an amazing engineering work, and not at all usual.

The original Romanesque church was consecrated in 1057, and it is one of the most impressive and highest Romanesque buildings I’ve ever seen. The main nave is also Romanesque, but the dome is already Gothic. There is a beautiful sculpture of the Virgin of Leyre. The entrance of the church is magnificent, carved in the 12th century with dozens of carving in stone.

We were lucky enough to have timed the visit with the monks’ Sext prayer, in Latin and Spanish, and mostly sung in the Gregorian style. Ah, and this was also a burial point for the Monarchs, but this time of Navarra… then again, eventually the Kingdoms of Navarra and Aragón became one so…

After Leyre, we got onto the car again and crossed over to the other side of the highway to the Castle of Xavier Castillo de Javier. We had lunch around the castle before we even approached the building, under Saint Francis Xavier’s glance.

The castle was the birthplace and childhood home of this Catholic saint (born 1506), famous for trying to spread Christianity in India, South-East Asia and Japan. He was a co-founder of the Jesuit order, which owns the castle now. The building has been turned into a museum about the saint.

The origins of the castle date from the 10th century, though most of its current appearance can be traced to the 11th and 13th century. Later the towers were destroyed, and in the 19th century they were re-erected, and the adjacent basilica was built. There is also a reconstructed little church were the saint was christened.

The inside of the castle holds some items from Francis Xavier’s times – real or not – some Japanese paintings and scrolls, trinkets that were brought from Asia during the preaching missions, and a bunch of dioramas. You can climb up to the keep and look at the surrounding area. Unfortunately, the guide was horrid and he just regurgitated facts that were dubious or plain wrong – for example, he claimed that a diorama that looks like a Hindu temple represented the Emperor of Japan.

One of the most interesting artefacts in the castle is a late-Gothic oak carving of Christ on the cross, which sports a faint smile. The piece is located in a tiny chapel decorated with dancing skeletons referring to the Latin expression “Carpe Diem” (seize the day).

After the castle we drove over the “border” back to Sos del Rey Católico, and after a shower and a drink, I decided to explore de historical building of our hotel, Parador de Sos del Rey Católico, and the gardens.

Driven distance: 56 km. Walking distance: 6.17 km.

17th August 2021: Towards the Pyrenees, via the cathedrals {Spain, summer 2021}

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The total driven distance today was around 450 km, but we did that in three legs with with two visits in-between.

The first stop was Huesca, in the province of the same name, in Aragón. After ditching the car (and having our first Sat-nav disagreement for the trip), we walked towards the city centre. The first thing we peered into was a little grocer’s shop Ultramarinos La Confianza, which dates back to 1871 and is reported to be the longest-running grocer’s in Spain. Unfortunately, due to Covid restrictions there was a queue outside and we could only see it from the outside.

We proceeded to the cathedral of the Lord’s Transfiguration Catedral de la Transfiguración del Señor, a Gothic-style building that stands in the centre of the town, just in front of the council hall. The cathedral has only one tower which used to be crowned by a spire, but that was lost during the civil war. The main gate is decorated with carvings of the Apostles.

However, we did not enter through the main gate, but the lateral one which gave us access to the religious museum of the cathedral Museo Diocesano de Huesca. The museum has several art pieces from different periods, and gives access to the Gothic cloister of the cathedral, and to older structures, among them, a peek into the original Romanesque cloister.

Adjacent to the cathedral stands the Bishop’s palace, also part of the museum. The most impressive part is the hall called Salón del Tanto Monta , which sports a Mudejar wooden ceiling carved and polychrome in 1478, restored twice since then. The wording “Tanto Monta” refer to the Catholic King Fernando, indicating that he had as much importance in his wife’s kingdom as she did – I’ll get into that history titbit another day though.

We finally walked into the cathedral itself, which is presided by the high altar made from alabaster and sculpted in the 16th century by Damián Forment, the most important sculptor at the time.

Again due to Covid, we could not visit the council hall and see the painting that illustrates a rather sordid legend – the king Ramiro II called upon some treacherous noblemen under the excuse to show them “the greatest bell in the kingdom” and beheaded all of them. Some of the legends add that he used one of the severed heads as a clapper. The town hall hosts a painting by José Casado del Alisal depicting this side of the legend, even though it has been long debunked. What was open was the little church in the convent Monasterio de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, though the most interesting part of the monastery is the building itself, in a very characteristic style using bricks that reminds of the Mudejar style.

The next stop was another monastery San Pedro el Viejo, one of the oldest Romanesque buildings in Spain. The church was used as Royal Pantheon and some of the old Monarchs of the former Kingdom of Aragón are buried there. Though it has been completed and renovated in different styles, the cloister dates back to 1140 – albeit some of the capitals have been “cloned” in restoration.

The inside of the church has been populated by Baroque chapels (urgh). However, some of the original polychromy can still be seen.

These are the main sights for the town of Huesca, so we decided to go on. We tried to find a place to have lunch, but most places were closed as the local festival had just finished. Searching, we ended up passing by and underneath the Porches de Galicia, a covered street considered a historical landmark, but there is no actual information on it that I could find.

On our way out, we walked past the fountain Fuente de las Musas, representing the Greek Muses.

The second leg of the journey took us to Jaca, where we visited the cathedral and the Diocesan museum. The cathedral of St. Peter Catedral de San Pedro Apóstol, a predominantly Romanesque building (with, of course, Baroque decoration), although the wooden ceilings have been replaced. The building itself was completed around the year 1130. The altar holds the organ and is richly decorated with frescoes.

The adjacent museum Museo Diocesano de Huesca, also called the Romanesque Museum, which contains a large number of Romanesque paintings that have been collected from the different churches around the area, and sculptures from the period. It also yields entrance to the cloister, which has a small garden populated with roses, bright purple thistles, and tiny shy lizards that ran away as I peered in.

It was a little too late to enter and walk around the old fortress Ciudadela de Jaca, the military museum, so I just walked around it. Unfortunately, the star shape is not appreciated from the ground, so take my word for it – it is star-shaped. Due to droughts, however, the moat is devoid of water, and it has been turned into a… deer park.

So after this we drove off to the final destination of the day, the small village of Torla-Ordesa, which is the entryway to the Pyrenees area on the Huesca province, particularly the nearby national park Parque Nacional de Ordesa y Monte Perdido.

We had a bit of an organisation issue here. Because the park is a National one, there is zero reliable information from the administration itself – it turns out that to reach the park you need to take the bus from the visitor’s centre in Torla-Ordesa, you cannot get there on your own (lovely for Covid times, don’t you think?). Furthermore, the park has top capacity which is measured by the buses that depart from the centre – around 30 buses, which is usually reached around 10 am in summer. This made us change all our plans. So we set the alarm for 6:30 am to get an early start, and went to bed.

As mentioned before, driven distance was around 450 km. Total walking distance: 7.5 km.

29th & 30th May 2021: The Walls (and churches) of Ávila (Spain)

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There was a little-talked about consequence of the Industrial Revolution in Spain. While it is widely known that it drew a large number of people to the cities and towns, few stop to think of the subsequent steps that had to be adopted. More people in town required housing, and thus a number of projects denominated ensanches or “widenings” were projected and carried out. Even though such a thing makes sense, here lies the problem – in order to enlarge the urban area, many Spanish cities and towns tore down their Roman and Medieval walls, leaving either bare traces or nothing at all.

Legend has it that the town of Ávila lacked the money to demolish the wall. In retrospect, that was a good thing, because today, the walls that surround Ávila, Murallas de Ávila are among the most impressive Europe, some say that even better preserved than Carcassonne (France).

Ávila is a couple of hours away by car, so we drove off on Saturday morning at around 8 am and were there just before 10 am. We entered the city through one of the city wall gates, Puerta del Carmen.

Approach to the walls

We parked (100% ditched the car) at the hotel and checked in – even if it was quite early, they told us that one of the rooms was already prepared and gave us the keys. Unfortunately, it was not, and since the blunder was a Covid-protcol blunder, they upgraded us as an apology. The hotel, Parador de Ávila, belongs to the Spanish network of Paradores, and it is located in a 16th century palace, Palacio de Piedras Albas. We booked late-check-out for the following day, which can be done “for free” booking lunch in the restaurant (which is obviously not free).

Parador

Our first stop was the tourist office, but not the one that is clearly signalled in the middle of the town – the one that is located outside the wall and you have to turn around and around to find. But we needed it to buy the 48-hour pass to the monuments. Then we stuck around to wait for the nearby church to open, which gave way to observing the wall for the first time.

The Muralla de Ávila has been a Unesco World Heritage site since 1985. The structure is clearly defensive and it was built towards the end of the 11th century, quite probably as extension or reinforcement of a previous one, either Roman or Arab – though the Roman theory is the most credible as some pieces used in the original wall seem to come from a now-lost Roman cemetery, and there are documents about a Roman camp with similar shape. The wall has been restored in several occasions, and after surviving the ensanche risk, it was declared national monument and cleared of attached houses. Today most of the wall belongs to the Spanish government, and it is managed by the town hall, though there are some private parts, such as the ones that are part of the cathedral. The walls close off all the historical centre. They have a perimeter of 2,515 metres, with around 2,500 merlons, almost 90 turrets, and nine gates. Our second gate was Puerta de San Vicente.

Puerta de San Vicente

The first monument we stopped by, as soon as it opened since we were already there, was the basilica church Basílica de San Vicente (officially Basílica de los Santos Hermanos Mártires, Vicente, Sabina y Cristeta, three Christian siblings who were martyred nearby). It is one of the most important Romanesque buildings in the whole country, built between the 12th and the 14th century. It is protected as part of the World Heritage Site declaration. One of its characteristics is the golden rock in which it is built – sandstone-looking granite.

Iglesia de San Vicente

The inside of the basilica is, in the typical way, a mix of more modern styles. The grave of the martyr siblings is Pre-gothic, and the large altarpiece is Baroque. In the crypt there are proto-Christian pieces and a Romanesque Virgin which we did not get to see and which is the patron of the town.

Iglesia de San Vicente

Afterwards we headed off to the cathedral Catedral de Cristo Salvador, which is considered the first gothic cathedral in Spain (something that other people say about Cuenca), with clear French influences. It was designed as a fortress church as its abse dubs as one of the turrets of the city wall.

Catedral de Cristo Salvador

In later years, a choir was added, along with a Baroque altarpiece. The walls are also sandstone-looking granite, but some elements inside are limestone and wood.

Catedral de Cristo Salvador

To the side of the cathedral stands the cloister, which holds the grave to the first modern president of Spain, Adolfo Suárez, and the entrance to the cathedral’s museum. It yields to views of the tower and… the storks that squat there.

We headed off towards the Museum of Ávila. First we stopped at the former church Iglesia de Santo Tomé, which today is a warehouse for the museum, but can be visited anyway. When I was young, I studied the statues / sculptures called verracos, built around the 5th century BCE by the Vettones, a Celtic pre-Roman civilisation that faded upon the arrival of the Romans. The verracos are crude statues that represent four-legged animals – bulls, boars or pigs. At the time, I had only heard about a number of them, and was somehow under the impression that there were two or three around. I was quite wrong, apparently they pop up from the snow like daisies or something. In the church-turned-warehouse there were like twenty, one outside, there was one at the hotel garden… so no, apparently they are quite common. Other artefacts in the building include some carriages, Roman sculptures and mosaic, Muslim funerary artefacts and roof boards…

Iglesia de Santo Tomé

Then we moved onto the museum itself, Museo de Ávila, with a beautiful patio and a number of archaeological and ethnological items which represent the history and folklore of the town.

Museo de Ávila

It was almost time for lunch, so we headed off towards the restaurant where we had booked. Before, we made a small stop at an old palace Palacio del Rey Niño, built in the 12th century, today turned into the Post office and the public library, with a patio closed off by the Walls themselves.

Palacio del Rey Niño

Then we walked by the modern marketplace.

mercado

Which happened to be right in front of the restaurant, named La Lumbre. Aside from its walls, Ávila is famous for its cattle, a particular breed called Raza Avileña – Negra Ibérica, and of course the meat the animals produce, especially the matured and grilled meat from older oxen. After the animal has been sacrificed, the meat is matured in a traditional process called “dry maturation” for six weeks before it is grilled. We ordered the rib steak, chuletón to share, along with some grilled vegetables, a “tomato salad” that was a… one-tomato with dressing. And then there were desserts, aside from chocolate cake, we ordered yemas de Ávila – a typical confectionery made with egg yolks, lemon juice, cinnamon, and caster sugar. Lots of typical stuff, as you can see!

lunch

Our next stop was the main square, called “little market square”, Plaza del Mercado Chico, along with the town hall or Ayuntamiento. The square was rebuilt in the 19th century and is flanked by arcades. The town hall was built in 1862.

Plaza del Mercado Chico

Plaza del Mercado Chico: Ayuntamiento

After a brief stop at the Parador for some rest, we headed off to find a convent / monastery on the other side of town. On the way we came across some ruins that I assume are the church Iglesia de San Jerónimo, as they sit in the square of the same name.

Ruinas de San Jerónimo

We reached the convent Convento de San José, a reconstruction of a previous monastery and church, the first founded by Santa Teresa de Jesús (Saint Teresa of Ávila), a Christian “doctor of the church” and mystic Carmelite nun, known for her ‘raptures’, her reforms, and her literature work. More on her later though. The convent and church were a little… underwhelming, even if is a World Heritage building.

Contento de San José

Then we walked back towards the historical centre, and walked past the church Iglesia de San Pedro, a 13th-century building with a great rose window, but which was closed (reforms).

