12th – 14th October 2023: Yoshiki Classical World Tour “REQUIEM”, London (England, Great Britain)

Posted on 1 November 2023 by JBinnacle

This was my third and last trip to London in these five crazy weeks, and it was again to see Yoshiki. Someone once told me that I love Yoshiki because he appeals to both my wild and posh sides – it is partially true, I guess. It has a lot to do with how many of his lyrics resonate with me, more deeply than I am comfortable admitting sometimes.

I don’t think I would have travelled twice so close in time for any other artist. And believe me, organising this trip was a logistics nightmare. In other circumstances I would have flown out the same day of the event, which was Friday the 13th, but I don’t think that airports in the UK have completely recovered from the Covid chaos, and there are still a bunch of issues – just the previous week to my arrival, a good number of flights were cancelled in Gatwick. Second, the 12th is a holiday where I live, and since it was a Thursday, it kickstarted a long weekend. And last but not least, the 12th is also my parent’s birthday, and they were excited for a big celebratory lunch.

Taking all this into account, I tried to coordinate everything the best I could without breaking the bank. I found the last plane leaving on Thursday the 12th, at 21:50. That gave me time to have lunch at my parents’, then drive off past 19:00 – there should not be too much traffic. I booked the parking lot – the shuttle runs every 15 minutes in the evenings. In the worst case scenario, if my flight was cancelled or too delayed, there was space to manoeuvre on Friday morning. The plane was scheduled to arrive in London Gatwick close to midnight, but I was quite sure it would be delayed, and in order to avoid late-night trains and stress, I reserved a hotel next to the airport terminal – I did not have to worry about dinner as my parents make food to feed a small army. For the following night, I found a “boutique hotel” next to the venue. I booked my return flight on Saturday the 14th in order to avoid the end-of-weekend traffic that would concentrate on Sunday.

Great plan. In the end, something happened and the celebration had to be postponed, so I spent the evening watching the clock, and checking and rechecking both the weather forecast and my luggage – finding something to wear that was nice and still weather-appropriate was difficult. I changed my mind regarding footwear about six times.

Around 19:00 on the 12th, I finally drove to the airport. Considering that the forecast was rain both at home and at London, I took boots in the end, but more comfy shoes for driving. I reached the parking lot and airport a bit earlier than expected, and I found a nice covered spot for the car – which I had to check that it was not reserved a few times. As I entered the international terminal, I was disoriented for a second – since I usually take planes before 7:00, I had not seen the shops open for a long time! It turns out there is a Duty Free just after passport control which I had not even realised before, and that threw me off track for a heartbeat or two.

I had some dinner at one of the fast food stands, and as expected, the plane was delayed. Then it needed an engineer. Then it taxied forever. And after almost two hours of delay, the two-hour-and-a-bit flight to Gatwick was cut short – we landed not even ten minutes late, so we flew the route in a little over an hour. I never knew you could step on it so bad on a plane! I went through passport control and found my hotel – just outside the North Terminal, and much closer than I had calculated. Gatwick was also crazy busy even if it was nearly midnight.

I checked in, and I was surprised that even though it was the same chain I had stayed at next to the O2 Academy Islington, the procedure was completely different. But it went without a hitch, and I was in bed within thirty minutes. I even caught some sleep. For some reason they gave me a room with a sofa-bed aside the regular one.

Leaving in the morning was a bit more complicated. After a much-needed caffeine boost at Costa Coffee, I took the inner airport shuttle from the North to the South Terminal, where the train station is. From there, I found my connection to central London. The good thing is that Gatwick trains belong to a regular line, so they do not require a special ticket, you can use the Oyster card, which I did. The shuttle and train went through awful weather, but when I reached London, rain and wind had calmed down a little. I wanted to leave my things at the hotel because of the bad weather and not to go into any museums with the backpack – just in case. The nice person doing my check in was very stressed that I might want my room – it was before 10:00 for a 15:00 hour check-in. I really just wanted them to hold my luggage. After that was successful, my next step was finding a bank that would exchange a handful of old pounds for new ones. In the end, train, underground, hotel and bank took a bit longer than I had expected and I was running a bit behind my self-imposed schedule.

My first stop was Sir John Soane’s Museum. Sir John Soane was a neoclassical architect – he worked in the remodelling of the Palace of Westminster, but his most prominent legacy is his house-museum. He bought a couple of attached houses in the centre of London, and combined them both as an architecture experiment and to host his collection of antiquities, copies, paintings, and pieces of architectural interest. There was a special Act of Parliament to establish the museum while Soane was still alive, stating that after his death the houses should be kept as they were, to avoid his son selling the collection, as some of pieces were / are worth a fortune. For reference, one of the most important artefacts hosted there is the sarcophagus of Egyptian Pharaoh Seti I (Second Dynasty). Adventurer Giovanni Battista Belzoni tried to sell the piece to the British Museum after taking it from the Valley of the Kings in Thebes. The Museum was not willing to pay what today would equate to almost £200,000, but Soane bought it in 1817 to exhibit it in the basement “sepulchral chamber”, where it still stands today.

Entry to the museum is free, but you are requested to purchase the guide for £3, which I did. The first area you visit is the lovely library, and then you step into the real treasure – the area comprised by “the dome”, “the colonnade” and “the corridors”, where literally hundreds of sculptures, friezes, amphorae, decorative pieces… pile up on one another to the point that everything is overwhelming and fantastically chaotic. Wherever you look, there is something else to notice – whether it is Apollo, a copy of the Farnese Hercules, a pegasus… Then you go down to the basement, and both the “catacombs” and the “sepulchral chamber” are equally cluttered – a pair of Chinese guardian lion-dogs, Aphrodite bathing, a Poseidon head, and of course Seti I’s alabaster sarcophagus, encased in glass, which sucks for pictures but protects it in the super-tight space.

Artefacts at Sir Soane Museum

Sarcophagus of Seti I in Sir Soane Museum

Other spaces include the kitchen – which feels strangely empty in comparison– the drawing rooms on the first floor, and the picture room on the ground floor – with some of Canaletto’s Venetian landscapes, and drawings of ancient monuments. All in all, whenever you blinked, you missed a detail. It was almost stressful, but an amazing place to visit.

Afterwards, I met up with fellow Yoshiki fans A****d and A**i, at the British Museum. They were going there first thing, and we had arranged to get together around noon, but I ran a bit late and only reached them around 12:20. Through that time, they went through the must-dos. We met at the Ancient Middle East and saw a few exhibits about the history of money, one on clocks, Roman Britain, the library… They asked me if there was anything I recommended, and we went past the Moai so I could show them one of my favourite sculptures ever – the Bodhisattva Guanyin [觀音 in Chinese], associated with compassion, in the Chinese Art Gallery. Guanyin sits with one leg up in a very relaxed and informal position compared to other Buddhist imagery, and I just adore this wooden representation.

Artefacts in the British Museum

Around 14:00, we went out for lunch. We tried an okonomiyaki place near the British Museum, but it was unfortunately full, and both my friends had had CoCo Curry the previous night. We walked into Chinatown and we found a self-proclaimed izakaya Japanese restaurant called Oita (Soho). I ordered sushi bento for £16.95, which at first felt a bit expensive, but I had forgotten British-sized servings. It was actually very proportionate size-wise, and came with complimentary miso soup. The bento (“boxed lunch”) itself comprised a small salad, seven pieces of assorted raw fish on sushi rice (tuna, salmon, butterfish, mackerel, squid, prawn and octopus – these last two were no raw, actually), four assorted nigiri (tuna, salmon, butterfish, mackerel), three salmon sashimi, two tuna sashimi, three avocado hosomaki, and some garnishing including cucumber, radish and alfalfa, along with pickled ginger and wasabi. It was really good.

Oita Soho sushi bento

The three of us separated after lunch to go to our hotels and get ready. On my way, I bought a sandwich and a bottle of water from a supermarket to have for the night, and decided to take a shower before changing into concert gear. When I reached my hotel, they showed me around, and told me my luggage was in the room – which it was not. I had to come down again to get it, which embarrassed the staff a lot. The room was posh to the max – I even had a bed with a canopy! Apparently, boutique hotels are “small hotels with a personality” that try to “tailor the experience to the customer”. For me, a hotel is just a place to sleep in, so I’m just happy with them being safe and clean. I can do without the personality, the steeper price, and the surprise extra service charge.

I reserved the hotel through Booking, and they got in touch that they wanted payment outside the page. I dislike this, but it is not unheard from. I needed to demand my payment receipt, too, because the page did not generate any. Later, they tried to charge me through Booking again (though in their “defence” this might have been a Booking issue, as it has been hacked). In the end, the image I got from them was that of an overpriced wannabe high-end hotel, but there were too many blunders to consider coming back if I can help it.

At least, the hotel fulfilled the one reason I had chosen it – it was a short walk from the Royal Albert Hall. Considering how badly I felt after the Miyavi concert a couple of weeks before, I was a bit apprehensive this was going to be too much. It was, but not in the worse sense of the word. The recital was emotionally hard on me, as I tend to connect a bit too much with Yoshiki’s music, but fortunately I did not take ill this time around.

I was deeply moved when I attended the first Yoshiki Classical concert in Paris in 2014, but this time my mind was absolutely blown. Back in May, in a moment of fanby weakness, I decided to buy RAH membership (£55) in order to get access to the presale. Despite that, I only managed a sixth-row seat to the side – Arena F – Row 6, Seat 27 (£60). These were sent by post and arrived in physical form in late July. I decided on this delivery method because even if the tickets did not arrive on time, or got lost, I still had the option of “will call” with my ID and the card used for purchase (of course, my bank decided to cancel my cards meanwhile and get me new ones, so I’ve been running around with both working and not-working cards in my wallet for the last couple of months).

Having a RAH account also meant that I was notified about a “Yoshiki meet and greet VIP package” within minutes of its release, which included an exclusive opportunity to meet Yoshiki after the concert in the 1871 Bar, a photo opportunity with Yoshiki, and a piece of merchandise for signing (£150) – I booked it as soon as the email came through, and I think I was the 10th person to buy the upgrade. These tickets were supposed to arrive by post, too, but the venue changed them to e-tickets the week before the show – when I was already antsy about them arriving – “will call” was still an option, but I was restless.

Around 18:15 I left the hotel to walk to the venue to meet A****d and A**i. The Royal Albert Hall is one of the most famous concert venues in the United Kingdom. It was world’s first domed amphitheatre, designed by two civil engineers, Francis Fowke and Henry Y.D. Scott, and inaugurated by Queen Victoria in 1871. The outer structure is built in Fareham Red brick with a mosaic frieze that represents the arts and sciences, and the roof is a glass and wrought-iron dome. It has several halls and a corridor surrounding the amphitheatre, with several bars and other hospitality offerings.

The three of us walked around and found the merch stand, which was a bit underwhelming – two short-sleeve T-shirt models, and a tote bag. I kind of regret not getting the tote now, but I felt I had already spent too much money. A****d was sitting next to me, and A**i just a couple of rows behind. However, upon being shown to the amphitheatre when doors opened around 18:45 for the 19:30 concert, my brain shortcut. Rows 1 to 5 were inexistent. My row 6 ticket was a first row ticket. I was first row for a Yoshiki concert!

Fine, to the side and with some camera equipment in between, but I was first row for a Yoshiki concert. In particular, for Yoshiki’s Yoshiki Classical 10th Anniversary World Tour with Orchestra 2023 “REQUIEM” on the 13th of October 2023.

Yoshiki Requiem Poster 2023

Most seats had a small booklet, and since mine did not, I decided to “steal” it from a still-empty seat – I’m selfish, sue me. Once my brain settled down enough to take everything in, there were two things I noticed – one, that the grand piano in the centre of the stage was not Yoshiki’s trademark glass piano, and two, that his drum set was there. This was not a huge surprise as he had hinted it during the Q&A in September that he wanted to do something with it. We passed the time looking at people come in, being impressed at how fancy some people dressed, meeting other friends, and taking photographs in front of the stage.

Inside the Royal Albert Hall

The concert / recital was intense. Most of the music played had been composed by Yoshiki himself either for his different collaborations or for X Japan. Vocals were entrusted to pop singer Beverly [ビバリー] and soprano Ai Ichihara [市原愛]. Special guests St.Vincent and Ellie Goulding sang their own songs. The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra was conducted by Ward Stare. Ballet dancers from Jlee Productions performed on stage during Forever Love and Swan Lake..

Setlist:

Part 1
   1. Amethyst (orchestra alone)
   2. Tears
   3. Angel
   4. Miracle with Ai Ichihara
   5. Forever Love
   6. Kiss the Sky with Beverly
   7. Anniversary
Part 2:
   8. Drum improvisation while the orchestra played Serenade for Strings (by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky) and Symphony No. 3 (by Henryk Gorecki) and Ai Ichihara on vocals
   9. Say anything
   10. Swan Lake (by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky)
   11. New York by and with St.Vincent
   12. Love me like you do by and with Ellie Goulding
   13. Red Swan with Beverly
   14. Requiem
   15. Without you
   16. OPUS 13 in A-minor (by Felix Mendelssohn)
   17. Art of Life (second and third movements)
   18. Endless Rain

Although the auditorium opened later than it was supposed to, the concert started almost punctual, a bit past 19:30 – which for Yoshiki is a miracle of ontimeness. He had probably done all his interviews the month before. Director Ward Stare came on stage and the orchestra played Amethyst as warm-up – this is the song that was usually heard at the start X Japan’s concerts, before members came in. Yoshiki walked on stage to play piano from the second song on, Tears. The tour title Requiem comes from the song Yoshiki wrote to honour his mother after she passed – he was understandably devastated, and it made sense to start the show with Tears.

Yoshiki playing piano at Royal Albert Hall

Throughout the concert, he alternated piano-playing and talking – most of the talks we had heard before, but a few were new to me. He told us that when he felt that he had managed a great achievement his mother used to bring him back to earth with questions like “have you eaten?” or “did you sleep?”. He explained that she really praised him when he composed Anniversary for former Emperor Akihito. We also had some promotion of the Under the Sky film, and Yoshiki’s champagne line, along with a recap of him being honoured in LA’s Chinese Theatre. There was also some “thank you to my sponsors” talk, and he might have said “amazing” around a thousand and three times.

The first part went more or less as expected – except for the ballet dancers. I did not think we would get them, but I am not going to complain. I did miss Hero, because I really enjoy listening to that one live, but something had to be taken out to accommodate the songs by the special guests. Some people say that he talks too much, but I think that he’s just trying to catch a breather – both physical and emotional. At one point he spoke about an “X Japan song that we would never really hear”, which was heartbreaking. There is a difference between knowing that there won’t ever be any X Japan ever again, and having it confirmed. Both in September and now, we’ve heard him openly say things that usually went only implied, which I think means that we are in a new stage of his artistic career / life.

Yoshiki Royal Albert Hall with orchestra and ballet dancers

For the second act, he pushed himself even harder with a drum solo to start off. He always smashes the drums as if he were trying to get a confession out of them – it is like he has so much anger inside him and the drums are his only way to release it. In a way, it probably is – he always says that he turned to drumming to deal with his father’s suicide, and that is how he expresses himself. But then he goes back to the piano, and it feels that the keys are crying with him.

The acts with St.Vincent and Ellie Goulding, in my opinion, were more promotional than anything else. Both are well-known and established in their own niches – and Yoshiki likes female singing voices because they can hit high notes better, I think – though I miss Katie Fitzgerald and Ashley Knight, to be honest. St.Vincent was okay, Ellie Goulding left me wondering… what she was doing there. Apparently the pinnacle of her career until now has been composing Love me like you do for the film Fifty shades of grey… And I hate to be that person, but both of them could have chosen way better outfits.

The titular song, Requiem, was extremely poignant. It was the piece Yoshiki wrote to deal with his feelings for his dead mother, in his own words, the means he found to stop crying for her loss. Just like he took to drumming after his father’s death, he took to composing after his mother passed. Later, he explained again how the song Red Swan symbolises standing up through the pain and the blood. The original version of this song is sung by vocalist Hyde, and since he was bringing in people from all around the globe, I would have been extremely happy if he had flown him in for it, and I was hopeful for about one tenth of a heartbeat. Unfortunately, you cannot have everything.

Throughout the recital there were sad moments and happy moments, to thank fans, and to remember those who are gone, moments with ballet dancers and with the torch on the phone on, moments to sing and to laugh, and to feel your heart shrink. In the end, Endless Rain with all the audience was extremely special – it never feels that it is going to be, I keep thinking “this time it’s not going to affect me this much”, but it gets me every time.

Yoshiki talking at the Royal Albert Hall

In the end, the show lasted for about three hours, plus a twenty-minute intermission. He thanked the conductor, the orchestra and dancers and the guests, and received lots of flower bouquets. Next to me, A****d managed to give him a Union Jack with a small EU flag sewn into it, which he proudly wore around his shoulders. It’s fun how he is such a huge super star and then he becomes all shy and embarrassed. Or he just… crashes.

Yoshiki with the Union Jack flag, Royal Albert Hall

After the concert was over, we said goodbye to A**i and, A****d and I made our way to the 1871 Bar, where the Post Show Meet & Greet Experience was to take place. We went to one of the doors, but of course then we needed to go to the other one. Eventually we got in, and rather quickly – I was the 20th person in the queue, and got to wait inside the bar. It was upholstered in blue, turquoise and green tones, with the most garish decoration I’ve seen in my life, including mirrors, golden wallpaper, bright plastic deer heads (better than real ones but still gaudy), lava lamps… There were about… four or five sofas, and the whole floor was carpeted in reddish and green / grey tones.

I was a bit nervous – waiting to meet an artist is actually the worst moment of queueing, I feel. To be honest, the first time I saw Yoshiki in person in 2017, my brain went 404 on me and I was not able to utter a word, though in Vienna I did a bit better and got a selfie. I was shaking so badly it came out horrible and moved.

As we were waiting, a staff member came to tell us that we could talk to Yoshiki a little, and that they would take our pictures with him and email the link to us. He explained that Yoshiki had just played a three-hour show and that he was bound to be tired – and how amazing he was. We smirked that we knew that already – most of us were not local, after all. Meanwhile, lights were set up, and signed posters brought out.

Yoshiki arriving for the M&G in the 1871 Bar at the Royal Albert Hall

Once he came in, we clapped and then everything went very fast and very slow at the same time. Everyone got to talk to him a little indeed, ask for an autograph or give him a present. Some people conjure amazing gifts for artists, but I never bring anything for them, because I feel it’s imposing and they don’t need any junk I could get them. However, I was clutching my bad selfie print-out, running through my head what to say. It was finally my turn, and then something I could have never prepared for happened – he declared that he was tired and just sat down on the floor. Not one of sofas. Yoshiki, superstar, just plopped down on the garish carpet of the bar at the Royal Albert Hall.

I have no idea how or why but my brain kicked into gear at that point. Before the staff could react in any way, I asked Yoshiki if it was all right to sit down on the carpet with him – I really did not know if he wanted to have his picture taken on the floor. I’m not sure if the staff and the aides knew what to do, but when he said it was all right, I approached and sat – A****d had stayed behind and was able to document the whole thing, apparently I sat in the proper traditional Japanese way for the conversation.

I thanked him for his music, and told him how his lyrics helped me feel better after a bad situation. Then I asked him to sign the “horrible selfie” – I actually said this – from Vienna. He thanked me for coming back, and I said “no, thank you for coming back”. The whole thing was absolutely surreal. There we were, sitting on the carpet of the Royal Albert Hall, surrounded by dumbfounded staff and… sofas. Photographer Andy Paradise took our picture, and what I saw when I looked at the camera was the photographer crouching, the video-camera person kneeling, someone else also crouching down, and a fourth person coming in with a chair (despite… sofas). I said thank you again, and dragged myself away – the guy whose turn it was behind me also sat down on the floor.

A****d and I got our signed posters, while I clutched to my now autographed bad Vienna selfie, and left the venue. Some people asked questions on the way out, and we explained how it went. When we came out, it was cold, so damn cold. My hotel was a block over, so I asked reception to order a taxi for A****d, and we parted ways, hoping to see each other soon.

I went up to my room to take my third shower of the day, and have my snack. I was so overwhelmed, it was hard to sleep. It was also stupidly cold because unbeknownst to me, I had not closed the window well, and there was an open crack. I burrowed under the bed covers, a towel and a bathrobe, and got some rest.

The next morning, I made myself a hot instant coffee to start off the day, but it did not do much to get my blood pressure up. I vacated the room around 9:00 after asking the hotel to keep my luggage – but considering what had happened the previous day, I made sure I had all the important things with me. I had a nice plan for the day, but I decided to discard it last minute because underground disruptions had escalated – it was not worth it to get stressed due to commuting issues having alternative things to do. Seeing the first red phone cabin will have to wait for another time.

It was still extremely cold when I stepped out. First, I went to see the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens, and I crossed to Hyde Park. I also found the Monument to Livingstone. I went around the Royal Albert Hall, and a bit before 10:00, I joined the queue to enter the Victoria and Albert Museum. Whenever I am in Kensington, I always get distracted by the Natural History Museum, so I had forfeited the V&A for a while now. Today was the day to finally explore it.

The Albert Memorial

Royal Albert Hall from the outside

Founded in 1852, the V&A is one of the largest museums in the world – it’s actually the largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design. It covers 51,000 square metres, with 145 galleries and almost three million individual items in its permanent collection. It is a chaotic museum, and yet, it makes sense. The museum is organised by “themes” such as Buddhism, England Middle Ages, metalwork, porcelain, glass, Baroque sculpture… I tried to see things in some kind of logical order, but it was pretty much impossible. Apparently they tried to rearrange it a while back and they just… gave up, as it would diffuse expert knowledge. I found this very interesting, but since this was my plan B, I did not really have time to plan the visit very thoroughly.

Before diving into the galleries, I headed over to the museum café for a gigantic tea-infused scone with jam and proper clotted cream, and a mug of coffee, and sat down at the Gamble Room. When it opened in 1868, it was the first museum café in the world. It is decorated with tiles imitating the Italian Renaissance majolica tiles, columns, golden ceilings, and weirdly modern lamps. After breakfast, I felt a bit more grounded, though I felt a bit off all day.

Scone and coffee at the Gambler Room in the V&A museum

I roamed around the museum for a few hours, and I know that I missed some important areas. I found it difficult to keep track of where I was and where I wanted to go, but I got a bit of a taste of all. I was very impressed by the Cast Courts, where copies of some of the most iconic pieces of architecture and sculpture are kept. These were made in the 19th century, and represent “the truest spirit of the Victorian museum.”

Artefacts at the Victoria and Albert Museum

On the ground floor, I wandered the Korea, Japan, China and Buddhism galleries, and I came across another depiction of Bodhisattva Guanyin, in the same pose but a completely different artistic style. I saw the largest Middle East and Islamic Art collection in Europe, and the adjacent galleries –South Asia (especially India) and South East Asia had a lot of interesting artefacts, too. The sculpture galleries are tantalising.

Other areas I visited included Medieval and Renaissance, Britain though history, ironwork, metalware, gold, silver, ceramics, glassware, jewellery, stained glass, architecture, and I could have gone on and on. But alas, I had a plane to catch.

Artefacts at the Victoria and Albert Museum

Victoria & Albert Museum

Around 13:00, I left the museum, collected my luggage, and made my way to South Kensington Station amidst the Tube closures of the lines that would take me directly to Victoria. A while back, I had to take a similar alternative route from Earl’s Court due to the wires overheating when I was going to the Apollo Victoria Theatre to watch Wicked. The South Kensington station runs the same Tube lines, so I was able to reach Victoria railroad station at the desired time – even with a line change and more than double stops. I was off towards Gatwick airport on the expected train.

Once there, I went through security without a hitch. I had a snack in the most expensive and unfriendly Wagamama in history – give me Stansted’s Itsu anytime. I wanted something warm because my body gets weird after emotional highs, and I was freezing. I even wondered if I was taking ill again, but no. I was just cold. I did not let either the restaurant nor the chill spoil my mood though, and I might even have had a nap on the plane. By the time I got off, I had warmed up. I cleared passport control, found my shuttle to the parking lot and – aside from the inevitable idiot on the road – there was not even that much traffic, which is good. You know the routine – shower, snack, bed.

I was not ill in the end, just stupidly exhausted. Going back to normal was quite difficult, especially as I still had Sunday free. I did not ever dare look at my phone to see if the photographs were real. A few days later, on the 18th, we received the email with the meet & greet professional photos. I look ridiculously happy, sitting on the carpet ,with a sofa behind me, with who is probably my favourite artist. I feel a bit guilty that I burdened him with my problems – I really hope he forgot quickly. Nevertheless, I am mostly glad that I was able to take these three crazy trips to London without incident. I feel extremely lucky that all three of them worked out, if not flawlessly, without any huge mishap. There is actually another Yoshiki event announced for December, but as much as I would love to go, it is just not in the budget, and I am a bit sad about that. But then I think “I sat with Yoshiki on the carpet of the Royal Albert Hall” and smile.

1st October 2023: The City and North Greenwich {Miyavi in London 2023}

Posted on 15 October 2023 by JBinnacle

As I was going to drive myself to the airport, I had a parking reservation at 5:00 for my 7:00 flight – you have to love those wee hours of the morning wake-up calls. I reached the airport around 4:55, just as the shuttle was leaving. I didn’t worry too much because there were people at the bus stop though. I found a nice parking spot under cover, but did not see the number on top, so I tried to memorise where I had parked. The shuttle arrived again around 5:25. Security was not a problem, but then I was sent to the automatic passport control, which did not work, and I had to go through manual control. The plane took off and landed on time, and despite the strike warning, the Stansted Express was only delayed 10 or 15 minutes, so I reached London a little after 9:30 – much earlier than I had expected.

Since I had time – for once – I decided to hang around London Liverpool station, where the Stansted Express terminates. Though I’ve always liked this building, which is actually listed for its historical importance, it is “just” a train station – I somehow have never had the time to explore as I seem to always be in transit. Construction was decided in the early 19th century, and development of the project displaced around 10,000 residents. The station was designed by engineer Edward Wilson, in a Gothic-inspired style in brick and bath stone. He added a trainshed in wrought iron and glass which was restored and expanded in 1894. The Victorian station survived the Blitz, a subsequent renovation in 1975, and it’ll hopefully will make it through the refurbishing proposed in 2022. I went around the station once, and then moved on – they had not cleaned the windows though.

Liverpool street station trainshed ironwork

Well, I went to have a vanilla latte at Costa Coffee, because I love that blasted beverage. I then decided to kill some time around the City of London. I went to Aldgate Square, home to the Church of Saint Botol, a school, and a very fun fountain with lights.

I found The Gherkin and Saint Helen’s Church, which I wanted to visit, but unfortunately they were about to start a service, so in the end I did not go in – I find interrupting religious acts disrespectful, and this was one of those “we welcome you at the door” community services… It would have made it awkward. I realised I had not wandered around The City for a long time (since… 2011), so I checked out some interesting buildings, such as Saint Michael’s Church or The Counting House or the Shanghai Commercial Bank.

There was a modern-art exhibit going on in the area, but the only work that drew my attention ended up not being even a piece of art. I walked by Leadenhall Market, which was sporting… purple tentacles. It turns out that since 2021 the area has “dressed up” for Hallowe’en! I was not expecting that… Though I have to admit, it’s a fun idea.

Leadenhall market and the purple tentacles

I went towards Bank station, which hosts Mansion House, where the Mayor of London lives, the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington. I finally reached London’s Guildhall, the old town hall still used for ceremonies and so. It was built between 1410 and 1440, though only part of it remains today. It was damaged in the Great Fire of London, and the façade that can be seen today was added in 1788 in the neo-Gothic style. I did not expect anything to be open, but the Guildhall Art Gallery was. I had less than an hour to my timed ticket somewhere else, so I decided not to go in.

The main façade of the old Guildhall building

Instead, I walked towards River Thames, passing by Saint Stephen Walbrook church, 1 Queen Victoria building and No 1 Poultry. I reached Walbrook Wharf and the Thames Path / Riverside Walk, including Fruiterers Passage and Millennium Bridge.

Thames Walk in London

At noon, I had a ticket to London Mithraeum Bloomberg Space. The Roman ruins of a Mithraic temple were found in London. The cult of Mithras flourished throughout the Roman Empire between the 1st and 4th centuries CE. It “recycled” the the Persian god of the sun and justice into the patron of loyalty to the emperor. Mithras is usually representing slaying a bull (tauroctony), though archaeologists are not really sure why. The London temple was discovered in 1952 in a construction area, transported off-site, then brought back to its original position in 2010. Today, it lies in an underground ward in the European HQ of the Bloomerg company. When I connected to the Wi-Fi to read up on the items on display, I received an email that my car had not been detected at the parking lot – and for a second I worried that I had parked in the wrong place, but I knew I had not.

The visit consists on a glass case display with several objects from the Roman era, including sandals, jewels, glassware, even a cabinet. Then there is an audiovisual show that does not make much sense since everybody is walking around wondering what is going on. Finally, you are admitted into the temple, which yields to an “immersive experience”, with a projection of lights and shadows and a few chants in Latin. When the lights go out, you finally get to see the temple. The remains are barely a few foundational stones and a little of the altar. Apparently the actual Mithras sculpture was also dug up, but it is in the Museum of London, closed until 2026. To be honest, it was a bit underwhelming, but after all, I’ve recently done an Italy trip, so I might be hard to impress in that sense at the moment.