Iglesia de San Pedro

On the other side of the square, Plaza del Mercado Grande (Big Market Square) stands another of the wall gates, Puerta del Alcázar, and a monument to Saint Teresa Monumento a Santa Teresa: La Palomilla.

Puerta del Alcázar

Next we separated and I went off to climb the walls Murallas de Ávila. Well, to walk on the parapet. Due to Covid, there is only one access, next to the Cathedral and its gate Puerta de la Catedral. The walkable area is around 1.4 km, including walking over some of the gates and up and down more than a few turrets. It allows for some amazing views of the town and its outskirts…

Views from the walls

… but also of the wall itself, both the original walls and the add-ons from later eras (and a magpie).

When I reached the end of the walk, I went down and crossed the bridge gate Puerta del Puente, named that way because it overlooks the bridge over the Adaja river. I could not take a picture of it because the traffic police was checking cars at the roundabout in front of the gate. Thus, I headed off to the pedestrian bridge to cross over towards the tiny hermit popularly known as “the four posts”, Los Cuatro Postes, which yield to an impressive view of the town and its walls.

Cuatro Postes

Views on the wall

Avila and View

I walked back to see the walls from the base. Then I crossed the gate we had driven through in the morning, Puerta del Carmen, and I headed back to the hotel for a drink.

At the feet of the walls

Puerta del Carmen

After a while we headed off for dinner and tried another of the typical dishes in Ávila, patatas revolconas – mashed potatoes with paprika and pork rashers, and waited for the sun to go down so the city lit up.

Patatas revolconas

A walk around the town yielded to views of the Iglesia de San Vicente and Puerta de San Vicente, some of the inner streets leading to the town hall Ayuntamiento, the longer area of the Muralla and the Puerta del Carmen.

Night view

And then I had a very, very long shower and went to bed.

In the morning, breakfast was had – not a fan of the “we can’t have a buffet so we prepared this and this is what you get” plate, but whatever. I mentioned Santa Teresa before, let’s get into that a bit further. She was a 16th-century nun born near Ávila, canonized in the 17th century, and elevated to doctor of the church in the 20th century. She is conisdered one of the great mystics and religious women in the Roman Catholic church, author of a number of spiritual classics, and the reformer of the Carmelite nun order into the Discalced Carmelites. She founded convents all over Spain and was known for her mystics raptures which may have been messages from God or epileptic attacks. She is one of Ávila’s most important historical figures and wherever you go there are traces of her. In the place where her house stood now there is a convent, a church, a reliquary room and an interpretation museum, with really strange hours on Sundays. We could see the convent / church Convento de Santa Teresa de Jesús / Iglesia de la Santa and the reliquary room where no pictures were allowed Sala de Reliquias between services.

Iglesia de la Santa

On the way, however, I found some interesting ruins – the gate to the former hospital Hospital de Santa Escolástica, and we walked past a bunch of palaces.

Portada de Santa Eulalia

Then we moved onto a long walk to the 16th- century Gothic monastery Real Monasterio de Santo Tomás, which we could see due to lucky timing as there was a First Holy Communion Mass happening and the local little old ladies were not to keen on cultural visits of the church.

The monastery has a church, three cloisters and two adjacent museums. The church has an impressive Gothic altarpiece (by Pedro Berrugete, one of the key painters riding the wave between Gothic and Renaissance arts), and hosts the grave to the Catholic Monarch’s only male son.

Santo Tomás

The three cloisters: Claustro del Noviciado, Claustro del Silencio, and Claustro de los Reyes Católicos (Novitiate, Silence and Catholic Monarchs).

Santo Tomás Cloisters

The Museum of Natural Sciences Museo de Ciencias Naturales, an occupational therapy project could… be better, and sets the expectation bar rather low for the next one.

Museo de Ciencias Naturales

However, the Museum of Eastern Arts Museo de Arte Oriental is pretty impressive. It contains pieces and artefacts that the Dominican missioners brought from China, Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Museo de Arte Oriental

And in the end, that was it for the weekend. We walked back, decided to give the museum of Saint Teresa a miss, had a drink, had lunch and went back on our merry way – with a a view of the train tracks over the dam of the reservoir Embalse de Fuentes Claras.

Train tracks over Embalse de Fuentes Claras

Walked distance (Saturday): around 12.5 km
Walked distance (Sunday): around 6 km
Total distance driven (both days): around 340 km

23rd & 24th April 2021: Mental Reset Half-weekend: Cuenca (Spain)

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With everything going on, travelling is almost impossible, but the stars aligned for a tiinny bit longer than day trip – from Friday to early Sunday morning, with every precaution possible, of course. We ran away to Cuenca for a day and a fifth. As days are becoming a bit longer, when we arrived there were still a couple of hours of light left. We checked in and dropped off the car at the Parador de Cuenca. The Parador hotel chain might be more expensive than standard accommodation, but truth be told, it is upholding the strictest hygiene protocols, even though their hand disinfectants give me allergies. Truth be told, it was spectacular.

The Parador stands in a repurposed monastery, the old convent of Saint Paul, just at the edge of the historical centre of Cuenca. The hotel has a covered cloister and a newer building, and the adjoint church has been turned into an art centre.

Parador

Room

Gorge

The core of the town stands between two rivers, River Júcar and River Huécar. As the area is rich in karst – calcite rocks, which dissolve in water – the rivers have dug parallel gorges around the historical dwellings. The walled city has been declared a Unesco World Heritage Site and one of the keymost point is the hanging houses, Casas Colgadas (now home to the Museum of Abstract Art). While the houses are now rather unique, they used to be the norm in the 15th century. In order to cross the Huécar gorge Hoz del Huécar, there is a(n also) hanging bridge. The bridge of Saint Paul, Puente de San Pablo, was built at the beginning of the 20th century in the typical cast-iron architecture of the time.

Puente de San Pablo

Looking back to the other side of the bridge, you see deceivingly high hill, Cerro del Socorro, carved out of karst. I say deceiving because when you actually look at it, you’re half-way up, and you can look down to the bottom of the gorge. At the top of the hill stands a religious pillar to the Catholic Sacred Heart, Monumento al Sagrado Corazón.

Cerro del Socorro

Monumento al Sagrado Corazón

Casas Colgadas

We went on walking towards Main Square and the Cathedral of Our Lady of Grace and Saint Julian – Catedral de Santa María y San Julián de Cuenca. The cathedral is one of the earliest Gothic buildings in Spain (although the main façade has been rebuilt in style). However, it is not the typical Spanish Gothic style, but it is more similar to the Norman buildings in the north of Europe. It was unfortunately not open for visiting though (it’s the third time I’ve been to Cuenca and I’ve never been able to walk in (≧▽≦) ).

Catedral de Cuenca

There also stands the Ayuntamiento de Cuenca or town hall, a three-arched Baroque building erected around 1760 after the designs of the architect Jaime Bort. The building closes off the square and is the gateway to a maze of chaotic traffic of one-way streets and directing traffic lights.

Ayuntamiento de Cuenca

We turned towards the gorge, Hoz del Júcar on the other side of the town for a view of the sunset, but the clouds seemed to be hiding it.

Hoz del Jucar

As we continued on, we stopped by a nun convent Convento de las Esclavas. This Catholic nun congregation leads a contemplative life and they are perpetually praying to the Eucharist – at least some of them, as apparently they bake and sell confectionery to sustain themselves. You can see a nun praying in the church, and to be honest for a second I did not realise she was there, it felt like there was a ghost all of a sudden. The building was erected between the 15th and 16th centuries.

Convento de las Esclavas

Convento de las Esclavas

We found the monument to a medieval king Monumento a Alfonso VIII. During the Christian and Muslim wars, the king was the one to conquer Cuenca for the Christians, and assimilated it into the Castilla crown.

Monumento a Alfonso VIII

Another sculpture we found was, conversely, erected to honour the traditional shepherd from one of the old streets in town, a bronze statue named Monumento al pastor de las Huesas del Vasallo and located next to the bridge.

Monumento al Pastor

We also got treated to some nice views as the sun came out the second we turned out backs on it.

Sunset

After dinner – a really good club sandwich in my case, I walked out to take some pictures of the bridge and the hanging houses after dark, expecting them to be lit up… Which they were. I mean, I was really not expecting the green colours.

Night

Casas Colgadas

In the morning we had breakfast at the old dining room of the convent, the refrectorium, which still keeps its old allure.

Refrectorium

Later, we headed out to the local palaeontological museum Museo de Paleontología de Castilla-La Mancha. The museum was inaugurated in 2005, recycling, so to speak, a previous building that overlooks the city of Cuenca. The museum has an inner area with some reproductions and pieces from the different palaeontological sites around the area, and several models of the animals, organised in eras.

MUPA

MUPA

The outer part also holds replicas, and it gives a very Jurassic World feeling for a second, when you take the view with the dinosaurs. We had booked first thing in the morning, so we were leaving when the kid-crowd started to arrive, in order to see both the extinct and the extant dinosaurs (a.m., we found a mallard minding his own business at one of the ponds).

MUPA

We drove back, and unfortunately the Sat-Nav got us lost. However, we dropped the car safely off a the hotel and decided to take the plunge and walk into the museum of Spanish abstract art Museo de arte abstracto Español, home to a number of… works… by Spanish artists from the 1950s and 60s in the Hanging Houses / Casas Colgadas. I… have to admit I am not the biggest fan of abstract art, so I was not terribly impressed – I mean I had been there before and it had not imprinted on me, like at all (≧▽≦).

Museo arte abstracto

After the museum we headed back to the Parador for lunch and some rest – and I have to say that the curd I had tried the last time was nowhere to be found any more. Sad.

cuajada

But not to be deterred, we soon moved to the city museum Museo de Cuenca, which highlights the Roman origins of the city. There are displays from Prehistory to the Middle Ages, but there is either a surprising lack of Muslim artefacts, or they were in the closed-off rooms.

Museo de Cuenca

After this, we wanted to check out one of the churches, and on the way we passed by a viewpoint towards the gorge Hoz del Huécar.

Hoz del Huécar

We also came across the “Christ in the Alleyway” or Cristo del Pasadizo, which is related to the legend of two lovers – he went to war, she stayed behind and moved on, and then everything ended in tears because how dare a woman in Christian Middle-Ages Spain try to be happy. Anyway, here’s the alleyway and the Christ figure.

Cristo del Pasadizo

After that we ended up at another museum of contemporary art, Fundación Antonio Pérez, located in another former convent built in the 17th century. Honestly? It was slightly interesting but mostly claustrophobic. The majority of rooms do not have windows whatsoever and the fact that there is a one-way itinerary due to Covid, and how dry the air was, made it stressing to an almost ridiculous level.

Arte contemporáneo

It was early evening when we came out, and the second we put a foot outside it started pouring, so we headed back – it also made for a few spectacular pictures.

Rain

Rain

Some cool ones were also taken on Sunday morning just before we drove off early because there was stuff to be done throughout the day.

Casas Colgadas + Puente de San Pablo

8th & 9th January 2021: Guadalajara & Filomena (Spain)

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Since 2017, Spain (alongside Portugal and France) has taken up the custom of naming bad storms, and this season we are up to ‘F’, the 6th bad storm. In this case, the storm, named Filomena, entered Spain from the south west and collided with a polar air mass that happened to be coming from the north. The result – snow. Lot’s of it, with low temperatures and snow-heights not seen in a very long time. Some call it “the snowfall of a lifetime”.

As Covid-19 has made travelling impossible – or at least pretty unsafe / irresponsible (choose your pick), plans have been pushed back again, and plain cancelled. While truth be told I still hold tickets for the Saint Seiya event in Paris in late May, I have no hope I will be able to attend. Even if the Covid crisis fades away, there’s the extra issue of the economic blow 2020 caused.

Anyway, back to Filomena – it brought something that is rarely seen in these parts. Snow. Lots of it. So before everything went to hell, I just decided to ignore the stay at home recommendation and took a couple of walks around Guadalajara for a rare sight – the monuments covered with snow. Furthermore, as the snow is expected to freeze into ice plates, I had to go out when the snow was still fresh.

I took two different walks. On the eight of January, Friday, as soon as I got out of wok I put on my snow boots (perks from the time living in Scotland) and winter coat, then threw my raincoat over it – it was a tricky movement, but I managed not to dislocate my shoulder doing so. By this time there was a coverage of a few centimetres, and I decided to head out to the outer area of town where I could sneakily take my mask off if my glasses fogged too much, which I had to do when I crossed the road, because there’s no actual crossing.

There was a surprising amount of people around! Fortunately I was able to keep my distance, especially at the times when I tried to breathe – even if I went out with the smaller glasses, at points I had to take them and the mask off to be able to breathe and see anything.

I walked up to the Toro de Osborne a winery-billboard-turned-item-of-cultural-and-visual-interest which as you can see is shaped as a bull – representing the species used in bred for bullfighting, because the Osborne winery is located in an area also famous for the livestock. It is made of metal and measures around 14 metres high, one of the 91 that remain around Spain. It stands in an area that was supposed to become urbanised but never did, so it has several unfinished alleys and corners. There has been a statue there since 1975, called El Abrazo, (The Hug), which has always reminded me of a decomposing DNA strand. It was erected by Francisco Sobrino, the most famous sculptor from the town.

I went back right before sundown, and the roads were already difficult. It continued snowing throughout the night, and when I woke up on Saturday morning, no cars could run, there were no buses, trains had been stopped and some trees had collapsed under the weight of the strongest snowfall in decades. But… temptation won. I only wanted to peek around the corner a little, but then I decided that as there was a good chance I would run into people, I could not cheat on mask policy – so I put my contacts on. That warranted for a longer walk as those are disposable, and… not cheap (≧▽≦).