London Mithraeum temple and artefacts

I headed to the hotel, but I decided to make a stop at Leicester Square to find two of the Scenes in the Park I had missed last time. I might have also dropped by The LEGO Store Leicester Square because I discovered that there is a Lego Stamp Rally. Of course, I needed to get myself a Lego passport to try and get some stamps. I thought about buying a mug from the M&M’s store, but I decided that I did not want to be carrying it around, and I would get it on my last day if I had the time.

Batman and Laurel & Hardy from LEicester Square Scenes in The park, and a Lego passport

I took the underground to Paddington Station and I stumbled onto the bronze sculpture Wild Table of Love by public art creators Gillie and Marc. Their characters, Rabbitwoman and Dogman, have invited several endangered animals to their table – giraffe, elephant, tiger, koala, chimpanzee, zebra, gorilla, rhino and lion – and there are two free spaces for onlookers to sit and become part of the banquet.

The Wild Table of Love sculpture

I went to my hotel and took a short break before I set off to catch the Jubilee line towards the Greenwich Peninsula in south-east London. I had been there to attend a L’Arc~en~Ciel concert in the O2 Arena a lifetime ago, and I was surprised how much the area had developed. This time over, I was not going to an event but to the building itself, the Millennium Dome, one of the largest structures of its kind in the world. The exterior of the Dome is a huge tent-like construction that pays tribute to the concept of “time” in its design – 365 metres in diameter (for the year’s days), 52 metres high at its highest point (the weeks) and twelve support towers (the months). It was originally built as an exhibition centre to host a number of shows and activities throughout the year 2000. Eventually, the inner structure was built. Today it has the arena and a smaller concert venue for events and concerts, there is a shopping centre and it offers dozens of activities…

One of the experiences that can be carried out is Up at the O2, which takes you on the marquee to the top of the dome and then back again. You are not allowed any bag or rucksack of any kind, and you can only “carry your phone in a jacket zipped jacket pocket”. I cheated and took my wallet in the other pocket. They have shoes to let, vests and jackets if you are not dressed appropriately. You have to sign a waiver and provide an emergency contact

As instructed, I was there fifteen minutes before my scheduled time, 17:30. I was offered a spot at the 17:15 climb and I shrugged into it. I was okay with that. First, you watch a “preparation” video that is more of a self-promo. Then, you are given a climbing harness and a tether, and told to never ever ever get your phone out during the climb – probably to avoid having to pick any little device up from the tent structure, or risking getting sued if they decline to do so. The harness is easier to put on than I thought, and it holds your upper legs and your torso. The first few metres are ascended on a plain outside staircase and the rest on a PVC catwalk that has a railing for you to get tethered to. The guide pranced up and down providing mostly funny commentary, but you could only hear him if you were close.

The steepest point at the catwalk has a thirty-degree inclination, but it did not feel extremely demanding. From the upper platform there are some cool views, especially of Greenwich and Canary Wharf, along with the Thames. The views were cool, and something very different from what you get from places in the city like the Sky Garden. I think I was expecting a bit of a further thrill / exertion though, so even if it was fun, I did not get as much from the experience as I thought.

Up the O2 experience

Some staff members take pictures of you that you can buy at the end. You ascend on the front area of the O2 and descend on the rear, so you need to walk all around the inner area to exit – and boy was it crowded with concertgoers (Muse) and dinners. After I walked out, I turned to the side of the O2 Arena where an area called The Tide has been developed. This is a public walkway, sort of an elevated platform with endemic plants sprinkled with public art installation, including The Mermaid by Damien Hirst, or the psychedelic stairs named Poured Staircase by Ian Davenport.

The Tide Greenwhich, showing the Mermaid, the Thames, the Spire and the Melting Staircase

I went back to the underground. I wanted to go to back to Chinatown to try the British version of Curry House CoCo Ichibanya, one of my favourite Japanese chains. Whenever I’ve walked by it around food time, there was a big line. However, when checking online if you can book a table, I discovered that there was another location in Bond Street, which I thought might be less busy. I am not sure it was, or I was lucky with timing, but I did find a spot in that shop within minutes. I was happy to enjoy a hand made chicken katsu curry (手仕込チキンカツカレー), the equivalent to my usual choice in Japan, and be on my way.

London Curry House CoCoICHIBANYA chicken katsu curry

While the hotel bathroom was tiny, it was more than enough for a shower and a change of clothes. Also, despite being so close to the station that one could feel the trains pass by, I slept pretty well until around 7:00.

11th & 12th September 2023: 23h 45min in London (England) for Yoshiki’s “Under the Sky”

Posted on 20 September 2023 by JBinnacle

Considering that Japanese musician Yoshiki recently got his hand- and footprints enshrined at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, I guess he’s not one of my obscure artists any more. Yoshiki is a Japanese drummer and classically-trained pianist who, alongside vocalist ToshI, founded the band X Japan in 1982. They started as a heavy metal band, and eventually shifted over towards progressive rock. Their flashy looks probably gave way to what is now called Visual Kei (V-kei) [V系], though they had dropped them in the mid 1990s, before they disbanded when vocalist ToshI left the band basically to join a cult. In 2007, X Japan reunited.

Yoshiki, born Hayashi Yoshiki [林佳樹], is considered one of the most influential Japanese artists of all times. Aside from a musician, he is also a songwriter, composer, producer, and fashion designer. He collaborated with Stan Lee for a special four-issue comic collection called Blood Red Dragon, and with international musicians and bands such as Bono (U2), Roger Taylor and Brian May (Queen), KISS, and Sarah Brightman. He composed the theme of the 2013 Golden Globe Awards, worked on the soundtrack of Saw IV, and has composed music for anime such as Saint Seiya and Attack on Titan. Within Japan, aside from tons of collaborations and solo works, he became “mainstream” when he played a concert to honour former Emperor Akihito upon the tenth anniversary of his enthronement in 1999. He also has a Hello Kitty line named and modelled after him, Yoshikitty. And I’ve been using one of his songs as my alarm clock since roughly 2010 (since 2015 it is Born to be free).

Back in 2017, Yoshiki hosted a Q&A in several cities throughout the world, including Vienna (Austria) for special showings of his documentary film on X Japan. The documentary should have premiered in the scheduled March 2016 concert, but when that was postponed, the film went on to be shown at different events festival. When I went to Vienna, I had already travelled to see it in X Japan concert in London and the Beefeater In-Edit festival in Barcelona (and owned the blu-ray).

In 2020, as the Covid-pandemic lockdowns eased up, Yoshiki organised an online concert on a bunch of rooftops, connecting with different artists and having others over, to celebrate his birthday on the 20th of November . Now, he has made a documentary out of the event, called Yoshiki: Under the Sky, which has “premiered” four times, the third of them in London on 11th September 2023. As the London announcement only came mid-August, it was a challenge to get everything running, but I managed to find doable flights and a hotel near the venue. I was able to buy a second-row seat for the cinema, which was pretty good too.

On the 11th of September, trying not to reflect too much on the date, I left the house around 5:00, and right as I merged into the motorway, it started pouring. There was more traffic than usual because the plane was an hour later, but I managed to make it to the airport a bit before the time I had booked to enter the parking lot – yay accuracy. I went through security and passport control without issues, and had to walk to the end of the terminal for my flight, which was also uneventful. Upon landing at London Stansted Airport, we had to wait for a bus because the escalators were broken or something, but I was outside around 9:30. I bought breakfast at Costa Coffee, and settled to wait for a friend I had met in Vienna, A****d. Her flight was due half an hour after mine, so we had decided to hang out for the day. She agreed to tag along to the Natural History Museum – I wanted to go back to the the Jurassic Park 30th Anniversary #NHMxJURASSIC store before it closes down at the end of the month. I really really wanted the rubber ducky cosplaying as a velociraptor, but I feared that if I got that one, I would end wanting to collect rubber duckies… I bought get a limited-edition “opening weekend ticket”, which had been out of my budget on my previous visit, and a titanosaur coin that I had not seen when I visited the exhibit.

A****d had never been to the museum, so we took a tour of the highlights – dinosaurs (of course) and other fossils, the “journey inside the earth” (escalator that goes into the inner core of the planet), the historical building, and Cadogan gallery… Unfortunately, the hall of mammals had recently closed for renovations, so we could not visit that one.

Natural History Museum London

Afterwards, we took the underground and got off at Leicester Square to have a late lunch in Chinatown. We found a little place for lunch. I ordered some rice and duck, which was nice but the duck had a lot of shattered bones. We looked for a place she had known that sold ice cream taiyaki, but sadly we did not find it.

London Chinatown

We located the cinema where the film was showing, Odeon London Covent Garden, but there was nothing going on yet, there was not even a poster announcing the film. After taking pictures, we continued down the block to snoop around the Forbidden Planet London Megastore, one of the biggest comic, manga and related merchandise shops in the world. Luckily, they had few things I wanted badly, and the ones they did were stupidly expensive, so I was able to get away with all my money, yay me!

A****d had decided that she would go back to the airport after the film, but I had taken a hotel a few minutes away from the cinema, right in front of the university and a few minutes away from the British Museum. I dropped by to check in, then we backtracked to Leicester Square as the museum was already closing for the day at 17:00. As we walked by the cinema, they were setting a poster for Under the Sky outside.

We decided to do something a bit silly and headed off to the The LEGO Store Leicester Square, two stories dedicated to selling LEGOs, either in sets, or just blocks. There are also different decorations – for photo-ops – made with oversized blocks, which include Shakespeare in the park, a Bobby, a Buckingham palace guard, a whole Aston-Martin with a Bond sculpture – you can actually go into the car – and lots and lots of Harry Potter. It was a bit disconcerting that they were already displaying Christmas sets!

Lego Shop London

Then, we crossed the street for the M&M’S Store London, which has four floors. The ground one has a recreation of the Beatles crossing Abbey Road, with M&M’S. There was a logo asking “which M&M’S colour are you?” which I thought was a little silly, until I found the orange M&M’S section, whose motto seems to be “I’m scared of what might happen if I relax”. I connected immediately. Next time over I should totally buy a mug or something. Also, there was no Christmas decoration yet, as they were preparing for Halloween. Oh, and they were looking for staff, offering “London liveable wages”.

M&Ms Shop London

We came out and it was 18:00, the Swiss glockenspiel at Leicester Square was chiming. The glockenspiel is a Swiss-themed clock which was built in the 1960s as part of the Swiss Centre, a ploy to drag rich British tourists to the country. The centre failed, and the clock was taken away, but it was eventually restored to the area in 2011. I could have sworn it was playing Poncelli’s Dance of the Hours?

Swiss Clock Leicester Square

Leicester Square is built around a sculpture of Willian Shakespeare, and the gardens around him hold a number of statues dedicated to cinema, Scenes in the Square. We spotted Mary Poppins, Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly’s character in Singin’ in the Rain), Charles Chaplin, Paddington Bear, Harry Potter, and an Indiana Jones which is supposed to be temporary. Apparently, there are a few more I should be checking out for, but that’s okay because I’ll be coming back to Chinatown eventually, and it’s just a few blocks away.

Statues of cinema figures in Leicester Square + Willian Shakespeare

We headed back towards the Odeon London Covent Garden cinema, and we reached there around 18:20. Another poster had been put up, and some fans were already waiting. We met another friend of hers, M**, who told us she had found a sitting area inside, so we sat and chatted away for about an hour. The staff was extremely friendly and did not peep a word of complain, even if we did not buy anything.

Yoshiki Under The Sky at Odeon Covent Garden London

Finally, we were allowed into Screen 2 and found our seats. I lost count of how many people tried to get away with ignoring the seating numbers. Nobody did. I had a second-row seat, pretty centred. The film was introduced by some film producer who explained what we were going to see as if we had just accidentally wandered into the cinema.

There was supposed to be a trailer for Yoshiki’s upcoming concert in October, which was not shown. We had a few in-house adverts before the documentary started. Through the film, Yoshiki talked a little about the power of music, and how he had come together with all these great musicians to create a world-class event, very Covid-compliant. All the songs featured were either composed by Yoshiki himself, or had been arranged by him in some way. Perched on an LA rooftop, he mostly played piano, but occasionally he donned the drums.

The narrating thread of the whole film is life. Yoshiki was a sickly child, and his father committed suicide when he was ten years old, so he grew up with the idea of death deeply ingrained in his brain. As the film goes on, he speaks about how music can bring people together, and how it is important to find the strength to go on. Halfway through the film, he talks about recently losing his mother and how he cried for days. At some point a voice is introduced. It is a regular John Doe who once reached out to Yoshiki on Twitter as his dying wife had just entered palliative care. The man asked for some encouragement for her, and he got it, from Yoshiki and a lot of the fans, until she passed away. There was a heart-wrenching Zoom call with the man, who spoke about how overwhelmed he was by all the support he received. Unfortunately, she passed away.

The documentary runs for an hour and a half, and it’s a mixture of the Yoshiki’s thoughts, the performances alongside different artists, each in their corner (or rooftop) of the world, and a bit of conversation with them, or a making-of. I was familiar with most of the featured musicians, but not all.

Sarah Brightman: Miracle. Sarah Brightman has had an extremely long career and is an excellent soprano – my first memory of her dates back to the 1992 Olympics. She collaborated with Yoshiki on Miracle in 2018. I was really sorry I was not able to go to any of her performances back then.

Jane Zhang: Hero. The original version of Hero was sung by Katie Fitzgerald for the soundtrack of Saint Seiya: Legend of Sanctuary. Though Saint Seiya was my favourite anime as a kid, I had wandered away from it. The song featured in the film actually made me want to go to see it, and eventually dragged me back into the world. Zhang did a good job, but I personally prefer Fitzgerald’s version.

SixTONES: Imitation Rain. As a music producer, Yoshiki must have realised a bit ago that the Japanese boy-band panorama was dire. For long years, the boy-idol company Johnny’s Entertaining (JE) had dominated the business, with bands as SMAP or Arashi. However, an extremely protectionist policy and the open secret that the director had sexually abused some of the boys, lead to the company losing power. I have no doubt that this is why Yoshiki decided to create and produce a boy-band, and thus looked for the six young men that comprise SixTONES. Having followed some of JE’s bands back in the day, I can see how they would tap into the niche (serious flashbacks to KAT-TUN circa 2005, to be honest).

Scorpions: Wind Of Change. Formed in 1965, Scorpions paved the way for a great deal of the big names in 1980s hard rock such as Guns N’Roses, Mötley Crüe, Helloween, Megadeth… And Yoshiki is a little fanboy of theirs, of course.

Sugizo: La Venus. Sugizo is one of X Japan’s members, who took over guitar duties after they reunited. While the band was separated, original guitarist Hide died in “mysterious circumstances” – either accidentally or by suicide. For a long time, Yoshiki claimed that Hide’s death was an accident, and on this film he for the first time acknowledges otherwise. Thus, Hide was the second person in Yoshiki’s circle to take his own life. Sugizo, who also plays violin and is a member of an insane number of bands, including LunaSea, is credited by Yoshiki as the reason X Japan could come back together, which made him very embarrassed. They played a rendition of La Venus without lyrics, with Sugizo on violin.

Hyde: Red Swan. Hyde is without a doubt one of the best rock vocalists in Japan. He was originally the voice of L’Arc~en~Ciel, when they were still a thing. He worked alone for a few years, then he and KAZ founded VAMPS, and finally he went solo again. Red Swan was a collaboration between Yoshiki and Hyde for the anime Attack on Titan!, released as “Yoshiki feat. Hyde”. Yoshiki explained how the red swan represents rising even covered in blood. After this collaboration, there was a second single, released as “Hyde feat. Yoshiki” with the song Zipang, in English and Japanese, which I personally find even more powerful. The significance of Red Swan in Under the Sky comes from how many versions there are on YouTube, especially as anime songs tend to be translated. Thus, it ties in with the concept of coming together through music.

St. Vincent: New York. St. Vincent is known for her clear voice and her complex arrangements, with lots of instruments playing a part. She is considered one of the best guitarist in the 21st century. Yoshiki arranged her song New York for piano and vocals, which made it extremely powerful. All LA artists were invited to sing on Yoshiki’s rooftop, as it would have reduced the logistics involved.

Nicole Scherzinger: I’ll be your love. Scherzinger was the lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls between 2003 and 2009, but before that she had already performed with Yoshiki with this very same song.

The Chainsmokers: Closer. They are an American electronic DJ pair: Alex Pall and Drew Taggart, whom I honestly know nothing about other than they do electronic remixes. They have some supporting musicians.

Lindsey Stirling: Forever Love. She is a violinist who performs and dances at the same time. I had never heard of her either, but she did feel the music. Regarding her, Yoshiki said that she made him realise that not all songs need lyrics and vocals. She did a great job.

Yoshiki and fans: Endless Rain. In a way, Endless Rain is the emotional ballad that keeps showing up in anything X Japan related – and breaking people’s hearts. A while back, there was a request on social media for fans to send recordings of themselves singing the song, which were used for the film. Hearing a Ukrainian girl singing “endless rain lets me forget all of the pain, all of the sadness” was soul-wrenching. Once more Yoshiki circled back to the idea of music bringing music together, along with living, just keep living.

Yoshiki Q&A in London, 11th September 2023

The Q&A afterwards was awkward. The guy who carried it out – Toby Amies – had done his homework but it was not a Q&A, it was an interview by someone who had just learnt about Yoshiki, and was curious, so he had a ton of questions, most of them absolutely unoriginal, such as hey, I’ve just discovered V-kei, explain that to me! Or “do you prefer piano or drums?” which we hear every time – I could swear that Yoshiki was a bit annoyed at that one. The only input that the audience had, before Yoshiki was even in, was “are the Last Rockstars coming to Europe?” (we know the answer to that: never) and “When is the next X Japan album coming out?” (we know the answer to that, too: also never), but when the interviewer got around to ask those, he messed them up! At some point Yoshiki explained the meaning of the title “Under the Sky” – basically, we’re not in Heaven yet, we are underneath. As he was leaving, he was kind enough to sign autographs and take pictures with fans.

After the film, we took a bunch of selfies with other fans in front of the poster(s), then moved on. I went back to my hotel for a shower and a few hours’ rest. The bathroom was tiny but hot water did its job, and I could not find the cereal bar I had packed for dinner. The bed was extremely soft, and the carpet smelt strongly as England is in the middle of yet another heatwave, and my nose clogged – I need to remember to start packing my allergy pills. I did not sleep much if at all, and I ended up leaving the hotel before 5:00. I had to decide between breakfast at London Liverpool station or catching the Stansted Express at 5:25. I decided to go for the train and have breakfast at the Stansted Costa, so I boarded, found a seat, and settled down for a travel nap.

Ten minutes away from the airport, as we left Harlow Town, the second-to-last stop, there was an announcement. We were informed that the train would terminate at Bishop’s Stortford, the last stop before Stansted Airport. There were technical issues at the terminus platform, and the train could not reach it. Passengers should vacate the train at at Bishop’s Stortford and ask the platform staff for instructions. The instructions were that we had to fend for ourselves to reach the airport as there was no alternative transportation provided. It was chaos for a second, with everybody scrambling for buses, taxies and so. I was near a young woman who was going to Uber and had some extra seats. She asked if anyone wanted to tag along and I said yes. She said it would be free because her company would reimburse her, so I was lucky on that account, and I arrived at the airport a bit after 6:30. I waved my Uber-companions good-bye and headed to Costa Coffee for breakfast, feeling relieved that I had decided against waiting for the 5:40 train in London Liverpool.

After a sandwich and a vanilla latte, I passed security, where I had to go through secondary screening because… no idea. There was like no metal on me whatsoever. Then the scanner complained about me having something in my pocket – my damn handkerchief! Seriously, now. This has happened a few times. Where do people keep their hankies / tissues if not a pocket??

A****d had not yet departed when I was through, so we could hang out for a little longer – it’s fun that we had only met in person for a few hours in 2017 and we hit off so well. We even had gates in the same area of the airport, so it was cool. This is the first time that I have done the “going to the airport early in the morning” in London, but to be honest there was a 100 € difference between that flight and the next up, since the whole thing was announced and happened so fast. I asked for a refund from the Stansted Express, and now I’m wondering whether to cancel the train for my next trip to London as they’re threatening with strikes on those days… (ETA: I received a full refund, and there was no major incident during the following trip).

The trip back was uneventful except the road was stupidly full when I drove off the parking lot. I napped most of the plane ride, and I had a Coke before 9:00. Talk about living wildly, especially considering how all this happened in 32 hours, and I was in London for less than 24! My only regret was not taking the camera, but I was trying to pack extra-light this time around.

5th August 2023: Prints, Sharks, Mice and Neon (Madrid, Spain)

Posted on 13 August 2023 by JBinnacle

I won’t say that the Southern Italy trip was a bad one, but due to the planning blunder, the heatwave and the general not-so-relaxing atmosphere, I kind of needed a low-stakes day out. And what can be lower-stakes than a silly giant shark film? I got myself a ticket to watch Meg 2: The Trench at noon – I’ve found out that my non-dubbed cinema has started doing matinée shows at a reduced price – and planned my day in Madrid around that.

I took the train and arrived in Madrid on time for my ideal connection. Unfortunately the local public transport is chaotic this summer, with both the train system and the underground going through construction, outages and closed stations. As fortunately the city was between heat waves, I decided to walk for 20 minutes instead of waiting for 17 for a train that might or might not come to take me to where I wanted to go.

My first stop was Imprenta Municipal – Artes del Libro, a local free museum dedicated to the history of book printing and binding. The exhibition is hosted in a dedicated building with two levels. The ground floor focuses on the invention and development of the print, both for text and images, and the art of binding and decorating books. There are printing “machines” from the 16th century on, for copying books and texts, and the whole thing gives off a retro feeling – a video actually shows how the machines work even today.

Collage Imprenta Municipal Artes del Libro

The second floor held an exhibition about “Asian Writings” Trazos de Oriente: imágenes, objetos y caligrafías de Asia. It hosts Arabic documents, Mongolian drawings, Chinese writing instruments and Myanma and Hindu praying books, along with items like ex libris and schoolbooks. All very cool.

Exhibition about writing in Asia

I had a little bit of time before the film, so I got a snack, then headed to the nearby Yelmo Cines Ideal to watch my film. Something I’ve learnt is that matinées attract a weird crowd – when I went to watch Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, I sat next to someone who narrated the whole film, and this time there was a lady who would tut whenever any of the sharks was on screen. I read the Meg: a novel of deep terror by Steve Alten a lifetime ago, and I enjoyed its albeit-very-liberal adaptation to film, especially because it did have a self-parody tone. It was fun because it was implausible, and it knew it was so. The second and current film, Meg 2: The Trench, has tried to become more of an action-like blockbuster and it takes itself way too seriously in my opinion. But there are three giant prehistoric sharks on screen at times, and I’m simple in that regard. Bigger and more teeth, I’m all for that.

The film finished around 14:00. I was not hungry, so I just grabbed myself a drink at Starbucks. I had a ticket at 15:00 at the Nomad Museo Inmersivo (and it was bad timing I guess, because just a couple of days later they opened a new exhibit). When I first read about it, the idea reminded me of Mori TeamLab Museum, since the art is all digital. The museum is staged in two floors. The lower one hosts the immersive projection ward and the shop. The upper one hosts the entrance and the “activities”. I thought that I’d ask if I could come in early, and they had absolutely no problem with that, so I entered around 14:35.

As you climb down the stairs, you have a very cool corridor with mirrors and lights that lead to the projection area. I had a ticket with entrance and “iris picture”, so an employee took me to get that one (I guess because the photographer was about to go on a break). We had to try a couple of times as it was hard to force my eyelid open under the bright light of the flash. The photographer was very patient with me and we were done in a few minutes.

Interactive Museum Nomad access corridor

I found my way back to the beginning – the museum is surprisingly small. The immersive projection is shown on the four walls and the floor. The projection I watched was called Utopia 1.0, where millions of digital blocks work as a tridimensional Lego set that sort of “build” a surreal world with dragons, deer, sculptures, whales, high rises, dinosaurs… The whole thing takes around 20 minutes and you can watch sprawled on the floor, or sitting up on a pouf – I chose this last option as it allowed me to turn around.

Interative Museum Nomad: Utopia projection

Following the projection, I went upstairs to do the activities. There’s a virtual reality experience where you get to travel the cosmos and see a lot of “space cetaceans”. I wonder why digital artists are so keen on whales… Another of the activities consists on “painting” planets with a giant brush as they float on a wall, and when you colour them all, you get to see penguins on a rocket or something… I did not catch it well because a bunch of kids burst in and took over. On another wall, there is a bunch of neons that you can play with using an app that you download on your phone, and blast music so they pulsate with that. Finally, the nice attendant is at the ready to take your picture at some stairs photo call (I think it is the glorified emergency exit), and you can go back down using a spiral slide.

There is finally a last corridor with lights and you end up at the shop, where you can start all over again, as there is no limit about how long you can stay in the museum. I really liked the first corridor, so I went back there for a while. Then I walked into the projection area again just in time to watch the dinosaurs roam once more. A fun detail is that even the toilets are “in character” with neon and messages.

Interactive Museum Nomad exhibits

On my way out, I bought myself a shark glass at the shop. There was also a very fun pufferfish cocktail glass, but I thought it would be awful to clean after use – not that the shark one is going to be much easier though… I left and headed off to a place I’ve always tangentially felt curious about, even if I’m not really the target public for it – it’s called Casita-Museo del Ratón Pérez.

Ratón Pérez or Mouse Pérez (also called Ratoncito Pérez, Little Mouse Pérez) is the equivalent of the Tooth Fairy in Spanish-speaking tradition. In 1894, writer Luis Coloma was commissioned with writing a tale for the future King Alfonso XIII, who had lost his first tooth. This tale penned the folklore mouse into print. According to the story, Mouse Pérez lived in central Madrid, in a biscuit box in the patisserie Prast, situated in number 8 of Madrid’s Calle Arenal. The town hall installed a plaque to commemorate the place and when the shopping centre in that building became almost empty, someone came up with the idea of building a “museum-house” dedicated to the mouse.

Museum-House of Mouse Pérez

The kids had a blast for sure, the visit is a forty-minute activity 100% dedicated to them . The guide has them running round looking for stuff and going into small doors. I snooped around and found it an interesting business model – though it falters when you pay a bit of attention to detail: books like 1984 or anatomy guides may very well be interesting, but a bit out of place in a children’s museum. At the end of the visit, the guided asked me what I was doing there and I told him I… wanted to see what the fuss was about, what kind of things they did in such “alternative” museums. We chatted away for a bit before I left.

To end the day, I did some shopping and I headed back home – the trains were delayed, but I eventually made it home and had a pizza dinner, because I suck at staying fed on day trips. Truth be told, I wanted to step by a famous bar to eat a calamari sandwich, but it… was complicated, with lots of signage on where to stand and wait to be seated, but there was nobody around, so in the end I decided I did not care enough for the calamari. Some other day – I’ve been saying that for months now though…

21st July 2023: Naples, from the hills to the port {Southern Italy, July 2023}

Posted on 11 August 2023 by JBinnacle

Due to poor planning on my side – that happens sometimes – Friday was a weird day. Part of me keeps thinking that I should have taken a train or a boat somewhere, but I actually managed to do most of the key sights in Naples. Acting on a recommendation, I had booked a 10:00 visit to the Catacombs of San Gennaro Catacombe di San Gennaro, part of the Catacombe di Napoli (Catacombs of Naples) network.

I bought a multiple-trip public transit ticket and I set off around 8:00. The underground-bus commute was to take 45 minutes, but the underground alone took that long. Thus, I decided to do the second leg of the trip on foot, up the hill Collina di Capodimonte. The bus trip was to take 20 minutes, and the walk 22 – I took less than 20 and I did not even see any bus going where I wanted to be… then again I was stupidly early in the end…

The cult to San Gennaro (Saint Januarius) is deeply felt in Naples – the miracle of his blood turning liquid three times a year is just one of the signs. They buried, exhumed, and reburied the man up to seven times if I understand correctly, and he is not even in the catacombs any more, but in the cathedral. The catacombs are excavated into the volcanic tuff that conforms the hill, and they date back to the 2nd century CE. They were located outside the city walls, as were all the graveyards at the time. The original tomb was expanded to accommodate palaeo-Christian burials. The first patron of Naples, Saint Agrippinus, was buried here and a basilica was constructed in his honour. After his burial in the 4th century CE, the catacombs became… popular. Eventually, San Gennaro was buried there in the 5th century and the place became a pilgrimage site until his body was moved to Benevento.

The catacombs have two levels, and can only be visited in a guided tour. They were restored in 2006, and are currently managed, by a cooperative which tries to promote Naples heritage and improve the city, providing working opportunities for young people. They tackled the restoration of the catacombs in 2006. Our guide asked if anyone had visited any catacombs before, I said that I had visited the Catacombs of Paris, but she did not make any… further comment about anything. There are no bodies in the Catacombs of San Gennaro, which is almost weird considering how morbid Neapolitans are.