First I walked down the Avenida del Ejército, one of the main arteries in town, which had already been somewhat cleaned of snow, which was good, because… well, there was a bit more of a cover than the day before

I reached the park built after the ancient Arab structure, Parque de la Huerta de San Antonio. To the left stands one of the towers of the old walls, Torreón de Alvar Fáñez.

I saw the snowed Palacio del Infantado. This palace was built in the late Renaissance style, designed by Juan Guas and commissioned by the Marquis of Santillana. Although the main construction happened between 1480 and 1497 but has been reformed in several occasions, even recently as it was turned from public library into monument and museum. Infantado is a name related to the concepts of infante or infanta, which are the Spanish terms that designate the children of monarchs who are not the direct heirs (so no the crown prince or princess). The most important feature is the main façade built with sand-coloured rocks and diamond protuberances as decoration. It was suspected to have suffered from aluminosis concrete a couple of years back, but after a small political struggle, it the palace was deemed healthy again. Magic, I guess.

Up the central street of the old town, I took a small detour to check the Iglesia de Santiago Apóstol to the left. The church, built in bricks, used to belong to a now-gone convent.

In front of the church stands the convent-turned-palace-turned-high-school Convento de la Piedad / Palacio de Antonio de Mendoza. The convent-palace represents the start of the Renaissance influence in Spain, especially the former grand entrance.

At the end of the street stands the main square and Ayuntamiento, the town hall, and main square, where the street turns into the main street, Calle Mayor. The town hall, built at the beginning of the 20th century, sports an interesting bell tower in iron.

The square Plaza del Jardinillo (square of the little garden) where the Baroque church Iglesia de San Nicolás el Real stands. You can’t really recognise him under all the snow, but there is a Neptune standing in the middle of the fountain in the square.

Main Street continues until the square Plaza de Santo Domingo. The square is half park-like, half built, and one of the trees that died in the park area was carved into a book-stash sculpture.

On the other side of the road stands another church, Iglesia de San Ginés, built in the 17th century with two towers and a Romanesque-looking entrance.

The police tape around the main town park, Parque de la Concordia, had been partially taken down and I interpreted (wrongly) by the sheer number of people inside that it was allowed to walk in. Only when I reached the other side I realised that the park was considered unsafe, and of course I did not risk any other trespassing. The park dates to mid-19th century, and hosts a gazebo-like structure built in brick and iron by Francisco Checa in 1915.

I went on to the Paseo de San Roque, only on the street area, as the more park-like one was taped off. This is one of the most diverse parks in town, and some say that it could / should have been considered a botanical garden.

I walked alongside, peeked into the park Parque de las Adoratrices, but it was packed, so I continued on. Although this park is rather recent, opened in 2009, the walls and fences were built a century earlier. The town festival used to be celebrated here, but it was moved away to the outskirts as the town grew.

At the end of the street stands the chapel Ermita de San Roque , which originally was outside the town when it was built in the 17th century, in the typical brick of the area.

I walked around the walled area of the Colegio de las Adoratrices, with some really cool views of the pantheon that stands there, Panteón de la Duquesa de Sevillano, the school building and the church Iglesia de Santa María Micaela. This whole area used to belong to the Duchess, who commissioned the architectural complex in the 19th century. The pantheon is a particular example of the eclectic architecture, with a purple dome. The church is a mixture of different styles, out of which maybe neo-Gothic would be the most prominent one.

The street I wanted to go along next was a) taped off and b) waaaay too steep for a safe climb-up, so I decided to turn towards another of the important squares in town, Plaza de Bejanque. You can guess the old fortress Fuerte de San Francisco behind it, but it was also full of people, so I walked fast.

One of the features of the square is the old gate from the walls, Puerta de Bejanque, one of the access gates through the 14th century wall. This used to be part of a house that was built around it, and it was unearthed, so to speak, in the 90s.

I went down towards the co-cathedral Concatedral de Santa María. Originally built in the 13th century, this catholic church has been redesigned and rebuilt in several styles. It is best characterised by the horse-shoe arches in the main façade.

And sneaked up towards the chapel Capilla de Luis de Lucena, a small and compact chapel built like a tiny fortress that used to be an oratory part of a larger church.

I walked past the old palatial house Palacio de la Cotilla, a palatial house from the 15th century.

The convent Convento de las Carmelitas de San José. This convent, where cloistered nuns still live (tradition says that couples that are going to marry should bring them eggs for sun on the day of the wedding) was built in 1625, and the inside is decorated in the Baroque style.

And finally reached the lookout over the park built within the old torrent, Parque del Barranco del Alamín.

I finally saw the former church Iglesia de los Remedios. Today it is used as the grand hall for the nearby university, but it was originally a Renaissance temple, with three characteristic arches guarding the entrance.

And turned back towards the Palacio del Infantado from the square Plaza de España.

It had started snowing more heavily by then and my legs were getting tired. The sloshy snow on the roads had become frozen so it was slippery, and when I was walking on the actual snow, it was up to my mid-shins, so I was feeling the strain in my legs and my back. Thus, I decided to go back home and not to return in the afternoon again because the trees had lost more and more branches under the weight of the snow. The temperature going down also meant that the snow was going to freeze and it would be more slippery as it became ice…

I mean, this is the tree that used to stand in front of my balcony… So better safe than sorry. But all in all, the snowfall of a lifetime in these latitudes!

12th September 2020: Sigüenza (Spain)

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We took a drive to Sigüenza, in Spain. This medieval town? big village? had a big relevance through the Middle Ages, and the historical centre reflects that. The most prominent point is the castle on top of a hill. The Castillo de los Obispos is a fortress that can be traced to Roman times. However, the actual castle was a Moorish alcazaba. After the Christians took it over in the 12th century, it was remodelled and enlarged. Due to its vantage point, the castle was a key element in different wars and strife, including the Napoleonic invasion and the Civil War, thus resulting pretty damaged. In the late 20th century it was decided to restore it turn it into a Parador with around 50 rooms.

During our planning stage we called and tried to book a restaurant for lunch, and we were told they were not taking them, we had to call on the same day. Of course, when we got there, it was impossible to book – there was a course and the celebration of a communion (seriously, people, learn to say no so others can get organised). Unfortunately, you could not see the interior or even the yard if you had no reservations, so I can only share a picture from the parking lot, where we left the car.

We walked down the main street Calle Mayor, a clobbered slope that ends (well, technically begins) at the town’s main square.

Main Square or Plaza Mayor is home to the Town Hall or Ayuntamiento de Sigüenza, an old palace with a typical Castillian inner yard or patio.

Opposite the town hall stands the cathedral Catedral de Santa María La Mayor de Sigüenza. The Gothic building was built upon a previous Romanesque one and it had some Neoclassical and Baroque additions. Thus, the façade sports Romanesque doors and rose window, and the main body is Gothic. The altar and the choir are awfully Baroque too, and some of the chapels sport Cisneros, Plateresque and Renaissance decorations. All in all, an interesting pout-pourri of architectural and decoration styles.

The most important piece of art of the cathedral, however, is a funerary piece to the right of the altar. It is the sepulchre of Martín Vázquez de Arce “El Doncel” (“The Young Man”). The chapel holds him, his parents and grandparents, but the sculpture on his sepulchre is the most impressive one. The Vázquez de Arce family were vassals of the Mendoza family, the most important family in the area during the Middle Ages. During the war to conquer Al-Andalus, the Vázquez de Arce males followed the Mendoza to the war in Granada, where Martín died in a trap set by the Arabs, which consisted on damming the River Genil to a creek, and then releasing the dam so the water took over the enemies crossing (which… kinda sounds like something out of the Lord of the Rings, doesn’t it? At least, it makes me think of Arwen and Treebeard). The sepulchre, commissioned by Martín’s brother, presents him taking a break during training and reading a book. He even has pupils, so if you could climb up, you’d see what he’s reading!

The cloister is also Gothic, as the previous Romanesque one was torn down. It holds a central garden and a number of side rooms where there is a collection of mythology-themed tapestries. In one of the chapels, there is also a painting by El Greco, a Greek painter rooted in Spain who was one of the key artists during the Spanish Renaissance.

The cathedral ticket also allows a visit to the Diocesan Museum Museo Diocesano, which holds many pieces of religious art, along with a few models of the cathedral in its different construction stages. These days I’m trying to learn some hagiography, which means how to identify religious figures by how they’re presented. Getting there, three out of ten times or so, because half the time they cheat.

After the cathedral we climbed up towards the castle, and we stopped at the former church Iglesia de Santiago, now transformed into a mini-introduction centre for all the “hidden” or “unknown” Romanesque in the area. The church itself had some beautiful paintings, but it was destroyed during the Civil War.

Continuing our way up, we turned a little to see the house where the Vázquez de Arce family used to live, now turned in a museum, Museo Casa del Doncel. There is a little paintings exhibition and a guitar museum, along with some ancient artefacts such as vases or looms. The most interesting part are the Moorish “Mozárabe” decoration. Here is a bit of historic trolling: when the Christian “conquerors” hired Arab craftsmen to do decoration, one of the things the Arabs did was decorate using Quran verses.

Then we saw the outside of the church Iglesia de San Vicente Mártir, Romanesque to boot.

Afterwards, we ended up at the square Plazuela de la Cárcel, where the old gaol jail stood.

Finally, we headed over to the restaurant where we had booked a lunch table, a traditional grill called La Taberna Seguntina where I chose to have a “summer menu” with salmorejo (a thick soup or purée made with tomato, oil, and bread and sprinkled with boiled egg and cured ham) and roasted cochinillo (suckling pig, roasted whole) with potatoes and herbs. For dessert I had a pudding!

And that was it, really – Medieval Sigüenza has nothing else to see. As the façade of the castle was being restored, we did not even take pictures of it as we drove away.

4th September 2020: Alcalá de Henares (Spain)

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After looking for a place to park the car for 12 minutes, I left the car and I went off on foot towards the centre with a relative who is living in Alcalá de Henares. The town centre has been a Unesco World Heritage Site since 1998.

Our first stop, at 10:30 almost sharp was the Palacete Laredo, a small palace built in the Neo-Mudéjar style, a type of Moorish Revival architecture. It was designed and built between 1880 and 1884 by the Spanish artist Manuel José de Laredo y Ordoño. After a century in private hands, it passed to the town hall, which allows the university to use it as a museum, showing a collection of ancient documents.

The palace is built in brick, it has two floors and a minaret-like tower. The inside is decorated with coloured-glass window, tiles and paintings. The visible ceilings on the first floor are wooden artesonado (decorative beams joined together). There is also a garden, but it was closed.

Afterwards, we headed off towards the centre. We walked by the church Parroquia de Santa María la Mayor and is inhabitant the stork on photo duty.

We had tickets to see the Corral de Comedias, a theatre built in the site of an ancient “theatrical courtyard”. These were open-air theatres that were common during the late middle ages and exploded in popularity in the 16th century. The Corral in Alcalá de Henares was built in 1601 by Francisco Sánchez, member of the Carpenters Guild. It suffered several changes – the ceiling was built in the 18th century, then it became a cinema, and eventually was “lost” in the 1970s. In the 1980s, it was rediscovered, restored, and finally opened as working theatre in 2003.

Alas, we were too late for the 12:00 visit to the university, so we wandered around the town’s main square Plaza de Cervantes – Alcalá de Henares was Cervantes’ birthplace. Miguel de Cervantes was a 16th century Spanish writer, most renown for his novel “The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha”, which many authors consider “the first modern novel” and “the best literary work ever written” (though… I disagree). The square features a bandstand, the statue of Cervantes, and is surrounded by several buildings of importance – the ruins of the church Iglesia de Santa María, the Town Hall and the Círculo de Contribuyentes, former casino, and the Corral de Comedias.

Then we walked down Main Street Calle Mayor, until we got down to the Obispado de Alcalá de Henares, the bishopric, with two towers from the former wall at their sides. That reminds me – we did not visit the cathedral or any religious buildings because they were all closed to tourism.

At 13:00 we took the guided visit to one of the university buildings, the Colegio Mayor de San Ildefonso. The university was established in 1499 by Cardinal Cisneros, an influential Spanish religious and statesman in the time of the Catholic Monarchs. A colegio mayor is basically a dignified “classic” dormitory. The façade was built between 1537 and 1559 in the Plateresque style, an architectural style that developed in Spain between the late Gothic and the early Renaissance. The architect was Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón.

Inside, we saw the cloisters and yards, the gate of honour (from where the successful students left the university), the classroom where the students defended their final thesis, and the chapel, with the tomb of the founding Cardinal (but not his body, which is in the cathedral).

We had a reservation to have lunch at the Parador de Alcalá de Henares, which is a rather modern building and not a historical one, but a stamp was needed (≧▽≦). Lunch was a looong affair because our waiter might not have been the… most efficient. We tried the combos with a little bit of everything to share (entrées and desserts), and some bull tail. Oh and coffee. Yay coffee. (Also, kudos to me for cutting that nut in half.)

After lunch, we walked down the Calle Mayor again and we made a stop at what is supposed to be the house where Cervantes was born, or at least a reconstruction, with a bunch of ancient objects thrown in – the Museo Casa Natal de Cervantes. There was also a photography exhibition. To be honest, it had a great quality-price relation. It was free, and the quality was… lacking. Or maybe I’m old and I have seen most of the stuff they showed in action, and used a few.

We continued on to the regional archaeological museum Museo Arqueológico Regional, located in the old Archiepiscopal palace. That was unexpectedly good, with the fossil record and the old Roman mosaics.

Pending for a future visit to Alcalá de Henares: Roman and Medieval areas, and the religious buildings, as the day finished up doing some necessary and work-related shopping before I drove back home.