Catacombs of San Gennaro

What you can find in the catacombs is a powerful example of underground architecture. Everything is directly carved into the rock, except for a few bricks here and there (and some scaffolding). There are three types of tombs: fossa (ground burial, vaguely body-shaped), loculo (stacked tombs built against the walls) and arcosolium (a carved tomb carved into the wall and a protective arch surrounding it). Some of the walls and tombs still have frescoes, a few of them with recycled symbolism from the pagan times, such as the god of wine Bacus’ vines being reinterpreted as a Christian theme of Jesus as the ‘true vine’, God as the husbandman, and the disciples as the branches.

The visit ended at the basilica San Gennaro Extra Moenia or St Januarius Beyond the Wall – due to it being outside the city’s protective walls, even if these walls are long gone. As the reception area had a small cafeteria, I headed there for a late breakfast (second breakfast? super early lunch?). It was around 11:00 and I ordered a mini-pizza and got myself a cold coke. I felt much more alive after that.

Neapolitan mini pizza

I went uphill for Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, one of the former royal palaces Reggia di Capodimonte, and the forest that surround it. The palace was built in the Italian Baroque and Neoclassical styles between 1738 and 1840. A cohort of architects worked on it, the most credited being Giovanni Antonio Medrano. Although today the palace is technically a museum, the ‘good’ paintings have been moved for restoration, so I decided not to go in. But I might have got sunburnt on the walk.

Royal Palace of Capodimonti

I went back down Capodimonte Hill towards Central Naples, and I made a stop at Galleria Principe di Napoli, a commercial gallery dating back from the 19th century. It was originally built in brick, with a cover of iron and glass. Today it is almost unused as most of the shops have closed or moved, and there have been recent mini-collapses which worry local authorities.

Commercial gallery in Naples

I walked into the underground system – which does not have air-con and was crowded. I stopped at Stazione Toledo, one of the stations belonging to the project Stazioni dell’Arte (Art Stations), a city project to beautify Naples’ transport hubs. Óscar Tusquets designed Stazione Toledo, and it has earned the reputation of being the most beautiful underground station in Europe.

Escalator in Toledo underground station Naples

Afterwards I went back to the platform to wait for a train to head to the harbour – the frequency is 15 minutes, but at least I was sitting down. I should have eaten something , but it was too hot – I bought a bottle of water and an ice cream (which was not even actual Italian ice cream) and continued off. I saw the outward of Castel Nuovo, a medieval castle dating back from 1279, commissioned by Charles I of Anjou. Had it had an open ticket office, I would have come in, but you could only book online and I really did not want to go around entering my bank data in the middle of Napoli.

Outside of Castle Nuovo, Naples

Thus I walked past the theatre Teatro di San Carlo and headed off towards the square Piazza del Plebiscito. On one side stands the church Basilica Reale Pontificia San Francesco da Paola, which was getting prepared for a wedding. On the other side, the other Naples Royal Palace Palazzo Reale di Napoli. The palace was one of the Bourbon residences during the time of the Kingdom of Naples and the Kingdom of Two Sicilies. Like the Capodimonte one, it is built in a mixture of Italian Baroque and Neoclassical styles, and it is attributed to Domenico Fontana. I snooped around the free areas of the palace.

Basilica of San Francisco de Padua, Naples

Royal Palace, Naples

There is another shopping gallery next to the palace, the Galleria Umberto I, a little more alive than the Prince of Naples if only because there were tourists groups using it as a meeting point. I crossed it on my way to the underground stop. I took the train again and alighted at the square Piazza Dante, with the monument to the famous poet Monumento a Dante Alighieri and the school Convitto Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele II, whose tower is called the Equation of Time Orologio Equazione Del Tempo, with a double clock to reflect both solar hours (apparent solar time vs mean solar time) simultaneously.

Dante Square, Naples

I headed out to the chapel-museum Museo Cappella Sansevero, which is reported to always have long lines. I wanted to check if there were advanced tickets.￹￹￹￹￹￹￹ Upon arrival around 15:15, I managed to get a slot for 15:30, and I was admitted a bit after 15:20. Pictures are not allowed and the guards patrol like eagles, so I could not even a sneak one. The chapel is home to a number of incredible Baroque and Rococo sculptures. The most important one is the masterpiece known as the Veiled Christ Cristo velato by Neapolitan sculptor Giuseppe Sanmartino (1720 – 1793). The sculpture was commissioned by Raimondo di Sangro and completed in 1753. It is so impressive that a legend says that an alchemist transformed the veil from a real one into marble.

Other incredible sculptures are Release from Deception and the veiled Modesty. When you go out, you are forced to cross a small cabinet which holds something called Le Macchine Anatomiche “Anatomical Machines” (Giuseppe Salerno) which are real-life skeletons with a reproduction of the vascular and circulatory system.

My final stop for the the day was Complesso Monumentale di Santa Chiara, a monumental complex comprising a church Chiesa di Gesù Redentore e San Ludovico d’Angiò, a cloister Chiostro maiolicato, a museum Museo Di Santa Chiara and a Roman archaeological excavation Scavi archeologici Santa Chiara.

This religious complex started off as a Clarisse monastery built between 1313 and 1340. The cloister is square, and the arcades are covered in frescoes. The cloister itself is considered unique, as in 1742, Domenico Antonio Vaccaro built two avenues of octagonal columns. These pillars, along with the benches that join them, are decorated in the Rococo style, covered with majolica tiles in floral and everyday-life themes. A bit too fancy for a Poor Clares convent… though I really liked the columns and the cloister.

20230721 Santa Chiara Cloister Naples

The library contains codexes. The Roman ruins are from a Roman bath, but with Pompeii and Herculaneum so recent in my mind, they were not that impressive, I guess. The museum holds pieces from the baths, religious artefacts from the church before it was burnt, and other religious paraphernalia.

Altar. Santa Chiara, Naples

The church was originally erected in the Angevin Gothic style, with some original Romanesque left, and it was redecorated in Baroque style in the 17th century. After being damaged during the WWII bombings, it was restored “in style” – meaning, how it was supposed to have been before the Baroque decorations.

After the church, I went back to the hotel and I decided to try one of the McDonald’s item that is typically Italian – not found anywhere else, a Tasty Basket: McNuggets (found everywhere), chicken wings (found in more places), and panzerotti con pomodoro (typical Italian, a panzerotto is a small calzone with the same dough and seasoned tomato as pizza). It was either strangely good or I was hungry.

panzerotti con pomodoro

20th July 2023: Herculaneum and the Naples National Archaeological Museum {Southern Italy, July 2023}

Posted on 6 August 2023 by JBinnacle

Knowing my way to the station of Napoli Porta Nolana, this time I only had to buy the ticket and wait for the 8:14 Circumvesuviana Line 4 to Poggiomarino, which was supposed to reach Ercolano Scavi in the town of Herculaneum [Ercolano] by 8:33. It took longer than that because there were a lot of stops. Then again, my strategy of the first station in order to travel sitting down was successful once more.

Unlike the modern city of Pompeii, the modern Ercolano was built before the ancient town was discovered. It was originally called Resina, but the name was changed in 1969. Despite the legend saying that the Greek hero Heracles (Hercules in Latin) founded the original Herculaneum, the early history of this city is parallel to that of Pompeii. It was first an Oscan settlement, then Etruscan, then Greek, and it eventually became a Roman municipium in the first century BCE. It was a small vacationing town for people from the north, apparently.

Much like Pompeii, the ancient city of Herculaneum – what today is the Parco Archeologico di Ercolano or Herculaneum Archaeological Park – was buried by the 79 CE eruption of Mount Vesuvius, and it belongs to the Archaeological Areas of Pompei, Herculaneum and Torre Annunziata Unesco World Heritage Site. However, the different location of the town changed how it fared during the eruption.

The 79 eruption lasted two days (thought to be 24th and 25th October 79 CE). The citizens of Pompeii and Herculaneum who fled and survived were the ones who escaped during the first 12 hours – during these, heavy pumice and ash came down on Pompeii, destroying buildings. At this time, Pliny the Elder was commander of the Roman fleet at a nearby town, and he sent galleys to help the evacuation of the coast. We know this because his nephew, Pliny the Younger – a teenager at the time who would grow into a lawyer and magistrate – left in writing what he had seen in two letters. Those letters are now lost, but Medieval copies of them survived.

At the time of the eruption, Herculaneum stood right by the shore. Most of the bodies found were at the coastline, probably trying to escape by sea or reach Pliny’s ships. A boat was actually found carbonised in the vicinity. As wind blew pyroclastic flows towards Pompeii, burying it in volcanic ash and pumice, only a few centimetres of ash fell onto Herculaneum. These, however, rightfully freaked people out, and caused most of the population to flee during the first day.

As Herculaneum lies closer to the volcano, when the cloud of volcanic material (called a “volcanic surge”, composed by gas, ashes and pumice) collapsed in the middle of the night, it hit the town at over 400 ºC. Everyone who had stayed behind was instantly killed by the heat, leaving behind the skeletons of around 330 people. There were no casts made of them – unlike the thousand unfortunate Pompeiians.

Pliny the Elder died in the early morning of the second day. During the second day, the second pyroclastic cloud collapsed on top of Pompeii, but at this time, not a soul remained alive in Herculaneum. Subsequent volcanic clouds and pyroclastic surges (not lava) buried the towns until excavations started in the 18th century – barring some grave robbers, apparently.

About one fourth of Herculaneum has been unburied, even if it was the first city to be discovered. There is a bit of a paradox here – although it is in better condition and it suffered less structural damage, it is worse preserved. It still holds a lot of mosaics in situ, despite many frescoes taken to the Archaeological Museum. Unfortunately, its current condition has deteriorated terribly.

Herculaneum is less famous than Pompeii. A much smaller area can be visited, and the unexcavated part is underneath the modern cities of Ercolano and Portici. There are many buildings closed and a lot of scaffolding is needed due to a period or abandonment at the end of the 1990s. One of the telltales that it expects fewer tourists is that the webpage is only in Italian.

I reached the station Ercolano Scavi around 8:45, and ten minutes later I was at the entrance of Parco Archeologico di Ercolano. The park was already open and there was a line to buy tickets, and people struggling with their phone passes. I had printed mine out, so it was stupidly easy to wave it, get it scanned, and go through. Most people who went in before me decided to stay at the museums because that is the first thing you reach, but I reasoned that the earliest I went into the archaeological area, the less time I’d be under the sun when it became scorching. Again, this helped to be alone in a couple of houses.

Herculaneum general view

Restoration is a race against time in Herculaneum and as you walk you can see the scaffoldings and workers going on their daily lives – archaeologists, restorers, gardeners. Here, the effect of the volcanic activity are seen extremely clearly, on the floors and the walls – bulging mosaics and cracked frescoes and tiles. There is no doubt, however, that the damage was less. There are columns that still stand, covered in their original paint, and the bathhouses could just be used today with some refurbishing – and of course running water.

Another phenomenon that happened in Herculaneum was that a lot of wood became instantly charcoal when the pyroclastic surge collapsed onto the town. That means that some of the beams that are still in the buildings are the original ones, which is unbelievable. There are even surviving stairs and furniture. I wandered the streets for a few hours, going into anything that was open and in general feeling in awe at the mosaics and the frescoes. I was also astonished as how people felt comfortable poking the slabs and the paint – as there were fewer caretakers than in Pompeii.

Some highlights included:

– Terme Maschili or Male Baths, where you can see the wavy mosaic on the floors.
Herculaneum mosaic - Merfolk

– The mosaics in Casa di Nettuno e Anfitrite or House of Neptune and Amphitrite.
Mosaic covering a foutnain in Herculaneum

– Casa del Rilievo di Telefo or House of the Relief of Telephus, one of the best preserved structures with a lot of paintings, even on the columns.
Herculaneum: House of the Relief of Telephus

– Terrazza, statua e altare di Marco Nonio Balbo or Terrace, statue and altar of Marcus Nonius Balbus.

It was noon when I decided to retreat towards the museums, which hold only small trinkets and some jewellery. Just as I was thinking that the Herculaneum inhabitants could rest in peace instead of being on display, I reached the Boat Pavilion Padiglione della Barca, which holds a carbonised boat where some of the residents tried to escape. There are panels which explain that they are planning to make copies of the three hundred something skeletons they found at the coastline and place them in the same spot they were found. So much for resting in peace.

I went back towards the station and took a train back to Napoli, where I transferred to the underground and headed off to the National Archaeological Museum – Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (MANN). I had read online that the ticket was valid for two days, so the plan was to grab a leisure lunch there, wander around for a while in the air-conditioned areas of the museum, then come back the following day. Unfortunately, the ticket read that it was only valid for one admission that day. I had to reconsider my plan then. It was barely 13:30, so I decided to go right into it. Also… there was no air-con.

The roots of the MANN are the so-called Collezione Farnese, or Farnese Collection, one of the first collections of the Greco-Roman Antiquity. The original collector was Pope Paul III when he was still Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (1568 – 1549). In the 18th century, the marbles were inherited by Elizabeth Farnese. Her son Charles would become King of Naples, Sicily and Spain, and was the great sponsor of the excavations in Herculaneum and Pompeii. The mosaics and frescoes taken from these two cities are the second core conforming the museum.

The Farnese Marbles are fantastic. It’s been a while since a work of art took my breath away, but some of these did. The collection preserved a lot of Roman copies of Greek original sculptures, and although a lot of them were restored during the Renaissance, I enjoyed the gallery a lot. Some favourites were the Resting Hercules, Atlas, Apollo playing the lire, and of course the Farnese Bull.

Farnese Marbles: Farnese Hercules, Farnese Bull, Farnese Apollo, and Eros with a fish

The Hercules sculpture shows the hero leaning on his club after having finished the last of his tasks – the apples of the Hesperides garden, which he holds behind his back. Atlas kneels, holding the world. The Farnese Bull is the biggest surviving sculptural group from antiquity – the twin brothers who founded Thebes, Zethus and Amphion, tie their stepmother Dirce to the horns of a wild bull as revenge for how she tormented their mother. The original is attributed to Appollonius of Tralles. Apollo playing the lire is sculpted in two marbles, one darker for the tunic and a white one for skin and the lire – and one of the few sculptures I can share on social media as he is totally clothed…

After the Farnese marbles, I explored the rest of the classical sculptures. Then I moved onto the second floor to the collection of mosaics from Pompeii and Herculaneum. When I was little I saw a mosaic of fish in my history book, and I had always wanted to see it. I finally did, along with one that implies “beware of the dog”. I did not get to see the Alexander the Great mosaic because it was being restored (though I did see the in-situ reproduction in the Casa del Fauno / House of the Faun). There was even a whole fountain with columns that were almost completely covered in mosaics.

Mosaics from Pompeii and Herculaneum

At the end of this area stands the “Secret Cabinet”, which holds the images and sculptures from Pompeii and Herculaneum that were over the centuries considered “too pornographic to be seen” – including penis amulets and a sculpture of “Pan making love to a goat”.

I continued on to the second floor, to “Archaeological Naples”. In this area there also were sculptures, a lot of bronzes too – including a beautiful Athena and a Drunk Faun. The central hall of this floor held an exhibit about Alexander the Great and his influence in the Mediterranean. It hosted the Farnese Atlas and the Artemis of Ephesus. Afterwards, I went to the Protohistory and Prehistory area – which did not hold many attention-grabbing artefacts, especially consider how spectacular everything else was.

Sculptures in the Napoli Archaeological Museum

By this time, I needed a break. It was a bit later than 15:00 so the café was practicable. I got myself a lemon sorbet and… fried pasta pasta frittata, a typical street food bite. Which is basically a croquette made out of pasta. It was surprisingly good, actually.

Pasta fritatta

I went back upstairs – I was tired by now, and if I had had the chance to do the museum in two days, I would have left now. But I did not, so I continued towards the exhibitions of “everyday life” and frescoes of Pompeii and Herculaneum. These include dishware, glassware, decoration, mirrors, jewellery… and of course the frescoes, including the Portrait of Terentius Neo and his Wife, that were taken down from the walls of the houses during the 18th century in order to preserve them. They feel weird as they hang on the blank walls – framed, far away from the place they used to be. I know it can’t be, but it would be cool to see them all on site. While I could really imagine how some of the houses would have looked 2,000 years ago when I was in Pompeii, I could not imagine the perfectly-framed frescoes on the walls. It was a bit unsettling.

Pompeii and Herculaneum frescoes

I bought the extra ticket to see the Magna Graecia Collection. At first I was not convinced because after a while all the Greek pottery starts looking the same to me. You get to wear shoe coverings in order to walk in there, at first I thought it was not to upset the marble floors, but then I walked onto the mosaics and wow. Just wow. I mean… after a bit you don’t even realise that you’re supposed to be looking at pottery and just keep staring at the floors…

Magna Graecia Mosaic

I ended the visit with the Egyptian collection, where – on top of it being the only area of the museum with air conditioning – I saw one of the crocodile mummies that I might have seen at Kom Ombo.Finally, after basically snooping round the whole museum including the gardens, I headed back to the station area to buy some food and go get some rest in the hotel.

For the sake of completion, here is a relation of all the spots I visited in Parco Archeologico di Ercolano or Archaeological Park of Herculaneum:
Boathouse and shoreline
Access bridge
Casa dello Scheletro or House of the Skeleton
Casa dei Galba or House of Galba
Terme Maschili or Male Baths
Casa dei Due Atri or House of the two atriums
Sede degli Augustali or Hall of the Augustales
Casa dei Salone Nero or House of the black salon
Bottega del Plumbarius or Shop of a plumbarius (metal worker, welder or blacksmith)
Casa del Bel Cortile or House of the Beautiful Courtyard
Casa di Nettuno e Anfitrite or House of Neptune and Amphitrite
Terme Femminili or Female Baths
Casa Sannitica or Samnite House
Casa del Tramezzo di Legno or House of the Wooden Screen
Casa del Papiro Dipinto or House with the painted papyrus roll
Casa dell’Alcova or House of the Alcove
Casa dell’Erma di Bronzo or House of the Bronze Herm
Casa dell’Ara Laterizia or House of the Brick Altar
Casa dell’Atrio a Mosaico or House of Mosaic atrium
Casa dell’Albergo or House of the Inn
Casa del Telaio or House of the Tailor
Casa del Mobilio Carbonizato or House of the Wooden Furniture
Casa dell’Apollo Citaredo or House of Apollo the Lyre-player
Casa del Bicentenario or House of the Bicentenary
Pistrinum di Sextus Patulcius Felix or Bakery of Sextus Patulcius Felix
Taberna di Priapo or Bar of Priapus
Casa della Stoffa or House of the Cloth
Casa dei Cervi or House of the Deer
Palaestra
Casa del Rilievo di Telefo or House of the Relief of Telephus
Terrazza, statua e altare di Marco Nonio Balbo or Terrace, statue and altar of Marcus Nonius Balbus
Terme Suburbane or Suburban baths
Area Sacra or Holy Area
Sacello di Venere or Shrine of Venus
Grande Taberna or Large bar
Casa del Gran Portale or House of Large Portal
Thermopolium (food shop)
Casa di Aristide or House of Aristides
Antiquarium (museum)
Padiglione della Barca or Boat Pavillion

19th July 2023: Pompeii {Southern Italy, July 2023}

Posted on 5 August 2023 by JBinnacle

Pompeii [Pompei] is a town belonging to the greater Napoli Metropolitan Area. There is not much there “except” for the ruins of the ancient city that names the area. Pompeii Scavi (ruins of Pompei) or Parco Archeologico di Pompei (Archaeological Park of Pompeii) is the name given to the ruins nowadays, which belongs to the Unesco Heritage Site Archaeological Areas of Pompei, Herculaneum and Torre Annunziata.

The ancient city of Pompeii dates (dated?) back to an Oscan settlement in the 8th century BCE. The Etruscans arrived around 524 BCE, and the Greeks in 450 BCE. From the year 340 BCE, Pompeii was controlled by the Romans, first tacitly, then as a confederate, with its own administration and language. After it tried to rebel, it was forcefully conquered and made a colony in the first century BCE. The different civilisations expanded the city according to their own tastes.

The preservation of Pompeii makes it possible to appreciate the different styles in decoration, in mosaics, but chiefly on the frescoes in the houses. The first decoration style was called “incrustation” and it made the wall look like it was composed of actual marble bricks when it was in reality flat. The second style was the “architectural” one – areas of the wall were painted to look in relief, with or without decoration, such as a brick with a still life decoration on top, an open door, a window or a garden. The third style was the “ornamental” – there was a central element and all around it, linear separations and smaller motifs occupying whole walls and even rooms. The fourth and final style was called “Intricate” because it just fills the walls with ‘main’ motifs – the more the merrier, with as many colours and decoration as possible.

In the year 62 CE, there was an earthquake that heavily damaged the city. The citizens were not too worried, because quakes were common in the area. Reconstruction started. By the year 79 CE, the city had thousands of inhabitants. In October, Il Vesuvio, the volcano known as Mount Vesuvius, erupted. The eruption happened in the early afternoon, which caused most of the population to flee during the first hours. The ones that stayed behind were killed instantly when a cloud of volcanic gas with a temperature higher than 300 ºC collapsed onto the city. By the end of the eruption, Pompeii had been buried by 20 m of volcanic ash, whose weight caused most roofs to collapse.

Romans never came back to Pompeii, though after the eruption some valuables were salvaged, some excavations were made and building materials were taken. Subsequent eruptions covered the city completely, until the first walls were excavated in 1693. When Herculaneum was discovered in 1738 while building the Royal palace for the King of Naples (later Spain’s Charles III), the king was greatly interested and he sponsored excavations, which continue even today. The archaeological importance of Pompeii resides on the fact that this was not a fancy town, but an everyday one, which can teach us a lot about how Romans really lived.

Nowadays, about two thirds of the city have been uncovered and most areas that are not being actively worked on can be visited. Scientists and experts say that the primary goal at the moment is conservation rather than uncovering the rest of the site. Pompeii was not destroyed by lava, it was only covered in pumice and ash – lava would have disintegrated the whole city. As it became buried, time stopped. Unfortunately, as soon as anything is unearthed, the clock starts again. Furthermore, there are problems with conservation, bad restoration techniques, vandalism, theft and overtourism.

Another thing that makes Pompeii special was that “remains” of the victims were found – skeletons encased in a “hollow” where the body decomposed. Giuseppe Fiorelli came up with the idea of making casts out of those moulds in 1863 – though many of these casts were destroyed or damaged during WWII bombings. Some of them, or their copies are displayed through the site. I personally find it a bit morbid, but they are useful for archaeologists, apparently. It is calculated that around a thousand people perished in the eruption, but 90% of the population survived.

I woke up early to take the train to Pompeii – the modern town next to the ruins has taken the name of the ancient city. While most people take the train at Napoli Garibaldi (the easiest train station to reach on public transport), I was coming on foot. The terminus, Napoli Porta Nolana, was just three minutes further and the ticket price was the same, so I went there to hopefully be able to sit. I was successful and I rode the Circumvesuviana Line 1 8:09 train to Sorrento, which reached the station Pompei Scavi-Villa dei Misteri a bit after 8:30. After a couple of minutes, I was in line to get into Pompeii Scavi. As I had an entry ticket booked (and printed), once gates were open at 9:00 I was inside the archaeological park in a couple of minutes (my first picture is timestamped at 9:04).

I spent in Pompeii from 9:00 to 15:30, most of it walking, though I made a stop around noon for a snack, and I also had multiple breaks to apply sun lotion. The strada (streets) have little shade, and the few trees are planted on recreated orchards and gardens, and you can not sit under them. Also, there is a system of rotation on houses – not all of them are open, and none are open all the time. A few are the “house of the day”, which in my case (Wednesday) was the Terme del Foro (Forum Baths). There are also a lot of fountains throughout the site, and the water is drinkable.

A typical Roman house – where most people lived – were called insulae. They were “apartment blocks” with up to seven floors. The ground floor usually had a shop, and the owners lived right above, with windows and balconies. The higher the floor, the worse the apartment was – smaller and with fewer to no windows.

Rich people, in contrast, lived in a type of house called domus (villa for extremely wealthy individuals). A domus was a single-storey house built around an wide area, the atrium which had an opening in the celling with a small pool underneath to gather rainwater. This was the most important place of the house and it hosted a place to worship the ancestors or the household gods. Most of the rooms in the house led to the central atrium – the bedrooms (cubicula), dining room (triclinium), the study (tablinum) and the kitchen (culina). At the rear of the house there was an orchard or garden (hortus) and at the front, the shops (tabernae ). The domus was accessed through the fauces, a small decorated corridor. Bigger houses had a second building with a sort of patio (peristylum) similar to a cloister, with columns, plants, and a pond in the middle (piscina). At the very end there was a resting area (exedra).

The walls were decorated with frescoes, and the floors with mosaics. In Pompeii, both are damaged in most houses due to the earthquakes and the weight of volcanic ash and pumice, but they are still the best examples we have of Roman domestic frescoes. A lot of them have been removed and are in the Naples Archaeological Museum – only the most recently-unearthed ones are still at their original place. It is an interesting debate though – should they have been removed? If they had not, they might have got destroyed by decay and insufficient protection. But now they hang in the museum, devoid of all context, and it is weird.

A problem with Pompeii is the sheer amount of people that visit it – another paradox: maybe fewer visitors should be allowed, but it is visitor revenue is what keeps the place working and pays for conservation, research and further excavations. The best was the first 30 to 40 minutes, when I even had the Santuario di Apollo and the Casa dei Mosaici Geometrici all for myself.

All in all, the city is awe-inspiring. It’s not only that it has a huge architectural and archaeological value. It also shows the will of humanity to learn and discover, and at the same time, how small we are in comparison to nature – some of the originally-flat mosaics are now wavy due to the volcanic earthquakes, and the mosaics are cracked.

The streets are wide and the pavements are raised. There are raised crossings that would have slowed down the chariots and allowed people to cross without getting wet when it rained, or hm… when people… dumped… stuff there. Today, aside from tourists, there are lizards – absolutely indifferent to tourists – and cats – absolutely adored by tourists.

Some highlights of the visit included:

– Casa di Romolo e Remo or House of Romulus & Remus; Santuario di Apollo or Temple of Apollo; Basilica (building where politics were discussed); Foro or Forum. Some sights even have Il Vesuvio looming about.
Collage showing some buildings of Pompeii

– Casa del Menandro or House of Menander, with an almost completed atrium and peristylum, with great frescoes in situ.
Pompeii Casa del Menandro - hall and garden

– Casa dell’Orso Ferito or House of the Wounded Bear, with incredible mosaics (closed, unfortunately)
Pompeii House of the Wounded Bear

– Casa del Fauno or House of the Faun, one of the most famous houses, and original home to a mosaic depicting Alexander the Great in battle.
Pompeii House of the Faun

– Casa delle Nozze d’Argento or House of the Silver Wedding, with fantastic frescoes, and tiny details, extremely detailed.
Pompeii House of the Silver Wedding

– Casa dei Dioscuri or House of Castor & Pollux, in which the columns still keep some of the painting.
Pompeii House of Caxtor and Pollux

I visited around 75 buildings, and entered as many as I could. Towards 15:00, I again had a few buildings for myself, or with fewer people, and I wish I had had the energy to continue on. Unfortunately, the inner restaurant was super-full whenever I checked – which I did repeatedly between 12:00 and 15:00. However, by 14:00 I knew that I was overdoing it, so I started my retreat. I still had to see the Antiquarium or Pompeii Museum.

After I left the site, I stopped for a very late lunch (or a very early dinner) at a restaurant just outside the ruins. One of the waiters did not want to give me a table – or actually acknowledge me at all, I think this is the first time that I have actually felt the whole “solo travellers not welcome” echo, However, another one sat me, and I ordered the famous pizza Margherita, which is the big pizza in the Naples area. Not the Napoletana one, go figure.

A whole pizza Margherita

I took the train back, and I was in Naples with time to do something else. I had eaten and I was feeling better, but I thought that I had overdone it, and was worried about crashing the following day if I was not careful. Thus, I took a trip to another supermarket and went back to the hotel for a shower.