Driven distance: Around an hour? I dumped the car as soon as I could and we walked the hell out of the town (≧▽≦)
Walked distance: 14.61 km

6th August 2020: Monforte → Ourense → Pontevedra {Spain, summer 2020}

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We left behind Monforte de Lemos and drove off to Ourense, one of Spain’s thermal cities. Unfortunately most of the thermal water stuff is closed due to Covid and it was 40ºC anyway (≧▽≦). Upon arriving we left the car, and walked to the cathedral Catedral de San Martín de Ourense, an amazing piece of Romanesque / Gothic art with an amazing 13th-century chromatic Portico of Paradise [Pórtico del Paraíso] and a horrible Baroque Chapel of Christ [Capilla del Santo Cristo].

Ourense: Romanesque portico with wooden figures painted in bright colours (by JBinnacle)

We walked past Plaza Mayor or main square.

And we reached the area called As Burgas, where the old Roman baths and fountains of thermal water stand.

Then we took a stroll upwards and found an interesting church – the Iglesia de Santa Eufemia, very, very Baroque and climbed about five hundred stairs.

After arriving at the cloister of Francis, Claustro de San Francisco, we took a walk around and then went back to the car to drive off to Pontevedra.

On our way out we could spot the Roman bridge, Ponte Romana, but could not take any nice pictures due to the railing of the actual bridge we were on.

It did not take long to Pontevedra, where we had lunch, rested for a while, and then took a stroll around the town centre. Oh, and I got stamp number four as we stayed at the Parador de Pontevedra, which is an old city palace. Pontevedra is the town of a thousand squares, or so it feels. The truth is that the following morning we had booked a guided visit, so just a few highlights here.

Santuario de la Virgen Peregrina, a shell-shaped church in the centre of the town:

Plaza de la Herrería (and a few others surrounding it), with a friendly mask-concerned dinosaur (don’t judge, their hands might not be too good for the knot-tying).

We had dinner a splendid dinner: scallops (both zamburiñas and vieiras, or king scallops (Pecten maximus), empanada(pie) and lacón (pork. Not quite ham, but yummy anyway).

Driving distance: 168 km
Walking distance: 6.28 km

4th August 2020: Meanders and Curves {Spain, summer 2020}

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The area we were visiting that day, called Ribeira Sacra, is sprinkled with Christian monasteries [mosteiros] and churches [Igrexas] in the Romanesque and Gothic styles. These religious sites became commonplace during the Medieval times, along the way that leads up to Santiago de Compostela, an important Christian pilgrimage site. The route is called Camino de Santiago (St. James’ Way).

We started off with a fierce battle against the car’s sat-nav as it refused to take us to our first stop, the church of St. Michael in a tiny hamlet. I managed to trick the navigator and we arrived at the Iglesia de San Miguel de Eiré only a little later than expected. The church is small and it was built in the Romanesque style, which is common the Ribeira Sacra. The church was built in the second half of the 12th century, and has a remarkable archway. Back in the day, it belonged to a monastery.

Afterwards we backtracked to what is probably its successor – another monastery, the Monasterio Cisterciense del Divino Salvador in Ferreira, which was built in three styles – the church is Romanesque (12th century), the main building and the walls are Baroque (18th century) and the inner cloister is Renaissance (16th century). There are also two Romanesque wooden sculptures.

Then we set off towards a salad of curves the heart of the Ribeira Sacra, the area of the River Sil where the water has excavated a deep canyon – well, ish. There was a lot of tectonic activity going on in the area a long time ago that helped the development of the river canyon, the Canón do Sil. It is dammed at the moment, which has made the river depth increase.

We had booked a “cruise” in a “catamaran” that turned out to be a plain-old boat and way too packed for my peace of mind. Fortunately everybody wore masks, we had the N-95 that protect both ways ones, and used a lot of hand sanitiser – my nails are really, really off due to the use and abuse of hand sanitiser. We sailed off the wharf Embarcadoiro do Santo Estevo and the views were pretty nice. Both the narrator and narration not so much, though the bit about the “special” vineyards perched on the canyon walls was interesting.

After a ninety-minute sail, we disembarked and took the car again to drive to the Parador de Santo Estevo to have lunch (cue stamp number three), where I tried the local beef with foie, while the rest went for the octopus.

Then we took a stroll down the Parador, which is an old monastery that has not one but three cloisters, as the Monasterio de Santo Estevo de Ribas de Sil has existed since the tenth century and buildings have been added. Two of the cloisters are Renaissance and the third is Baroque / Gothic.

Finally we stopped over at the church, whose interior is late Romanesque but with a later façade (and a very Baroque altar).

And then we went back to the curves. Lots and lots of curves. The road ran along the canyon, so we stopped over at a couple of viewpoints to observe the canyons – Miradoiro de Cabezoás:

Miradoiro Balcones de Madrid:

Then we continued onto the ruins of another Romanesque Monastery, Mosteiro de Santa Cristina de Ribas de Sil, with some very nice paintings and a very pretty cloister.

Afterwards we drove back up the road and we found another viewpoint Miradoriro Xariñas de Castro (a.k.a. Miradorio A Mirada Maxica) for more views of the canyon.

We continued to the monastery Mosteiro de Santa María de Montederramo, where we had booked at 19:00 but could join the 18:00 visit instead. Shifty, I know, but we were there at 18:04 and… yeah. Not really worth the wait, even though the Gothic church and cloister were neat, even if a bit unkempt.

And as we were finally driving back towards Monforte de Lemos, we came across the castle Castelo de Castro Caldelas, which was actually on the planning for the next day but we thought we would… how to put this… avoid some curve-driving if we took the stop.

All in all: 135 km driving; 6.96 km walking; around 20 km sailing; hundreds of curves.

7th – 10th February 2020: Paris (France) for DIR EN GREY & BABYMETAL

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I organised a weekend in Paris because two concerts conveniently aligned on Saturday and Sunday, and I had Friday free, as well as Monday morning. It was a great mental break that I needed badly. ETA: There were rumours about a flu from China, and some of the airport workers were wearing masks. We had no idea what was about to hit us…

7th February 2020: Through the Strikes

I had found quite a convenient flight that left at 9:00 on Friday for 35 €, which was a great deal. At first, I did not understand why it was so cheap. It turned out, the plane came from South America and it was on a Madrid stopover – so it was pretty much full already. It was a huge aircraft with on-board entertainment. That came in handy when the pilot informed us that we were going to have to wait something between one and two hours to be able to take off due to the air controllers’ strikes in France. But at least we were flying and I had films to watch.

We took off at about 10:00 and our big plane made the jump in just one hour, as opposed to the 2h10 minutes of estimated travel, which meant we were almost on time! Of course, this did not sit well with the strikers, who had us wait first for the parking spot, and then for the stairs to deplane. I finally managed to leave the airport and get onto the train so I reached downtown Paris around 13:00. I wanted to inspect the damage caused to the cathedral Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris by the 2019 fire. My first impression, looking at the main façade and towers, was optimistic, but as I walked round the building, I could see the real damage and reconstruction efforts. Furthermore, it still reeked of burnt wood, probably because they were still pulling out debris. My optimism did not linger long, I’m afraid.

Collage of Notre Dame showing the cranes and scaffoldings in the repairs

As it was sunny, I decided to walk to the Sainte-Chapelle (Holy Chapel) and see its windows in good weather. The Sainte-Chapelle is a small two-level chapel inside the Justice Palace Palais de Justice de Paris in the Île de la Cité, smack in the middle of Paris and not far from Notre Dame – actually, both of them belong to the same Unesco World Heritage Site, Paris, Banks of the Seine. The chapel has a lower early Gothic level, and an upper level with impressive stained-glass windows which I love. As the sun was shining outside, the views were stunning.

Collage. Sainte-Chapelle: outside showing the spire, inside with some colourful windows and pointed arches

Collage of the upper floor of the Sainte-Chapelle. It shows different angles of the long gothic windows, covered in colourful glass

The weather was great – especially considering February in Paris, which is always more to the north than I mentally place it. Unfortunately, the forecast for the following day was quite miserable, and thus I decided to just walk along from the Île de la Cité towards the Arc de Triomphe (some 5 km away). On my way, I walked by the Louvre, Les Tulleries, the Grand Palais, the Petit Palais, the Alexander III Bridge, and into the Avenue des Champs-Élysées – the Banks of the Seine that the Unesco declared World Heritage.

Collage with different landmarks of Paris - the river, neoclassic palaces, Luxor obelisk, Champs-Élysées.

Finally I reached the Arc de Triomphe, which honours the fallen in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. It was commissioned by Emperor Napoleon in 1806, and completed in 1836, and you can actually climb it, which I might do some day. From there, I took a train towards Montmartre, where I had booked my hotel. I dropped off my luggage and walked up Square Louise Michel, a sort of urban park which leads up to the church Basilique du Sacré-Cœur (222 steps). There was a pretty carousel Carrousel de Saint-Pierre, and from the square, I could watch the Eiffel Tower Tour Eiffel against the sunset from the lookout Vue de Paris.

A view of the Sacre Coeur with a classical carousel in front of it

A profile of the Eiffel Tower in a blurry sunset in orange tones

I went back to the hotel for a while during twilight. On the way, I bought a snack in a nearby supermarket for dinner as I waited for the evening to get dark and the lights to come up. When it did, I took my last adventure for the day, and walked off to see the Moulin Rouge while I listened to KAMIJO’s song of the same name. It was a few minutes’ walk away from my hotel, and Moulin Rouge [ムーランルージュ] is one of my favourite songs of his. Since the man is obsessed with France, he has a few songs that fit my weekend. Truth be told, I did consider dinner and a show there, it is after all the most famous cabaret in the world. However, it was a bit expensive and I had read quite a few reviews about bad seats if you are alone. I did not want to waste money, and I did not know how tired I would be that evening in the end – and to be brutally honest,I really had not felt like packing fancy clothes for the evening.

The Moulin Rouge cabaret, all lit up in bright red for the night

8th February 2020: Louvre and DIR EN GREY

The weather forecast was accurate, and despite the lovely weather on Friday, Saturday dawned stormy and dark. I decided to go to the Louvre Museum Musée du Louvre, even if I had been there before. It is after all one of the greatest museums in the world.

The Louvre holds so many pieces (over 600,000) that it would be impossible to describe them all, but for me, its core is the Winged Victory of Samothrace, a Greek sculpture from the Hellenistic period, around the 2nd century BCE, and my favourite piece of art. The Louvre is a national art museum, which opened in the post-revolutionary France in 1793. It exhibits around 35,000 items – Egyptian antiquities, Sumer and Assyrian pieces, Greek, Etruscan and Roman items, Islamic art, neoclassical and Baroque sculptures, a collection of objets d’art (Decorative arts), paintings, prints, drawings… It is located in the former French Royal Palace of the same name.

A collage with several Louvre pieces of art - Winged Victory, sitting scribe, the three graces, Diane washing her hair, Hermaphroditus sleeping, Psyche and Eros kissing, Liberty guiding the people, Venus de Milo

I wandered there for a few hours and I might have lost my way in the galleries a few times. In the end, I managed to (re)visit all the artefacts and artworks that I wanted. Because there are hundreds of thousands of items, but I must always see the Sitting Scribe, the Borghese Hermaphroditus, Canovas’ Eros and Psyche, and the remains of the Gates of Istar. I had a bit of a headache, so I eventually went back to the hotel to get some rest and prepare for the DIR EN GREY concert and VIP experience in the Élysée Montmartre live house. DIR EN GREY or “Diru” is a Japanese heavy metal band known for its dark themes and scenography that I thought I needed to check at least once (the final verdict was that I don’t need to repeat the experience, but it made for a nice mental break). The band has remained stable since its formation in 1997, and it is composed by Kyo [京] (lead vocals), Kaoru [薫] (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Die (lead guitar, backing vocals), Shinya (drums) and Toshiya (bass, backing vocals).

A dark stage with a drum set. Letters projected on the screen behind the stage read Dir en Grey Tour 20 This Way to Self-Destruction

Setlist:

    1. 絶縁体 [Zetsuentai]
    2. 人間を被る [Ningen wo Kaburu]
    3. Rubbish Heap
    4. Devote My Life
    5. 軽蔑と始まり [Keibetsu to Hajimari]
    6. Celebrate Empty Howls
    7. 赫 [Aka]
    8. Merciless Cult
    9. Downfall
    10. Values of Madness
    11. 谿壑の欲 [Keigaku no Yoku]
    12. Ranunculus
    13. The World of Mercy
First encore:
    14. Followers
    15. THE DEEPER VILENESS
    16. 詩踏み [Utafumi]
Second encore:
    17. Sustain the untruth

Listing of all the concerts in the Dir en Grey 2020 tour

The concert was the final of DIRU’s 2020 European Tour TOUR20: This way to Self-Destruction. When I walked by the venue on Friday evening, around 18:00, there was a small number of people queueing already. I did not care enough to queue all day, and I had a VIP ticket with early entry, so I just headed to the line about 15:00. When the queues were separated and organised, around 16:30, I was VIP number 42. The weather was miserable, and I could have totally skipped the downpour while waiting, but I was lucky enough to be against the live house and not in the middle of the boulevard, where the General Admittance queue was. Doors opened at 19:30 for GA, and the VIP experience was held beforehand. The VIP queue started getting in around 17:30. As present we got a VIP pass and an “exclusive VIP only merchandise item” which turned out to be a scarf – very appropriate with the weather. The experience itself was a group photo with the band. There were five cushioned chairs for the fans, and the band stood behind. They did not say a word, nor interacted with fans in any way, not even acknowledging a hello or a thank you.