For the sake of completion, here is a relation of all the spots I visited in Parco Archeologico di Pompei or Archaeological Park of Pompeii:
Casa di Romolo e Remo or House of Romulus & Remus
Santuario di Venere or Temple of Venus
Casa di Trittolemo or House of Tryptolemus
Basilica (building where politics were discussed)
Santuario di Apollo or Temple of Apollo
Comitium ed Edifici Municipali or Hall of the Elections and Municipal buildings
Foro or Forum
Casa dei Mosaici Geometrici or House of the Geometric Mosaics
Palestra Degli Iuvenes or Gymnasium of the Iuvenes
Casa dei Cinghiale or House of Vesbinus
Terme Repubblicane or Republican Baths
Foro Triangolare or Triangular Forum
Santuario di Atena ed Eracle or Temple of Athena and Heracles (Greek Doric Temple)
Teatro Grande or Large Theatre
Quadriportico dei teatri / Caserma dei Gladiator or Quadriporticus of the theatre / Gladiator Barracks
Ingesso al Teatro Piccolo od Odeon or Entrance to Little Theatre or Odeon
Domus Cornelia or House of Cornelius Rufus
Tempio di Asclepio or Temple of Aesculapius
Casa degli Epidii or Casa de Marco Epidio Rufo or House of Epidio Rufo
Casa del Citarista or House of the Citharist
Casa de Casca Longus or House of Casca Longus
Fullonica di Stephanus or Fullery of Stephanus
Casa del Larario di Achille or House of the Lararium of Achilles
Casa del Criptoportico or House of Cryptoporticus
Casa di Paquius Proculus or House of Cuspius Pansa
Casa di Fabius Amandio or House of Fabius Amandus
Casa del Sacerdos Amandus or House of the Priest Amandus
Casa dei Casti Amanti or House of the Chaste Lovers
Casa e Thermopolium di Vetutius Placidus or House and Thermopolium of Vetutius Placidus
Casa di Giulio Polibio or House of Julius Polybius
Casa del Frutteto or House of the Orchard
Casa di Trebio Valente or House of Trebius Valens
Taberna di Sotericus or Tavern of Sotericus
Casa di Octavius Quartio or House of Octavius Quartio
Casa della Venere in conchiglia or House of Venus in the Shell
Anfiteatro or Amphitheatre
Palestra grande (Exhibition: “Arte e Sensualità nelle case di Pompei” Art / Sensuality in the Houses of Pompeii)
Pradeia di Guiulia Felice or Farms of Julia Felix
Casa del Triclinio all’aperto or House of Summer Triclinium
Casa del Larario Fiorito or House of the Floral Lararium
Osteria del Gladiatore or Inn of the Gladiators
Porta Nocera (gate)
Necropoli di Porta Nocera or Necropolis of Nocera Gate
Casa del Menandro or House of Menander
Casa dell’Efebo or House of the Ephebus
Casa del Criptoportico or House of Cryptoporticus (again)
Casa dei Ceii or House of Fabia and Tyrannus
Casa di Sirico or House of Siricus
Casa di Marte e Venere or House of Mars and Venus
Casa dell’Orso Ferito or House of the Wounded Bear
Casa dei Cornelii or House of the Cornelii
Terme Stabiane or Stabian Baths
Lupanare or Brothel
Arco di Nerone or Arch of Nero
Portico Della Concordia Augusta (Edificio di Eumachia) or Portico of Concordia Augusta (Building of Eumachia)
Tempio del Genio di Augusto or Temple of the Genius of Augustus
Arco di Caligola or Arch of Caligula
Terme del Foro or Forum Baths (this was the “house of the day”).
Casa del Fauno or House of the Faun
Casa della Caccia Antica or House of the Ancient Hunt
Casa di Arianna or House of Arianna
Casa della Fontana Grande or House of the Large Fountain
Casa della Fontana Piccola or House of the Small Fountain
Casa dei Vettii or House of the Vettii
Casa delle Nozze d’Argento or House of the Silver Wedding
Thermopolium (food shop)
Casa di Paquius Proculus or House of Cuspius Pansa.
Porta Ercolano (gate)
Necropoli di Porta Ercolano or Necropolis of the Ercolano Gate
Casa del Poeta Tragico or House of the Tragic Poet
Casa dell’Ancora or House of the Anchor
Casa di C.N. Caetroni Eutychi or House of C.N. Caetroni Eutychi
Torre di Mercurio XI or Tower of Mercury XI
Casa dei Dioscuri or House of Castor & Pollux
Tempio di Giove or Temple of Jupiter
Macellum (food market)
Antiquarium (museum)

18th July 2023: Naples from below and above {Southern Italy, July 2023}

Posted on 30 July 2023 by JBinnacle

Naples [Napoli] was waking up when I walked out into the heat. It was a bit after 8:00 because I was… not really planning, just expecting to get lost. My hotel was right next to the Porta Capuana and Castel Capuano, remains of the Medieval times and ancient walls. There is where I took my first wrong turn – the nice receptionist at the hotel had tried to explain to me how to get there, and I tried to follow his instructions – which meant I did not follow my original route and I got disoriented. Fortunately, phone GPS came to my aid and I eventually made my way to the Historic Centre of Naples Centro storico di Napoli. While on principle I understand the protection of a Unesco Heritage Site, it did not feel like one, mostly due to the smell – a mixture of human urine, cooked flour and raw fish – and the crazy traffic. I don’t think “pedestrian” means the same thing in Italian as in any language I speak.

I was around the area I wanted to be about 9:30 for my 10:00 visit, and I took the time to wander up and down Via del Tribunali. Off to one side stands the metal sculpture Busto de Pulcinella – a character of the early theatre school called Commedia dell’arte, where different characters wear masks to be identified as an archetype. Pulcinella is an opportunistic anti-hero from the lowest social strata recognised by the black mask. Italians like rubbing body parts of different statues for luck, that’s why his nose is polished off.

Napoli Storico - the centre of Naples

I had a booked guided tour at 10:00 for a place called Napoli Sotterranea – Underground Naples. It is just one of the companies that give tours through the hundred of kilometres of tunnels that cross the Historic Centre. The city of Naples was built on and out of tuff, a volcanic rock made out of compacted ash, with a yellowish colour in this area. Tuff is easy to dig and excavate, and the Greeks used it to build an aqueduct to serve the city – that later the Romans expanded – 40 metres under the ground. When I arrived at the gate, there was a crowd – and even if I had a “skip the line” reservation, my English tour did not start till 10:20. The whole thing was a bit chaotic, and I later realised that as convenient as online pre-booking is, it is not covered by the Naples Tourist Card, so a lot of people had no option but to call at the attractions to get their discounted tickets – I decided not to get the card because I had booked or planned to book most things in advance so it was not value for money for me.

Napoli Sotterranea starts off going down over 150 steps into the excavated tuff to visit the aqueduct. There are a number of galleries where the water used to run, and at some points you can even glimpse the original paint to help prevent the water filtering into the rock. Then the guide explains that during the WWII bombings, the tunnels were used as air raid shelters and you are shown the “showers” and “latrines”, followed by a morbid recall of the stench and the conditions, and some art exhibits and objects from the time. It was at this point I started thinking that the Neapolitans had a thing for the macabre.

Fortunately, we moved over soon, to a tiny garden that is not watered nor lit by sun, and yet it thrives in the tunnels due to humidity and artificial lamps. Then we went further into the earth – you have to walk along a very narrow tunnel, sometimes only practicable sideways. They used to give you a candle for it, but now they tell you to use your phone torch. It was a bit claustrophobic, but at least you did not need to crouch like in the pyramids. At the end of the tunnels there are several underwater ponds and fountains.

Napoli Sotterranea: tunnels and underground water reservoir

As you come out from the tunnels, there is a small “museum of war” with some uniforms and so on, and then they take you to see “the Roman Theatre”. Here’s the thing – the theatre is kind of there. Throughout the centuries, it has been incorporated into the rest of the architecture of the city, so only bits and pieces are visible, mostly those that remain underground, like the actors’ tunnels, and a hall which holds a collection of Neapolitan nativity scenes or presepe.

After the guide set us loose, I walked towards the Montesanto funicolare cable car station. Naples’ rope way is a tourist attraction in its on right, some people say. I’m not a fan, but I really did not want to climb up Vomero Hill Collina del Vomero in the sun and heat. The ride did not take longer than a few minutes, and after a short stroll I reached one of the city’s castles – Castel Sant’Elmo.

This fortress and former prison dates from the late 13th century. It was built in volcanic tuff, and the structure was mostly developed throughout the 14th century, though it was severely damaged in an earthquake in 1456. Construction continued, and then in 1587 lightning struck the ammunition depot and the explosion destroyed several parts of the castle, including the church. Throughout Naples’ convoluted history, Castel Sant’Elmo has been a stronghold for war, and a prison. Today, it’s a monument, a museum, and a viewpoint of the port and Mount Vesuvius Il Vesuvio in the distance.

Naples Castel San Telmo

Next to the the castle stands the monastery-museum Certosa e Museo di San Martino. It originally was a Carthusian monastery inaugurated in 1368 and dedicated to St. Martin of Tours. The monks were expelled by French soldiers in 1799, and they were never allowed back. In 1866, it was taken over by the state. The monastery has a Baroque church – Naples is after all the birthplace of the style, but in a different way from the Spanish one, so I don’t dislike it as much. The monastery also has two cloisters – one of which with a cemetery in the middle. There are also hanging gardens and orchards and the different rooms of the building host religious artefacts, items from the Bourbon times, and one of the best presepe in the world.

Naples Monastery of San Martino, showing the church, the cloisters, and the entrance to the hanging gardens

Then I went back downhill, again using the funiculare. My next spot was Naples Cathedral, dedicated to the Assumption of Mary, known as Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta, Cattedrale di San Gennaro in honour of Saint Januarius, the patron saint of Naples. However, the most common name it receives is simple Duomo di Napoli. The current building was built in the Angevin Gothic style (gotico angioino) back in the 13th century, over palaeo-Christian buildings. The interior is strongly Baroque, though there are still some 14th century frescoes.

Collage. Duomo the Napoli: façade and main nave

For reference, Italian churches claim that walking into them showing shoulders or knees is disrespectful – so they encourage visitors to show “decorum and modesty” because “it demonstrates respect in the house of god”. I think their obsession with joints is exaggerated (especially considering the heat), and there was a certain event that highlighted the hypocrisy of it all. I visited the palaeo-Christian baptistery, one of the parts of the cathedral that you need to pay in order to access – and all tickets in Italy have been increased 1 € as part of the recovery plan of the area of Emilia Romagna, affected by heavy floods in May 2023.

The Baptistery of San Giovanni Battistero di San Giovanni in Fonte is a basic round pool on the ground, but the mosaic above it is super-detailed. It dates back from probably the late 4th century. The centre has the Chi-Rho symbol, and it is surrounded by scenes from the Bible, animals and plants, and allegories. Well, while I was admiring the art, the guy from the ticket booth came over, pulled his zipper down and urinated into the remains of the original wall. Talk about Catholics and respect in the house of God…

Next I went to the side chapel Reale cappella del Tesoro di San Gennaro (Royal Chapel of the Treasure of St. Januarius) and the Museo del Tesoro di San Gennaro (Museum of the Treasure of St. Januarius). San Gennaro / Saint Januarius is the patron saint of Naples. He was a Catholic martyr in the 3rd century, who died during the persecution of Christians by Emperor Diocletian. After his beheading, his blood was saved and it is said that the blood liquefies three times a year. The chapel holds a reliquary, and the museum some religious artefacts, including the “treasure” – reliquaries, jewels and other religious paraphernalia in noble metals and gems.

Collage: Baptistery of San Giovanni and Royal Chapel of the Treasure of St. Januarius

After the cathedral, I found Via San Gregorio Armeno, an alley that is famous because it concentrates the sells of handmade figurines for the nativity scenes presepe. However, as I walked I could only find cheaply-made expensively-sold figures of politicians, footballers and so on. I have to say that I know or understand nothing about football, but apparently Naples’ city team has won the national championship, and that’s a big thing? Everything was full of football references, posters, banners… and the alleyway was not an exception. It felt a bit… disappointing as I had heard so much about it, and I saw very few things that were “classical” there – I would come back another day and found the real thing though.

I made a visit to a local supermarket to find something to drink, dinner, breakfast and snacking the following day – because I had packed some, but I had forgotten that I had. Italian people don’t believe in either sandwiches or refrigerated coffee, which was a bit of a bummer. They have a lot of stands to grab something on the go, and they are keen on cafés, but I really did not feel comfortable sitting around in the city.

I went back to the hotel with my “groceries” because I did not want to be walking around after sunset, and I spent the rest of the evening watching British Museum’s documentaries about Pompeii and Ercolano to get ready for the following day. One of the things that drew my attention was how the documentaries kept emphasising the “importance” of the archaeological sites, and that it was important to respect them. I did not understand why, as I felt that is quite obvious. I would later discover… yes, people need to understand their importance.

11th July 2023: Museum of Dreamers in Madrid (Spain)

Posted on 16 July 2023 by JBinnacle

After I had so much fun in the Balloon Museum, I decided that I also wanted to see the Museum of Dreamers, which is something similar. Furthermore, it Madrid exhibit will close down at the end of July, too.

After I finished French school in Madrid, I headed headed off to the Japanese fusion restaurant Nomo Braganza, part of the Nomo Group. Nomo was established in 2007 under the culinary direction of Japanese chef Naoyuki Haginoya. I have to say that I don’t really trust the Spanish-Japanese fusion too much, but in this case, it really panned out. I met my sibling for a late lunch, because I was curious about the chef’s menu, what in Japanese would be called omakase [お任せ], which means leaving the choice of food to the chef. The menu was was a whooping 12 small-sized courses for 50€ – drinks not included, and considering it was 39 ºC outside, we ended up ordering a few rounds of water.

The menu, which changes periodically, comprised in July 2023:

Age Edamame Truffle – fermented edamame beans fried with white truffle scent. I personally prefer my edamame boiled, but the truffle scent was a nice touch.
Sukiyaki Croquette – oxtail croquette breaded with panko breadcrumbs. This was surprisingly good – and the actual flavour was strong.
Maguro Taco – mini taco of tuna tartar with wasabi and shiso (the “taco” was weirdly… not taco-shaped, more like cracker-shaped). The tuna was really good, albeit the base was a bit strange.
Gyu Niku Gyoza – aged beef dumplings with caramelised onion and yuzu, two of them per person. It was all right.
Ebi Chili – spicy king prawns and fried egg on kataifi noodles, mixed at the table. When we are talking spicy, it means… really spicy. The prawn bits were sizeable, but this was really something I would not miss should it disappear from the menu.
Toro Tartar No Temaki – tuna tartar prepared at the table: raw tuna belly mixed with Japanese onion, turnip, egg yolk, chilli pepper and wasabi on a bed of nori and rice so you can roll it yourself (spoiler: you really can’t). This was probably one of my favourite items – but I guess that after all I am a raw tuna fan.
Brie Nigiri – flamed Brie cheese nigiri with honey and walnuts. This was probably the weakest sushi bite, but it was still good.
Butter Fish Nigiri – butterfish nigiri with kimchi and chilli peppers. Butterfish is only good raw anyway.
Aburi Salmon Nigiri – flamed Norwegian salmon nigiri, with Japanese mayonnaise, salmon roe and onion. I still prefer raw salmon, but the flame was light so it was barely perceptible.
Maguro Tataki No Nigiri Trufa Nose – tuna tataki nigiri with soy and black truffle sauce. This was also really good.
Gyu Niku No Tataki – aged beef tataki with caramelised mushrooms and miso sauce. The combination of meat and the mushroom was strange, but when taken separately it was all good.
Caramel dorayaki – two halves of a dorayaki filled with salty caramel paste. Unexpected, because the menu listed something else, but it is not as if it was bad at all!

Chef's choice menu at Nomo Madrid

My sibling ordered some green tea out of the menu, and in the end, the drinks did not add as much to the price as I expected. Also, I have to give a shout-out to the pickled ginger we got. Really good.