Afterwards, I headed for the hall, and I found an almost-barrier spot in the left area, on the second row. The people in front of me let me grab the barrier between them so I had something to hold on while I waited. The special guest was a DJ, who was more focused on getting recorded by his buddy on the phone than mixing music. The main show started a little after 20:30.

DIR EN GREY’s music is quite powerful, with a heavy focus on strings and drums. They also have a huge flare for theatricality and they enjoy the shock factor as part of the aesthetics. The singer, Kyo, donned a Joker-like make-up appearance, with a fake-suicidal attitude on stage, using the microphone to mimic stabbing his chest, or the wires to hang himself. It became a bit disturbing because it was repeated more than once. The act also felt rather distanced, there was very little interaction with the fans. At some point, a pick flew in my direction and the person behind me actually felt me up to try and find it in the folds of the coat I had tied around my waist. That was probably even creepier than the act.

The guitars and bass were tremendously powerful, and the drumming was amazing. The crowd was extremely loud, and the singer, Kyo, later confessed that he had been pretty exhausted and burnt out from the tour, which maybe explained why the concert felt so distanced. The encores were the probably best part of the concert, the part that felt more real and relaxed. After the concert was over, I headed off to the hotel to catch some sleep. Since I remembered that the area had felt a bit rough when I was there in 2014, this time over I wanted close accommodation so I could get back quickly without needing to use the underground.

9th February 2020: Destroy the Bastille!

Sunday morning was around 2 ºC, and it was windy. I lingered in bed for a while to recover from the previous evening, and then I headed out – I should have brought the merchandise-scarf with me! I saw the Place de la Bastille, where the revolutionary prison used to stand. In the middle of the square stands the “July column” Colonne de Juillet, which commemorates the Revolution of 1830 (which is not the “famous” French Revolution, which happened between 1789 and 1799). A few minutes away, in the Square Henri-Galli, I came across the base of the tower Tour de la Liberté (Freedom Tower), which was unearthed while building the first metro line. There are only a few stones remaining from the foundations, but I’ll take my fun wherever I can – so I stopped and used my music player to find another KAMIJO song, Bastille, just because I could.

Monument to the French Revolution

A few brick stones forming a circle, considered the last remains of the Bastille

It was too cold to wander, but I had a great plan. I headed off to the science museum Galerie de Paléontologie et d’Anatomie comparée (Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy Gallery), which was a short walk away. I had read about it and was curious. To be honest, I’m still trying to decide whether it was amazing, or the materials nightmares are made of.

The museum was founded in the 19th century, and it keeps the atmosphere – and the charm – of the old exhibitions. There are stands and wooden cases, and the smell of dust and old paper. The first floor holds a “Cavalcade of Skeletons” – the whole floor is occupied by preserved skeletons of mammals and birds. In the glass cases along the walls, there are taxidermy specimens, preserved animals and dissected specimens. In the far corner, there is “gallery of monsters” with natural oddities. It was enchanting, but at the same time deeply disturbing – especially the male human figure displaying muscles and blood vessels, with a vine leaf on his groin.

The second floor hosts the dinosaurs and other fossils, including a very cool toothed whale, giant crocodiles, a Bernissart iguanodon, a diplodocus, shark teeth… Most of the fossils are either casts or reconstructions – I swear I’ve seen that Irish elk at least three times before. Also, the T-Rex skull was adorably flawed, as it was imagined to be in the 19th century.

The third floor is… ammonite-land. There were cases upon cases of ammonites in different shapes, colours, rocks and materials.

Shots of the museum. Skeletons of animals - fish, oxen, crocodiles, elephants, whale. Fossils: Dinosaurs, fish, toothed whale, shark teeth, snails

After I was done with the museum, I decided it was too cold to wander the neighbouring Botanical Garden. Instead, I headed off to yet another one, the Musée national des arts asiatiques Guimet – the National Museum of Eastern Arts or Museum Guimet, which holds pieces of art from Cambodia, India, China, Japan, Korea and so on. There was a gorgeous dancing Shiva sculpture, collections of religious artefacts, calligraphy, samurai armours, even modern art and clothes inspired by the Far East. It was a really cool museum I had recently found about and was happy to visit.

Different pieces in the museum: Dancing Shiva, sitting Buddha, Calligraphy in the shape of a dragon, elaborate kimono, samurai armour, Indian goddess

After leaving the museum, I walked towards Trocadero to take the underground. I made a small detour to have a look at the Eiffel Tower Tour Eiffel, and saw a bunch of peddlers playing shell games with tourists. Someone lost about 400 €, I really hope they were in on the game.

The Eiffel Tower in front of a cloudy sky

Since it was too cold to continue walking around to find something to eat, I decided to get take-out, and I headed back to the hotel to get ready for the BABYMETAL concert. I had never listened to them before, but they are a sensation, the basic ticket was not expensive, and two concerts in as many days seemed convenient. They actually played in the same venue as DIR EN GREY on Saturday, so I found out by sheer coincidence on the live house’s website. At that time, I thought “why the hell not?”. Afterwards, they added Madrid to their Europe tour, so if I had known that beforehand, I might have acted differently. BABYMETAL is one of those insanely-profitable Japanese marketing stunts involving cute girls that had never really been in my radar more than in passing.

Notice with the date of Babymetal's concert

BABYMETAL is a product of the “Japanese idol factory”. It was created artificially to fill a market gap. Three girls were chosen to form an act that would mix the idealised cute idea of girl idols with the heavy metal genre. When they debuted in 2010, the term “Kawaii Metal” was coined. One of the girls left in 2018, so there are two main members and and support dancer on rotation. The members are Nakamoto Suzuka, “Su-metal”, the main vocalist, and Kikuchi Moa aka “Moametal” on back-up vocals and screams. The supporting musicians are called the “Kami Band”.

BABYMETAL’s long-awaited European tour is officially called Metal Galaxy World Tour. The VIP tickets sold for around 170€, and did not even entail a M&G, so even if I had had the chance, I would have not even considered them. Despite that, they sold out, along with the show itself.

When I left the hotel at 9:00, the queue had started organising, and the tour buses were already there. I had no intention to queue or try for a barrier. I had decided to sit back and relax, so I reached the venue around 18:45 for the 19:30 concert. There were tons of people waiting to buy merchandise, but I was good. Thus, I just headed to the floor, and found a spot in the back. Since the venue has sort a bit of an arena and some upper stands, there was a wall I could lean against and it was not the end of the room.

The crowd was quite different from DIRU’s, ranging from good ol’ metalheads to families with little girls between five and ten years old with a bizarre range of in-between: people with fox masks, goth and loli dresses, explicit heavy-metal t-shirts (a bunch of those T-shirts were much less kid-friendly than the show… everything you could imagine. I… don’t think most parents knew what they were getting into, and a few of the kids ended up crying.

At 19:30 sharp, the support act started – a German band called SKYND. Their sound was really good, but their lyrics are based on true crime, which makes them a bit on the disturbing side (and very much not kid-friendly). The name of the songs are all serial killers or similar criminals.

Setlist:

    1. Richard Ramirez
    2. Elisa Lam
    3. Katherine Knight
    4. Jim Jones
    5. Tyler Hadley
    6. Gary Heidnik

At 20:30, the BABYMETAL show kicked off with the projection of the Future Metal video as an introduction of sorts. The musical act relied heavily on the Kami Band, and Su-metal carried the weight of the vocals. She spent the whole one-hour concert jumping and dancing while singing, and her voice did not break even once. If she is not lip-synching, she has the most impressive lungs ever. Both she and Moametal encouraged the crowd, making a lot of eye-contact. Su-metal addressed the audience a lot, even – I think – trying French. The concert was non-stop, and it ended up feeling a bit short, but much better than I had expected. The one annoying thing were the daddies putting their babes up on their shoulders in the middle of the floor, when the kids gave clear signs of not caring or were distressed. But it was fun. Not sure I would repeat unless I made it a thing with friends or something, but I enjoyed the act, and had a good time.

Setlist:

    1. DA DA DANCE
    2. Gimme Chocolate!!
    3. Shanti Shanti Shanti
    4. BxMxC
    5. Kagerou
    6. Oh! MAJINAI
    7. メギツネ [Megitsune]
    8. PA PA YA!!
    9. Distortion
    10. KARATE
    11. Headbangeeeeerrrrr!!!!!
    12. Road of Resistance

A group of girls dressed in black dancing in front of a logo that reads Babymetal

I was back at the hotel before 22:00. Thus, I got a good night’s sleep before I left, once again happy that I had taken nearby accommodation.

10th February 2020: No bells of Notre Dame

My plane boarded at 10:00 so I had to leave early for the airport. The weather was rainy again, so I took the underground to Gare du Nord, and then the train to Orly. As I was riding the train, I had a nice view of the Paris at dawn, but the bells of Notre Dame were not tolling, and my inner child was sad about that. Despite issues with the airport security staff, the stupidly-expensive food, and the general unpleasantness of early-morning public transportation, I made it to my plane without actual problems. As it was a big plane again, I settled down to watch Jurassic World during the flight, because I’m a nerd. Going straight into work from the airport was not fun, but it a small price to pay

I only had three days, but this trip was a very welcome getaway, and even if the weather did not help, I got to do a lot of stuff. I had to discard a few plans and improvise due to the weather. However, there is that film quote, “We’ll always have Paris”. After all, I’ll be coming back for the Saint Seiya Symphonic Adventure. ETA: Or so I thought, at the time of writing the article…

5th August 2019: Vampire Rockstar… I mean Vampire Café {Japan, summer 2019}

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After doing laundry (sweaty clothes and lingering smells of smoking rooms demanded those), I met up with B**** around Nakano [中野] station for lunch. Since I arrived earlier than her, I wandered around the shopping centre, and I saw yet another long jacket that I loved at a great price, so all in all, jacket success.

We did some karaoke and then she was kind enough to indulge me and accompany me to the Vampire Café in Ginza [銀座]. Themed cafés are rather popular in Japan. They are establishments that combine food, drinks, or both, with some kind of attraction or theme that makes them unique and / or special. A lot of them are are “animal cafés”, which have living animals as mascots. Back in 2013, B****, D****e and myself visited the Sakuragaoka Cafe, where you can feed the goats. Other cafés choose a topic or particular atmosphere, such as the butler café Swallowtails.

The problem with themes cafés is that one usually needs better Japanese than I have got in order to get by, so I have not visited as many of them as I would have liked. There quite a few reviews on the internet that complain about small portions and high prices for the cafés. It is true that they tend to be a bit more expensive than a regular shop, but you are paying for the experience on top of your food. I don’t think they are overpriced. Regarding the portions, I’ve always found them reasonable. So they are not like the hugely posh European restaurants that you get tiny amount of food at an exorbitant price.

We got off the train at Ginza station and found the La Paix Building or LapeBiru [ラペビル]. We spotted the café logo on the outside, and later in the directory next to the lifts. As it was a Monday, the place was not crazy full. I think they would have turned us down otherwise as we did not have a reservation. There was a direct lift to the entrance of the café, already decorated in style, with dim lights, cobwebs, lots of red velvet, even a skeleton.

We were given a note that informed us that each customer needed to order at least “a food and a drink” and that the time limit was two hours. While in general the experience was fun, I think that this café needs to be visited in groups so you’re in the main area and not the tiny booths to the sides. The main room had a coffin to the side, and there is a table for the groups. The walls were black, and the booths closed with heavy red drapes. There were candles (real candles, not lookalike lamps) for light, and a soft “music box” chamber music in the background in order not to disturb conversations.

Our waiter was clad in a long burgundy gown and she had bat wings on her hair. We’re not sure whether she was in character, or just unamused, but she looked very serious and a little unfriendly – she was probably just not in the mood to deal with the poor-Japanese-skills customers. Since we were only two, we were taken to one of the little booths with red sofas, a small black table, and black walls. As she drew the curtains closed – maybe for a casket-y feeling – we found ourselves giggling.

The food was not bad at all. We decided on a set for two, called Mankitsu Course [満喫ココース], literally “Enjoyment course”, and a couple of cocktails – a non-alcoholic ブルッドオレンジジュース “blood orange juice” for me, and a ブルッドオレンジサワー “blood orange sour” for B****. What was really on-spot was the presentation though – very in synch with the place, and rather cute, with roses made out of salmon, scythes and skulls sprinkled on the places and ice-cream spiders… and even those were cute.

Collage. The two-people booth is surrounded by red curtains, and the food is gothic-looking. The cold sausages have been stylised to look like roses, as has the salmon in the salad. The pasta has a black cross and a grim reaper drawing along the word Death. Ice cream scoops have little cookie legs so they look like spiders. A general shot of the room shows a coffin-looking table with a chandelier on top

Food consisted on:

  • Hamu moriawase [ハム　盛リ合わせ]: Ham assortment, more like sausage assortment with biscuits.
  • Shiisaa Sarada [シーザー サラダ]: Caesar Salad, really nice but not “Caesar”, it had a salmon rose.
  • Garikku Toosuto [ガリック トースト]: Garlic toast, in the shape of coffins, really adorable.
  • Ika sumi pasuta [イカスミ パスタ]: Squid pasta, surprisingly good and with an adorable Grim Reaper presentation.
  • Haabu & supiisu chikin [ハーブ & スパイス　- チキン]: Herb & Spice Chicken, flambéd at the table.
  • Nishiki Aisu [2色アイス]: Two-colour ice-cream, strawberry and vanilla in an edible cookie mini-bowl with little spider legs and glazed-cherry eyes.

Our waiter tried to make us chant once, but we did not manage to understand what she wanted us to do until we heard it echoed in a nearby booth. The truth is that we did not get to communicate with her too well. The booth was cute and all, but it was a bit disappointing to be “enclosed” behind the velvet all the time and miss on part of the experience – “Dracula” skipped our booth, apparently because we did not have enough Japanese for him?

The place felt rather quiet. As the velvet curtains muffled the sounds from other customers, only the creepy music-box ambience could be heard, albeit very faintly. When the two-hour limit was nearly over, we got our bill. The meal, including drinks, was actually cheaper than I expected. They did not add the cover charge despite saying they would, so the total came up to 7,776 ¥ (6,000 ¥ for the set menu, 550 ¥ for the non-alcoholic drink, 650 for the alcoholic cocktail plus taxes), so it did not even reach 4,000 ¥ per person.

Reading the bill slowly later, we thought that what the waiter wanted us to chant was a Dracula invocation: koyoi wa sonata [コヨイハソナタ] “tonight is a sonata”, and chi wo itadaku [血ヲイタダク] “(I) receive the blood”. I might want to come back to this place if my Japanese ever improves enough to enjoy the whole experience. But I got it out of the bucket list, and that was great. After all, I might have been on a bit of a vampire high due to both KAMIJO’s concert.

Walked distance: 15168 steps / 10.8 km, again somehow.

15th – 17th June 2019: Cologne (Germany) for the Gazette

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Getting from Madrid to Cologne [Köln] was stupidly difficult and expensive so in the end I took an early Saturday-morning flight to Frankfurt and then I booked train tickets (an ICE and a suburban train) to the hotel area in Cologne. My plane took off at dawn (literally) and landed at 9:40, so I thought about booking the train at 10:30.

Sunrise from the still-grounded plane

On a whim of distrustfulness, I decided to book the train for 11:00, which was lucky. While we did land on time, it tookan eternity to reach the terminal, and in the end I arrived in the station just past 10:30. Since I had a bit of time, I grabbed a coffee and a bagel for some ridiculous price, but that kept me going until the evening.

Bagel and coffee

The European plain from the train window

I reached Cologne and went on to the commuter to the venue area, where my hotel was, a short walk away from the station. After checking in, I dropped my things off in an amazing room, and had to do a double take – for a second I was not sure they had given me the right room, because it was way too nice for the price I was paying.

Huge bedroom at the hotel

After changing clothes, I grabbed my bottle of water and off I took a train towards the city centre to visit the Cologne Cathedral Kölner Dom –it took a bit to figure out how to validate the train tickets, but I think I did everything legally. The cathedral has been a World Heritage site since 1996. Its construction started in 1248, but was halted in 1473. The building remained unfinished until the 1840s, when work was picked up again, following the original Medieval plans, and the church was finally completed in 1880. While it was badly damaged in WWII, it withstood the bombings and ever since then, it has been in a constant state of small and not-so-small restorations and repairs.

Cologne Dome

From the Cathedral I walked towards Cologne Zoo or Kölner Zoo. Although it had been drizzling before, at that point it was sunny again, and the walk was nice.

A typical Cologne Street

I decided to go to the zoo because it was the only thing that seemed to be open for long enough to mean value for money. The weather had warmed up and the bunnies were roasted coughs. I got to see some animals I had never seen before, such as Przewalski’s horses, snipes, or a grizzly bear. The zoo has a huge enclosure area, a petting zoo with domestic animals (and cheeky cows), an aquarium and a terrarium with both reptiles and creepy-crawlers shudders.

Some of the animals in the zoo

Then, I walked back to the hotel, stopping by the supermarket on my way – and here I discovered my undoing. The triple chocolate cookies which wrecked my trying to eat healthy stroll. I shall try to find them again in my next Germany trip though. However, I have to say that I had learnt from my being stupid for MIYAVI in London and not eating well through the weekend, so I bought snacks to have the following day.

Cookies

I was exhausted, so I think I was out at 22:00, which helped being awake at 7:00 the next morning. Thus, I just headed off for the venue E-Werk, and settled to queue for the concert. Japanese Visual kei (V系) rock band the GazettE [ガゼット (Gazetto)] was formed in 2002 and achieved its current configuration in 2003. It is formed by members: Ruki (ルキ) on lead vocals; Uruha (麗) on lead guitar; Aoi (葵) on an insane amount of support guitars (two on the same song, almost at the same time); Reita (れいた) on bass, keyboards / piano; and Kai (戒) on drums. Though they are signed with Sony Records, they claim to be completely self-produced.

In December 2018, the Gazette announced that they would continue their Japanese Tour abroad as Live Tour 19 THE NINTH: PHASE #04 -99.999-. It originally spanned North and South America, and Europe, and later in April some Asian dates were added. I originally planned to go to Munich (travelling was easier and cheaper), but I could not get VIP tickets, so switched to Cologne instead. General Admission was reasonably priced (45€) with crazy shipping costs (+4.50€, since they were all printed out and pretty). VIP Tickets (300 per concert), included early entry (one hour before GA and two hours before the show), a VIP present, and a handshake with the band for 170€ (+4.50€ in shipping costs), exclusively distributed through ME-shop, which was a pain and not easy at all.

The Gazette World Tour dates

The Cologne concert at E-Werk would be held at 20:00, which placed entry at 19:00 and VIP entry at 18:00. I reached the queue around 8:00. The venue is a repurposed industrial building with a capacity for 2,000 people in a lower-floor arena and a sort of balcony around it which also allows for visibility. There were already staff walking around, and the venue even had portable toilets outside for queuing fans. At that time, there were maybe 60-70 people waiting in three queues – VIP, GA, and something called “regulars” who went in last.

Everything ran smoothly, with the three lines in front of the doors, up until 16:00 when security arrived. They decided to rearrange the queues, and created chaos. Fortunately, since most of the fans were German, and they enjoy order, at least the VIP queue was reorganised neatly and quickly – respecting the arrival numbers. Around 16:30, the VIP tickets were checked and switched for bracelets, and the holders ushered to a secondary waiting area where we were not even allowed to sit down until doors opened around 18:15. Due to this, I had to stand for two hours straight without leaning on anything, my back was killing me. I decided that I either made it to the barrier, or I would head upstairs for a good view. When I came in, I received the VIP present – a banner with the band logo on it– and I was find a first-row spot to the left of the stage, in front of Aoi (guitar). The concert ran about 15 minutes late due to a technical problem with a wire / monitor. Good thing I found a barrier spot indeed.

The concert was very high energy. The music was so loud my ears were still ringing three days later. Most of the setlist was from The Ninth album, which makes sense. My personal favourite live song was The Suicide Circus .

Setlist:

  1. 99.999
  2. Falling
  3. Ninth Odd Smell
  4. Gush
  5. Agony
  6. The Suicide Circus
  7. 虚 蜩 [Utsu Semi]
  8. その声は脆く [Sono Koe wa Moroku]
  9. Babylon’s Taboo
  10. Dogma
  11. Incubus
  12. Ugly
  13. Abhor God
  14. Filth in the Beauty
  15. Inside Beast
  16. Cockroach
  17. Tomorrow Never Dies

I was very impressed by Reita’s stage persona / antics, how he stood on stage and moved. I almost caught a pick that he threw, but by that time my right arm was completely useless as the person behind me kept trying to push me away from the barrier to take my spot. My wrist brace is actually broken due to having to hang on from her shoving. But she was not successful

Aoi was muchbetter than I expected, and at some point he was playing two guitars for the same song, the acoustic and the electric, without any apparent effort – he hung both from his neck and played whichever one he needed. I could not see much of Kai, and Uruha was most of the time too far away. And unfortunately Ruki favoured going to the right, but he has a very powerful body language.

After the concert, the VIPs were pushed– literally – to an area in the back of the venue to wait for the meet and greet in a different room. I got handshake with both hands from all of them, if memory serves me correctly the order was Kai, Uruha, Ruki, Reita and finally Aoi. I told them that it had been very fun, that they had done a good job and none of them batted an eye at my Japanese. They were really nice though, in a high contrast from stage personas.

Afterwards, I just headed off back to the hotel, and directly into the shower, because I was sore all over. Good thing I still had snacks from my supermarket run. I think this was the first time I have actually though “I’m getting too old for this”.

On Monday morning, my paranoia had me early at the station, and that was good because apparently my suburban had been cancelled. Being early, I was lucky enough to be able to catch a completely different one – not sure if legally. I did not get caught if it wasn’t, but I made it to Cologne central station and caught my ICE without any further stress. As the station is located next to the Dome, I was able to say good-bye.

Cologne Dome from the train

As I had a window seat again, I also had quite a few nice views from the plane, and made it home without any issue.

An aerial view of a reservoir with turquoise water

28th July – 3rd ‎August ‎2018: The Spanish “Levante”

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My parents sometimes vacation in this tourist-like complex in a little town called San Juan de Alicante in the east of Spain (the “Levante”). My father uses it as a base for diving trips, and sometimes I tag along to keep my mother company. When we arrived this year we found out that there was a new resident family in the garden – a family of squirrels that had apparently shown up travelling in trees that were going to be planted. The complex management decided to make squirrel-nurturing the local sport. Guests were encouraged to watch out for them, and leave them nuts. Also, there were educational signs about what was safe or unsafe to feed the little critters. I caught sight of them at some point or another.

One of the selling points of the complex – aside, of course, from the swimming pool and the great room service – are the big gardens, with lots of trees and plants, and the rescue bunnies. Now the squirrels came over to complete the scene.

Collage. A hotel room. Red flowers. A garden. A tiny rabbit. A tree and a close-up of that tree focusing on the squirrel on one of the branches.

31st July 2018: Chocolate & Lobster. Not together.

A meagre 20-minute-drive away from this little town stands the village of Villajoyosa, which translates into something akin to “The joyous village”. If you’ve never heard of it, I’ll just have you known that it has a chocolate factory, the Fábrica de Chocolates Valor, and the chocolate museum (and of course the shop). As it is a working factory, the visit is of course guided. We were told that there was usually a long queue, so we were there before 9:30 for the 10:00 visit, and we were quite literally the first to arrive. Once inside, you get to see what they call the museum, with a short video about how they used to and still make the chocolate, and you visit some of the old equipment. Then, there is a short trip around the factory using some hanging planks – when we were there, the production was halted due to pre-Christmas-campaign holidays. So FYI Christmas chocolate is made in August. The visit was done in one hour, and then we splurged in the shop.

Chocolate factory from outside

Inside the chocolate factory shop. A painting on the wall says we heart chocolate, another, in the backfround of several chocolate bars packaged as presents, it says All you need is chocolate, with the word love scratched out

After the visit we went back to the complex, where we had booked a made-to-order lobster “paella” (traditional rice dish) for lunch, and boy was it awesome. I totally sinned with the apple pie afterwards, too.

Collage. Rice pan with lobster pieces, and a piece of apple pie

1st August 2018: Alicante

The day started awesomely with coffee and pancakes, and that alone worked to make me happy.

Pancakes with chocolate syprup, a glass of milk, and a cup of coffee

Besides, twenty minutes in the opposite direction from Villajoyosa we had Alicante. And we could also be lazy and not take the car out, we could just take the bus. We wanted to see the archaeological museum, Museo Arqueológico Provincial MARQ de Alicante, and that was out first stop. However, for some reason a bunch of pictures got lost – and I can only show you this of the library, where pictures were not allowed anyway. It was a… photography accident.

A former chapel, with gothic windows. A glass lamp hangs from the ceiling and there are dark shelves full of books in the foreground

After the museum, we walked around the base of Monte Benacantil, the mount in the middle of Alicante – again, literally – until we were exactly on the opposite side to find the entrance to the Castillo de Santa Bárbara, Santa Bárbara’s castle. The castle is of Arab origin, it may have been built the 8th century. However, there are archaeological remains in the mount dating from prehistoric times. The castle gave the city of Alicante a vantage point towards any kind of threat, whether it originated on land or the ocean. The castle was reconstructed in the 16th century, and later, in the 18th century, it played a part in the war against the French.

Castle ruins and views of the sea underneath. It looks hot.

After this we walked over to have lunch at a restaurant we had read over in the tourist complex magazine, a prime Japanese restaurant called Nigo, which has the best sushi I’ve ever tried outside Japan.

Lunch - Japanese salad, fried chicken, sushi and tuna tartar

After that we headed back to the complex and planned our next move.

2nd August 2018: Valencia Diversion

My father was unable to go on his two planned diving outings, so we decided to head home early. However, he was feeling a little disappointed over the cancellation, and I suggested that maybe we could take a detour somewhere else instead. In the end, we decided to book a hotel in Valencia and use the time to visit the Oceanogràfic over there. This is a large aquarium complex. We also reserved a table at the “Submarine Restaurant” and had lunch there.

The aquarium opened in 2003 as part of a big project called “the city of art and science” in Valencia. It has a double layout, over- and underground. The underground area is the big aquariums are built, while the upper enclosures hold most the mammals and the birds.

An empty restaurant surrounded by an aquarium where fish swim

Collage of different marine animals: octopus, sea urchin, anemone, clownfish, surgeon fish, rockfish, seal, jellyfish, seastar, sea dragon, turtle, reef shark

Collage of different animals, and general view of the park. Penguins, crocodiles, seal, pelicans, snipes, ibises, tortoises, carps, crane

Once we were done, we said goodbye to the sharks and hi to the nice sunset. Next morning we drove back home.

Sunset above an unremarkable city skyline

14th – 16th October 2017: Vienna, Austria

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14th October 2017: Arrival and the Inner ring: Butterflies and Dinosaurs

Between flight and transfer to the city on Saturday morning, I arrived in the city of Vienna at 1pm. As my hotel was between the station and the city centre, I took my chances for an early check in and I was lucky – it was. After dropping my luggage I headed off to walk around Vienna’s Inner Ring, the Ringstrasse, which is a big boulevard that runs around all the old city of Vienna (Unesco World Heritage Site). A bunch of things were on my way and it seemed easy enough to find one’s way around. My hotel was located in a building close to a park, and had three floors, on the 11th, 12th and 13th floors of a building, which gave me some views of the city.

On Saturday the plan was wandering around, but as I am who I am I ended up improvising. My first stop was the outer Vienna State Opera, the Wiener Staatsoper, where a young man dressed as Mozart tried to sell me tickets for a show.

Vienna opera house, a baroque building in light colours with huge windows and an arched entrance

I continued on my walk and I saw the Albertina, a modern art museum, but I was actually heading to the Imperial Palace greenhouse, which is the home of a café and the Schmetterlinghaus, or Imperial Butterfly House. This is an area of the greenhouse where a bunch of butterflies are free to fly around and feed on a bunch of flowers, plants and pieces of apple. I was lucky enough to catch a few good shoots and I was very happy to have decided to go in (albeit I have to say that I was really keen on going there since I had seen that it existed). I really had a blast and enjoyed this, so it was a must that I don’t regret having missed, especially since the 6.50€ for the ticket. I spent around forty minutes in there chasing butterflies.

Vienna Butterfly house: a former greenhouse, and a few close-ups of different butterflies on bushes.

Then I saw the Austrian National Library, the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek.

Severe-looking stone building with columns and windows.

After that I back I walked through the Hofburg Palace, Hofburg Wien, and the Michaelerplatz or Saint Michael Square.

Collage of the former Imperial palace. It is a stone building with columns and windows, and arches

After that I crossed the palace in the opposite direction and ended up at the Heldenplatz, which gave way to Naturhistorisches Museum, the Natural History Museum to see dinosaurs, because there were dinosaurs, which is the home of the Venus von Willendorf, a tiny statue of stone dated back 29,500 years. The museum also holds a collection of minerals, meteorites, preserved animals, dinosaurs, an animatronics dinosaur and a multitude of artefacts from Prehistory to the Middle Ages. I also saw the same dunkleosteus that they have in the Tokyo Kokuritsu Kagaku Hakubutsukan. Have I mentioned dinosaur animatronics?

Collage of the Natural Museum: the building, with a dome, a whale skeleton, an Albertosaurus skeleton, the head of a Dunkleosteous fish, a huge salt stone and the Venus von Willendorf, a small naked woman statuette in golden stone

Following the museum I continued down the Ring Boulevard and it did not take me long to stumble up the Pallas Athene Brunnen (Monument to Palas Athena) and the Austrian Parliament Building, Parlamentsgebäude. The latter was under reconstruction.

Vienna parliament house, under renovation. There is a Palas Athena in white marble with a gold helmet standing in front of it.

I continued my walk until I found the Vienna Town hall, called the Rathaus, where there was a kind of Videogame trade fair or something going on.

Vienna town hall - neogothic building with a lot of towers and spikes.

Then I went on walking towards the university and the church of Votivkirche, a neo-gothic building next to the university.

Gothic church under renovation

Afterwards I went down to the hotel because this is not summer vacations after all, just a weekend escapade and I seriously did not have that much energy. On my way I walked past the stables of the Spanische Hofreitschule (Spanish Riding School) stables and I saw some pretty horses.

Two white horses from the Vienna riding school

And even from the hotel (literally from bed), as my room had views, I could take some pictures of the sunset and the lit buildings. And then I went to sleep at a horribly early hour because I was beat and for some reason I managed over 8 hours of sleep.

Sunset over the skyline of vienna. The buildings are dark and the sky is orange

15th October 2017: Palaces, churches and the Cinema

Because my hotel was **** for a change (I have to say that when I think about the whole weekend the word “decadent” is what comes to mind), I had a kettle and instant coffee ready for me – this was my breakfast. After that I did the online for my flight the following day and of course running into technical difficulties, and I left the hotel at around 9:30, which was a bit later than I had intended.

I was coming up to the Belvedere Palace, and on my way there I took a diversion to see the Karlskirche or Karlskirche (St. Charles’ Church), which I could see from my hotel and illuminated at night. This is a baroque church that sometimes holds classical music concerts.

The church of St. Charles; a Baroque church. It has a dome, and two twisted columns in front.

After taking a wrong turn once or twice this I headed out to my original target, the Schloss Belvedere (Upper Belvedere Palace). This is a Baroque Palace (seriously, Vienna is full of Baroque) that has been turned into a painting gallery. The most famous author in this gallery is Klint, but if I have to be honest, I’m not too appreciative of him – must be my likings for the realists. In the end, I liked the palace itself better than the painting collection, specially the reception room and the staircase.

The Upper Belvedere Palace, a Neoclassical building in white stone.

As I had bought a three-combo ticket including Upper and Lower Belvedere and the Winter Palace, I walked down the Belvedere Gardens to the Unteres Belvedere (Lower Belvedere), which holds the “Medieval Treasure” and temporal exhibitions. The best thing was the gold and mirror room and the marble gallery.

A huge garden with a palace in the background. The garden is artificial in a way, with perfectly-trimmed grass, fountains, and bushes.

The Baroque entrance to the lower Belvedere palace, a stone gate with sculptures on top. It looks like it wants to stare you down. The palace peers through the three open doors in the background

Then I headed off to the centre of the city to see the Winterpalais des Prinzen Eugen (Winter Palace of Prince Eugene), which was not the best thing ever but hey it came within the three-museum combo.

A Neoclassical palace with flags hanging over the door

Then I headed off to Domkirche St. Stephan (St. Stephen’s Cathedral), which is the gothic Catholic cathedral. It is not Baroque but Gothic. The entrance was free, but it also had a paid area, including the catacombs. Unfortunately I was too late for the current tour and too early for the following one, so I decided not to stick around, else I would have got the combo for the catacombs, the tower and the treasure.

A gothic cathedral. Collage showing the outside, with the tower and the ornate windows, and the inside showing the pointed arches inthe nave, and the organ.

As it was, I saw the cathedral and then headed off down different streets and saw the outer area of Katholische Kirche St. Peter (Catholic Church of St. Peter).

Façade of a Neoclassical church

And then headed out to the Michaelerplatz to check the inside of the Michaelskirche (Catholic Church of St. Michael).

Neoclassical church, showing the white and pointy bell tower. The image is tilted so the tower fits in the frame

I checked the Spanische Hofreitschule (Spanish Riding School) for tour tickets, but I was late for that and it was all sold out, so I decided to go to the station and buy some food in the supermarket for both lunch and dinner. On the way I crossed the Stadtpark to see the floral clock and the Johann Strauss monument – Johann Strauß Denkmal.

Finally, I headed off to get some rest at the hotel, and have a shower. At 18:15 I walked down to the cinema at the corner of my hotel building, the Gartenbaukino, because in the end that was the reason I was there – to attend the Austrian premiere of the X JAPAN documentary We are X as Yoshiki was going to be around for a Q&A session afterwards.

There had been a small mix-up with the ticket numbering (all of them had been printed out with the same seating number!), which was solved efficiently. We watched the documentary We are X and then there was a Q&A with Yoshiki himself. There were emotional moments as the fans thanked him for everything he had done and for his music.

Entryway to the cinema. It reads We are X Live + Q&A mit Yoshiki 20.00

Yoshiki sitting in front of a burgundy curtain. He is wearing his sunglasses and a black suit, boots and a golden blouse

After the Q&A some of us stayed talking at the cinema gate and the manager, who had solved the ticket problem, came out to close – and he told us where Yoshiki would be leaving from. And that’s… the story of how I got to talk to Yoshiki, I got his autograph and took a picture with him and I will never, ever, ever forget the rush of that.

I have to say I did not sleep much that night. All the excitement caught up with me and I kept replaying the scene in my head over and over again. in the end I think it was around 2:30 that I could turn the lights off.

16th October 2017: Airport Monday morning

After checking out of the hotel I walked back to the train station and took the CAT towards the airport. I had taken an earlier train than I had already planned and boy was I glad to do so when following arrows at the airport took me as much as 20 minutes. Something I learnt in this trip is how friendly Austrian people are, and that they have a great sense of humour, as apparently one of their star souvenirs is “no kangaroos in Austria”. The return flight was not as good as the first, but it was on time and I could arrive to work smoothly for a crazy week.

23rd & 24th September 2017: San Sebastián Film Festival (Spain)

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23rd September 2017: Let’s go!

Overnight, I headed off to San Sebastián as a Weekend Escapade to the Festival de Cine de San Sebastián International Film Festival that is held over there because they were projecting a Japanese film and the main actor and the director were coming over to present it. The film was “Sandome no Satsujin” [三度目の殺人], the director is Hirozaku Kore-eda and the actor in question was Fukuyama Masaharu, of whom I am a big fan.

I started off at 22:00 on Friday as I had to take a bus to go to Intercambiador de Avenida de América, which is one of the bus hubs in Madrid. My bus to San Sebastián left at 00:30, so in the end I had to wait for almost two hours until I could board. I was dozing for most of the trip so it did not feel too long. I arrived in San Sebastián bus station at around 6:50 in the morning and I had decided that I would go to the so-called Shell Beach, Playa de la Concha, to watch sunrise. I had been told that cafeterias would be open at that time, but not even the one in the bus station was ready.

A beach at night. The sea is calm and it reflects the city lights

My plan of watching a sea sunrise was trumped by the fact that the sea is towards the west, but I still could take a couple of nice pictures.

The sun rising, tinting the sky and the sea blue and orange

Among them were the beach itself, the “skyline” and the Catedral del Buen Pastor (Good Shepherd Cathedral).

A gothic or neogothic church clock tower, spiky with pointy arches

I wandered around, found the theatre where the film was going to be projected and as the sun started warming up, I started feeling less like a homeless dog.

The sun rising along a promenade

I found the local Starbucks at around 9:00 to get some rest, a coffee, and a cookie before I went to the Aquarium, which opened at 10:00. The Aquarium de San Sebastián is a bit more of a museum than anything else. The first part (second floor) is dedicated to the history of ocean commerce, with different types of ships, and rooms focused on the local harbour, companies, traditional boat racing and whaling. This includes an actual right whale skeleton and several sperm whale teeth and some baleens. The second part (first floor) is dedicated to general fishing and the local oceanography society, including machinery and live specimens.

Finally, after all this, you get to the actual aquarium (yay). There are several small tanks and then a big tank with a walk-through tunnels. The inhabitants are pretty standard, with lots of small fish and several magnifying-glass tanks to make the animals look bigger than they are. The third floor hosts the tropical fish including the piranha and the clown fish. All in all it is a nice place, however, it was under construction and some tanks were covered by dark plastic. After that I left the aquarium and I decided to go up Mount Urquil, which hosts a castle and quite nice views of the city and the ocean.

A small building entrance which yields to the aquarium. Collage showing different exhibits inside: a whale skeleton, a seven-grilled shark in alcohol, a trilobites fossil, a shark jaw, a starfish, a shark swimming above through an aquarium tunnel, a lionfish, sarks swimming in the aquarium

I walked by John Malkovich while heading there, but he did not look like he was in the mood (or the clothes) to be recognised, so I did not bug him. Then I started my climb up the mount towards the the local castle, Castillo de La Mota, along the batteries of cannons. The castle has a small history museum, and a look-out balcony, and the top has been transformed into a church, with a giant Christ overlooking. The truth is I was mostly improvising on my visits as the week was hell between work and the death of a family member.

Views from and of the ruins of the castle - the sea, the wall, and the old cannons

After that I had lunch and headed off to the theatre to check out the coming out of people. At this point I planned to wait for the actor and the director to come into the theatre, but for some reason I checked out the schedule, and the name of the actor had been taken out of the presentation! That made me sad for a little while, but I decided that I was okay with it, that it would not be a drama. I had taken my chance, and at least I had gotten some air after all the pain and drama throughout the week. I guess that helped relativise the sadness. I went to a park near the beach to get some sun and enjoy the last days of summer.

A 19th century building with large windows. A banner on the façade reads Festival de San Sebastián 65

A banner for the cinema festival, showing posters for different films. The third murder is on the bottom left

Around 15:00 I returned to the theatre, Teatro Victoria Eugenia to start lining as I wanted a seat close enough to see the subtitles- and I found a place on sixth row which was pretty good. As this was a special people’s vote session, we got a ballot to give our opinions. Then I settled to wait, and eventually at 16:00 the presenter came in, and to my surprise, she announced Kore-eda and Fukuyama. That made me so happy I could have died right there and then, and the best was still to come. Kore-eda told us about the film. Apparently several people consider that he has changed genre, but he told us that he disagrees and that he still tried to make a human drama. However, he thought that we should judge. Then Fukuyama told us that he enjoyed San Sebastián and that they had been having pinchos and that he was happy to have returned. I was shaking so hard I could barely hold the phone as I recorded.

The stage inside the theatre

Director Kore-eda and actor Fukuyama Masaharu on stage

Promo of the film The Third Murder from the Festival Webpage

All this would have made me very happy already, but there is more. “Sandome no Satsujin”, or “The third murder” tells the story of a lawyer whose job is to defend a man accused of murder. As this would be the defendant’s third murder, if found guilty he will be handed the death penalty. The film is a complex story, completely unpredictable – or I was too enthralled to see the ending coming – but when everything fell into place I felt like gawking.

Furthermore, there was more to come – at the end of the film both Kore-eda and Fukuyama had stayed behind. as I was coming out I looked up and told them “otsukaresama deshita”, and both of them bowed and replied “arigatou”. Then we waited for them to come down from the second floor, from where they had taken the ovation. I dropped my vote and rushed through the red carpet. As other people talked to the director I made a beedive towards Fukuyama. It was then or never, and it turned out to be then.

Director Kore-eda and actor Fukuyama Masaharu waving for a picture on the street after the film

I was shaking inside but I managed to tell them that I had been a fan of his since Galileo times and I asked for his autograph. He told me thank you (at some point the interpreter tried to help, but I was busy dying and trying to get my meaning across). He signed my Galileo booklet and I asked him to take a picture with me, to which he also agreed. And thus I fulfilled my wildest dreams (and look horrible in the picture). After Fukuyama had continued on the red carpet I managed to sit down on a curb and I was on the phone with my friend C*****, who prevented me from going completely hysterical in fanby bliss.

After I told her everything, I was pretty dead so I headed off to he hotel (pension) that I had booked for the night, and pretty much giggled and crashed, and uncrashed and giggled some more. At 23:00 I was completely zonked out, not without realising that I had headed to get some rest without grabbing my freebies and some merchandising I wanted from the festival.

Fukuyama Masaharu's autograph on a DVD booklet

24th September 2017: And back

I left the hotel early, around 8:30 to head towards the cinema area and buy the short Festival guide (not the big one for 22€ but the little one for 1.5€) and get the free newspaper. I bought a coffee to go and headed back to the bus station, when my bus was at 10:00. I could not sleep and the Wi-Fi was not working, but I could watch Youtube videos on the seat screen. I managed to get home around 17:00 after a couple of buses, and I was pretty much dead. However, it was totally worth it. I think this is why I was hyper enough to decide to go to Vienna next month…

24th – 27th March 2016: Easter in Barcelona (Spain)

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I think this has been the first time I’ve been to Barcelona without a concert. However, one of the first times I did take a long touristing tour, so this time round my friend and I took it rather chilly – in the literal sense. As we were there there was a drop in temperature and I had to run to get myself a long-sleeved T-shirt.

24th March: Gaudí afternoon

Through different means and from different origins, my friend and myself arrived in Barcelona at around the same time mid-afternoon. We met at the station and dropped our things off at the hotel, then we took the underground towards Monte del Carmelo, Carmel Hill, where Parc Güell, the Güell Park, stands. The park, which was supposed to be a urban area originally, was designed by Antonio Gaudí. It became a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1984.

Visiting some areas of the park is charged, but the whole park is accessible starting in the late evening. We decided to climb up first and then visit the paid-but-free area. Thus we got to the summit of Carmel Hill and saw the Turó de les tres creus, the Three-Cross hill, that offers a great view of the city, including the Tibidabo area with the Cathedral and the amusement park.

We went down and we walked into the architectural area. Although there is no artificial lighting in the area, as the sun went down we were treated to a bit of a magical area, also away from the tourist crowds.

We had dinner at Arenas de Barcelona, the old bullfighting ring now turned shopping and dining centre, then we went up to the roof for some night views.

25th March: Gaudí morning & Gaudí night

We woke up and had breakfast – coffee inception!!

Then we headed off to see the Casa Batlló, the Batlló house, one of Gaudí’s Modernist masterpieces. It is also called the “house of bones”, and it’s kind of wobbly and organic. The roof is designed to look like the back of a dragon. An interesting detail is that the building was not really erected on Gaudí’s orders – it was a renovation of a previously-existing building.

After the house, we went to the harbour area. We hung out for a while (with a stop to buy an extra T-shirt because it was cold), had lunch and eventually purchased tickets for the Museu Marítim, the Maritime Museum, located in the former Royal Shipyard.

The sun was setting when we came out, and we headed towards the Basílica de la Sagrada Família, the church of the Holy Family, also designed by Gaudí. Both of us had already seen it, so we were happy to see it from the outside. When they finish it, I would like to come back though.

26th March: No Gaudí!

We had a walk around the Gothic Neighbourhood of Barcelona, and we made a stop at the Iglesia de La Purísima Concepción, the church of the Conception to visit the cloister.

We saw the cathedral Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia, Catedral de la Santa Creu i Santa Eulàlia.

We also walked under the Bisbe Bridge, Pont del Bisbe, in the street of the same name.

We had lunch in a Japanese restaurant, then walked around the Port area for a while.

As we had visited the Maritime Museum the previous day, we had a free pass to the sailboat Santa Eulàlia.

We ended the day in the L’Aquàrium Barcelona, the local aquarium.

After that, we backtracked to our hotel. The following morning, on the 27th, we met up with another friend who had a free while for breakfast and then everybody went home.

27th December 2015 – 1st January 2016: Scotland (Great Britain)

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A friend and I decided to organise a New Year’s Eve getaway to Scotland, and I used the opportunity to get some stuff and redtape out of the way, so you might notice some chunks of time missing. Furthermore relationship with Scotland is complex and bittersweet, so I’m not sure how this post is going to turn up

The first part of our trip was based in Edinburgh. We arrived rather late in the evening so we just got to Waverly Station and walked to the hotel to get some rest before we started off the adventure.

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland, and it is a dark city, but not in a bad way. The dark, moss-covered rock seems designed to absorb any little beam of sunlight and warm the houses. In our first morning we had a walk around Princes Street Garden, where the Scott Monument, a memorial in honour of the writer Sir Walter Scott, stands. There was also a Christmas market standing.

We climbed up Castlehill to visit Edinburgh’s castle, in the Old Town. The castle stands on an extinct volcano and some of the archaeological remains can be traced back to Prehistory! The first castle is thought to have been built around the year 1000 BC, which means the foundations are 3000 years old! The site of the castle includes, among other dependencies, The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards Regimental Museum, National War Museum, the Royal Palace, St. Margaret’s chapel, and a couple of distilleries. Due to its vantage point, also features a great view of all the Edinburgh area.

We walked back down Castlehill and made a stop at The Tron in the City, a former church turned artisan flea market.

My friend is a Hard Rock Café collector, so we went to the George Street area, which was decorated.

After lunch, we walked to Calton Hill, a hill / park area located near the centre and that hosts the Dugald Steward Monument, the National Monument and the Nelson Monument.

Then we met with a local friend to have dinner (bangers and mash!) to The Elephant House, the so-called birthplace of Harry Potter, where JK Rowling went to write the novels.

On our way back we saw some of the illuminated views, most prominently the Christmas market and the Balmoral hotel.

Glasgow

Aside from all the emotional baggage associated with Scotland, I can say that Glasgow is one of my favourite cities in the world. Most of what we did was walking around even if the weather was nasty at points. As we came out from Queen Street Station, our first visiting spot was George Square and the Glasgow City Chambers, and we had lunch in a Greek restaurant that I love over there.

But we quickly moved over towards Saint Mungo’s Cathedral, also known as the High Kirk of Glasgow. It is a 12th century building built in North Europe Gothic style.

Afterwards we walked up the Necropolis, a Victorian graveyard on a hill behind the cathedral. Today it is a great place for a stroll, aside from a place with way too much history for a humble blog post.

We strolled up and down Buchanan Street and the Central Glasgow area a few times – Queen Street, Central Station, the museum of modern art, the Japanese restaurants… We stopped at the HRC again, the Mandela Monument and dropped by St. Enoch’s shopping centre to see the light reindeer and warm up.

We walked to the Glasgow Cross area then, with the Tolbooth Steeple, the clocktower that marks the entrance to the Merchant City.

We came across quite an amount of interesting buildings in the Merchant City, among them St Andrew’s in the Square.

Another of the places we visited was Glasgow Green, which was half flooded due to the storm.

And when the weather became so bad that the sleet was making impossible to stay out on the streets, we visited the Riverside Museum, the Museum of Transport of Glasgow, where we had some delicious scones too.

We tried to see Dumbarton Castle, but it was closed down due to wind and the storm, so in the end we just took a ride there and walked around.

On the 31st we had dinner at a very nice Japanese – with awesome staff. Then we bought some provisions and headed to the B&B.

At night we were surprised by the fireworks so we ran out of the B&B room to find them.

And on the first we were treated to a rather… unimpressive… first sunrise of the year.

When we flew back I had one of the most surreal experiences ever – we had bought a pack of scones for breakfasts and snacks, and somehow it became tangled in my phone wires. Well, turns out that wired-tangled scones look one hell of a lot like bombs on X Ray machines! The poor Scots security guard was first deadly pale, then so relieved that I was not carrying a bomb!

1st April 2015 (Spy Wednesday): Saint Malo & Nantes {France, Easter 2015}

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We got up on to see sunrise (okay, not really sunrise but early morning) at the ocean before we headed off.

Our first stop was Saint-Malo, yet another fortified city by the sea. It can be traced to the 1st century, but the modern Saint-Malo is cemented on a 6th century monastery. In the 19th century, Saint-Malo was a nest of pirates, and it was destroyed during WWII, but rebuilt shortly afterwards.

We left the car in the outskirts of town and we headed towards the actual walled city, coming across the Etoile du Roy ship first. The Etoile du Roy is a sixth rate frigate with three masts, built in imitation of a warship from the Nelson era. Today it can be rented for events.

We reached the walls and headed off to the beach where the Fort National stands.

We strolled around for about an hour or so, and I really liked the old city.

After a while, we walked back towards the city and saw the Cathédrale Saint-Vincent-de-Saragosse de Saint-Malo and the remains of the cloister. The building was originally Romanesque / Gothic, but it was damaged during WWII, and rebuilt in the late 20th century.

We had lunch in a Japanese restaurant because when we went into the tourist centre we found a visiting card, then we headed back towards the city of Nantes. The drive towards the city was all right but entering the centre was nightmarish, as we got caught in rush hour. We went to the cathedral, the Cathédrale Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul de Nantes, a Gothic building that was started early in the 15th century but was not finished until almost the 20th!

Afterwards, we moved on towards the Château des ducs de Bretagne, a reconstruction of the castle of the Dukes of Brittany, a thirteenth-century fortress.

Finally we pumped some petrol, returned the car, paid for the extra kilometres we had driven, and took a plane back to Toulouse to just have a snack and get to bed.

31st March 2015 (Holy Tuesday): Driving through Medieval Towns and Salt Marshes {France, Easter 2015}

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In the morning we set off towards the north of France through the provinces of Brittany and Normandy. There were not that many cars on the road so that was good, because the car was a scale up from what we wanted, and I had to get used to driving a bigger car than I am used to. And I’m bloody short so using a higher car was… a challenge. After a couple of hours we had to take a break because my leg was cramping.

Eventually we got to Gérande, which is a Medieval fortified town dating from the Wars of Succession. We walked around for a while and had breakfast, and saw a lot of speciality shops, among them lots selling salt. Here’s the La porte Saint-Michel, the main gate.

But, why salt in the shops, you may ask? Because Gérande has been famous for its salt marshes since the 19th century. And of course we made a stop to visit the Salt Marshes of Gérande. Did I mention “of course”?

Our destination for the day was Le Mont-Saint-Michel, the mount of Saint Michael (Unesco World Heritage Site). It is a tidal island in the area of Normandy in France, at the mouth of the Coueson river. It features a medieval town and a Christian Abbey and a monastery. The main buildings tend to be Romanesque and Gothic, and the atmosphere is really cool – you might have noticed that I’m a bit of Gothic-style fan by now.

It was chilly and windy, and to be honest I found Mont-Saint-Michel to be slightly disappointing. The construction and exploitation of the tourism side, with building a parking lot and so on blew up the tidal system a couple of decades ago and the island is no longer such. They’re working now to try to restore everything back to how it was, but at the same time they are keeping a bridge, although that one should work for allowing the tides to move through. It was overcrowded, but we managed to have a good stroll.

After visiting Mont-Saint-Michel, we headed off to find our B&B at a small village about an hour away. I took a long, long, hot, hot shower and we ate some snacks for dinner.

10th – 12th October 2014: In Leon (Spain) with Family

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The year my father retired we went to have a nice weekend out, and we chose to drive to León, a historical city towards the north of Spain. I had to work on Friday afternoon, so we drove off in the early evening and reached Leon after dusk. We were staying at the Parador, called Hostal de San Marcos for a couple of nights. The building was luxurious, it was one of those one-in-a-lifetime experienced. The hotel is a former convent built in the 16th century, and it distils magic.

On Saturday morning we set off to visit the Basílica de San Isidoro de León, a Christian church dating from the 10th century. It is famous due to the 12th-century paintings that decorate the Pantheon of the Kings of León underneath the church.

After this, we walked into the town centre and we came across the Casa Botines, a Modernist-style building erected by Gaudí, now a bank.

A bit further we saw the came across the local seminary, the Seminario de San Froilán.

We went on and found the local farmer’s market, the Mercado Tradicional de Productos Agrarios, which was in the Main Square of the city.

Finally, we circled back towards the cathedral, Santa María de León, a Gothic building built in three steps – the main building was built all throughout the 13th century, the north tower in the 14th century, and the south tower in the 15th century. The difference in the towers is easy to spot (≧▽≦). One of its key features are the stained-glass windows.

Upon leaving the cathedral, one of my favourites, by the way, we took an extra walk in the historical area, and found cool buildings and decorations.

We had lunch, then returned to the Hostal de San Marcos. On our way back we found the cutest sweet shop that made adorable chocolate figurines.

We saw the Iglesia de San Marcos, the adjacent church, and then I explored the whole hotel a little.

Also, I discovered that I could see the Puente de San Marcos, a stone bridge over the Bernesga River, from my room.

We drove off on Sunday morning, because the weather was nasty and the forecast was worse, so we wanted to be out of the area when the storm really hit. But before that I managed to get to the second floor of the cloister and explore some more.