After having lunch, we took a train towards the Museum of Dreamers, which is stands in Espacio Ibercaja Delicias, a place that seems to always look somewhat abandoned, even when it is stupidly hot and sunny. The exhibit was designed by sisters Elena and Giulia Sella, founders of Postology, an agency specialised in “phygigal” experiences. This concept merges the words “physical” and “digital”, allowing for a number of immersive and surreal experiences. The Museum of Dreamers is one of those things that you have to see with an open mind to have some fun. It comprises sixteen interactive installations which are basically photo-ops – after all, the word instagrammable has been officially accepted on dictionaries. I guess it is a new niche that can be exploited, and to be honest, I can get behind that, because some of these activities are hilarious.

Entry is timed, but they do not hold a very strict waiting policy – at least not on a Tuesday at 17:00 and 39 ºC. There were no timed exhibits or performances either. The first installation is a dark room with a starry sky of sorts, designed maybe to isolate the rest of the exhibition from the outside, maybe as a metaphor (100 Dreamers). Then you get to a semi open space that opens to the smaller installations that allow for fun pictures. All through the space there are motivational sentences and “rules” for safety in the different installation.

There is some kind of cosmic tube with mirror that was dizzying to walk into (Free your power), a tunnel made of hearts with an encouraging message at the end (Do what you love), an upside down room (Change perspective), an downside down bedroom with a giant plush and fun bed covers (Never stop dreaming), one full of disco lamps (Sparkle more), and a neon staircase flanked by colourful palm trees (Step by Step).

Museum of Dreamers exhibits

Afterwards, there is a ball pit – you know, it’s not like I had ever stepped into one before Friday, and now that’s twice in one week – with a “relaxing island” in the middle (Enjoy Today). In front of that, a tunnel made of fake pink flowers with a long table, set for a tea party (Believe in Magic). That managed to make you think of Alice in Wonderland imprint on your brain. Thus, you are in the right mindset for the following room, full of giant mushrooms and flowers that open up at will – theirs, for sure, not the visitors – whole giant butterflies hang around with their wings made out of lights (Wonder).

Museum of Dreamers exhibits

The final part of the exhibit consists on a second row of booths – a colour wheel, a door that opens to a fantasy scenery, a VR experience (Choose your Way), a stage (The stage is yours), some pink telephones (Your Dreams are Calling you), bright lights commanding you to DREAM (Be Bright)… There were two more rooms, one with a sky background and swings (Sky is not the limit), and the other with punching bags reading FEAR, STRESS, ANXIETY and so on (Never Give Up). I can’t punch, but I can strangle, so I choked the hell out of these last two.

Museum of Dreamers exhibits

That was the end of the escapade. It was a fun half-day out.

7th July 2023: Balloon Museum “Pop Air” in Madrid (Spain)

Posted on 15 July 2023 by JBinnacle

Part of this summer’s plans involved a three-week French course-and-stay in Montpellier, but I ended up changing my mind – too many hidden costs on top of the already-steep price, and a generalised bad feeling that I could not really define. I decided to take a course in Madrid and use up the evenings to do some exploring in town.

After class, I booked a table at the Chueca shop of the Japanese restaurant chain Sibuya Sushi Bar, which claims to offer a new concept of sushi. Most of what they offer felt pretty normal to me, except some random baos and the desserts. I browsed the website before booking, so when I arrived I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted. Somehow, the waiter did not expect that and was thrown off track. I ordered some ebi furai and a sashimi mix – I have to admit that the size of the sashimi portion did surprise me a little, as I did not expect such a generous serving. Luckily, I had hold on ordering dessert, because the two dishes were more than enough.

Lunch at Sibuya Madrid

There were two temporary exhibits I wanted to check out, and I chose the one that closed down earlier. I checked as I had lunch, and there were tickets available online. I decided to take the underground and buy the tickets in person instead of stressing about making it on time for a particular timeslot. I reached the Balloon Museum on time for the 15:45 entry. The exhibition Pop Air runs from March to July 2023 in the Escenario Puerta del Ángel in Madrid’s Casa de Campo.

Still considered a noon slot, the exhibition was not too crowded at the time I entered, I even had a couple of rooms for myself before I reached a point in which you had to be admitted because the performance was timed. The Ballon Museum‘s Pop Air exhibit is a collection of art pieces that use air and light as their main vehicle.

Artworks:

The Goof by Filthy Luker (2021). They are a bunch of “friendly monsters” that observer the world feeding off surprise and happiness. They look… just adorable, as if they were made of giant inflated latex gloves in different colours with huge eyes.
Aria, The Breath Immersive Experience by Pepper’s Ghost (2022). A room full of mirrors and digitally-created colourful spheres that spreads to infinite and beyond.
Airship Orchestra by Eness (2020). More adorable creatures made out of air, some resembling Japanese peaches, other bunnies, or cacti.

Ballon Museum exhibits. The Goof, Aria, Airship orchestra

Hypercosmo by Hyperstudio (2021), which is basically a huge ball pit with a show of music and lights.
A Quiet Storm by Quiet Ensemble (2022). A dark room where cannons shoot bubbles.
Silenus by Max Streicher (2002). A giant, breathing… person… sleeping. It’s a bit creepy, to be honest.
Knot by Cyril Lancelin (2017). It is an inflatable… knot, literally a 3D knot made out of a tube.

Balloon Museum exhibits: Hypercosmo, A quiet storm, Silenis, Knot

Polyheadra by Karina Smigla-Bobinski (2022). It is a room full of balloons with small magnets which you can stick to the wall and the ceiling, and even to each other.
Never Ending Story by Motorefisico (2021). Music: Gentle Music by Plume (Netlabel). A lot of decorative balls in a small room full of mirrors and light.
Tholos by Plastique Fantastique (2022). A giant black ball surrounded by a plastic structure that imitates the archaeological tholos tombs.
Canopy by Pneuhaus & Bike Powered Events (2019). Four palm-tree-like structures that open up and glow if you bike them into life.

Balloon Museum Exhibits. Polyheadra, Never ending story, Tholos, Canopy

Cloud Swing by Lindsay Glatz with Curious Form (2019). Cute swings held by colourful “clouds” of light.
The GINJOS by Rub Kandy (2022). They’re blobs of air with eyes. When I saw them my first impression was “they’re squishy and unstable. I have found my people”. I also found the song hilarious, especially the reference that “GINJOS are not Barbapapa”.
Into the Rainbow by Ultravioletto. A VR experience out of which one cannot really take pictures. A white sphere travels through the colours of the rainbow and its symbols – orange candy, yellow rubber duckies, green trees, blue whales, purple… cows(?) and amethyst crystals
A number of cute photo booths for picture opportunities, without credit to any particular artist.
Parcobaleno by Stefano Rossetti (2020), is a large “inflatable park” for “all the family” (i.e. for kids), which was empty as it was way too hot for any playing.

Ballon Museum exhibits. The swings, the Ginjos, Parcobaleno

All in all, it was a really silly but fun experience. I headed back home afterwards, because even if exploring Casa de Campo is on my list, it was way too hot and I did not have any cold drinks on me. I made an amazing underground-train connection though, which was great because the Casa de Campo stop is pretty far away by public transport – and rather horrible to drive to.

27th May 2023: Mammoths and Knights in Madrid (Spain)

Posted on 28 May 2023 by JBinnacle

I headed off to Madrid to watch the Knights of the Zodiac film, the Hollywood remake of the 80s anime Saint Seiya – I’m not making any excuses (I mean, I still went to the Symphonic Adventure after it got cancelled trice), I just wanted to see it, even if I did not have much faith in it. I wanted to combine it with another activity, and I thought I lucked out when I found that Caixa Forum Madrid was running an exhibition on mammoths – Mamut, el Gigante de la Edad del Hielo (Mammoth, the Ice-Age Giant). I allocated about an hour and a half for the exhibition, which hosted an almost-complete fossilised skeleton and a hyperrealist sculpture “among other pieces”. Truth be told, there was not much else to see.

The exhibit has some molars from different species, some fur, a tusk and a few pieces of prehistoric art. There was also an evolutionary timeline and little models comparing the sizes of different mammoth species to the average human size. The pièce de résistance is indeed the complete mammoth skeleton that was the literal centre of the exhibit – hugely-tusked specimen of wholly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius). It was a truly magnificent piece, but I was a little disappointed by how few pieces were actually on display. It’s not like there is not any material around – there used to be a Mammoth Museum in Barcelona that had actual tusks for sale. I had also seen another one in Muséum des sciences naturelles de Belgique in Belgium a couple of months back, which diminished the awe factor a little.

Mammoth - The Ice Age Giant exhibit featuring the giant skeleton with huge curved tusks, the smaller sculpture, a lone tusk, some hair and a piece of Paleolithic art engraved on the ivory of a tusk.

I was done in a bit over 30 minutes, so I had time to walk to the cinema – there was another exhibition in the same floor, but I had already seen it in Barcelona, and the Museum shop did not have anything interesting. I had planned to walk to the cinema, as public transit was only slightly shorter. The weather was not so nice, and there was a small storm. I did duck into a couple of shops but to be honest I ended up at the cinema 40 minutes before the session started while it poured outside. I found myself a seat to wait – I had got my ticket online the day the release was announced. This was my first time in a cinema since Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom in 2018, and it was a weird feeling, being so close to strangers again. It was also extremely cold, and the previews were felt eternal.

The reason I sometimes choose Yelmo Cines Ideal is that some of their films are shown in their original language, and I tend to enjoy subs more than the dubbed versions. The Knights of the Zodiac film was… a choice, I guess. It is based on the newest remake – which I have not seen because I’m not a streaming-service person – and it changed a lot of the lore. Except for the main character (Seiya in the original material), all the names had been changed, but I noticed that the subs stuck to the original ones.

Knights of The Zodiac movie poster

It was not a bad film, all things considered. Entertaining, wannabe Marvel-like, tapping a little into mixing the cosmic magic and newer technology that was unimaginable in the 80s when the manga was made. It lacked on the music department though – considering how powerful the anime music is, that was disappointing, though here and there there are a few chords of the original song Pegasus Fantasy. That was cool.

But then again, I was half-expecting a disaster, so anything was an improvement, and the film made itself watchable. Sean Bean’s character died, but considering that in the original material his character is already dead at the end, I guess it could be considered some kind of record…

22nd and 23rd April 2023: A date with a dinosaur (London, England, Great Britain)

Posted on 6 May 2023 by JBinnacle

Since I cannot keep my mouth shut, I offered to organise a trip to London with some people from work. Despite prices skyrocketing everywhere and my ridiculously hectic schedule, I managed to secure a weekend when flying would not be stupidly expensive, and an activity I would really be looking forward to – the Natural History Museum was running couple of things I was very interested in. One was an exhibition on a gigantic dinosaur: Titanosaur: Life as the biggest dinosaur. Well, twist my arm – NHM is much closer than the actual Titanosaur home in Argentina. Furthermore, there was a collaboration with Jurassic Park (‘an adventure 63,000,030 years in the making’ is the motto), and coming back to the museum would give me the chance to purchase the rock I wanted the last time I was over and did not get because I was heading out to Stonehenge on the same day.

In the end, only one person took up the offer, and I figured out that well, London is pretty much always a good idea for a weekend – so I figured I’d arrange myself a date with a dinosaur. Unfortunately, it turned that London Marathon was held that weekend. Hotel prices were bloated for the night and we ended up at Earl’s Court because I wanted to stay close to South Kensington and the other person wanted the cheapest place possible. We left on a red-eye flight to London Stansted which took a long time to land – we spent about an hour circling the airport, and eventually the head cabin attendant said that there was bad visibility at the airport, and that the pilot required all electronic devices to be turned off so he could use the autolanding system. I did not like that one bit – after I visited Santiago de Compostela in 2022, I felt that I had got over the bad-visitiblity near-miss when I was a teen. Apparently not, the feeling of uneasiness is still there. We landed over an hour late, but we were on our way on the first Stansted Express a few minutes after getting on it. After reaching Liverpool Street Station at around 9:30, I asked my companion to take us to Guildhall as part of the incentive of the trip was introducing them to international travel. It was not a good idea. Their phone trolled us and tried to take us to Guildhall… in Stratford upon Avon. The Costa at the station was closed, but at least I had got myself a sandwich and a latte before we started walking.

After backtracking, we were in known territory around 10:15. As it turns out, my companion was only interested in “walking the city” and shot down any activities I had proposed – thus, some things I just imposed in order not to feel that I had wasted the whole day away. By 11:00, I had confirmed that our travelling styles were not compatible. After some time at the docks next to the Tower of London, I wanted to enter the Anglican church All Hallows by the Tower. All Hallows is the oldest church in the City of London – founded in 675 CE, it predates the nearby Tower of London. The parish used to take care of a lot of the prisoners executed there. The building withstood the Great Fire of London (1666), but it was severely damaged through The Blitz – the German WWII bombing campaign against the UK throughout 1940 and 1941. The church was rebuilt and reconsecrated in 1975. Its windows are decorated with symbols from the different London guilds and some families.

Collage of a church. The outer building is brick and it has a tower crowned with a greenish metal spire. The inside has huge windows decorated with guild symbols. The small crypt inside is covered in white stone.

Underneath, there are a few chapels and a small Crypt. Most of the crypt is a museum which chiefly holds artefacts from the Roman period – including remains of an old road. There are other historical items from the Saxon and Medieval times, and the 20th century Crow’s Nest of the vessel Quest, in which Sir Ernest Shackleton sailed for Antarctica for the third time, and where he died.

When we were done, we went to Saint Dunstan in the East Church Garden. I was hoping to use this as a relaxing point for a few minutes, but there was work being done on the parterres. We continued towards the River Thames for some views of Tower Bridge, the museum HMS Belfast and The Shard skyscraper.

We walked by the Monument to the Fire of London on our way to the Sky Garden. The Great Fire burnt inside the Roman city wall for four days after breaking out a bakery after midnight on the 2nd of September, 1666. Though the number of victims is (theoretically) small, the fire destroyed over 13,000 houses (15% of the city’s housing), almost a hundred parish churches, governmental buildings, St Paul’s cathedral, and even some of the city gates.

Afterwards, we walked over to Leadenhall Market, a covered shopping street which can be traced back to a 1321 food market, and marks the centre of Roman Londinium (ruins from the Forum and Basilica are buried underneath). It was given to the city in the 15th century, and in the 19th century, the City Architect Sir Horace Jones designed an iron-and-glass arcade. Today, it holds restaurants, wine bars, varied shops and even beauty parlours.

A covered shopping gallery or street, in dark red and beige tones.

Around the market stands a mixture of modern buildings and traditional buildings, mostly small churches. Among the former:

The Lloyd’s Building (25 Gresham Street), sometimes called the “Inside-Out building”. It was finished in 1986 and it is consider a great example of Bowellism – an architectural style that maximises inside space by building ducts, lifts, and other structural necessities on the outside. It was designed by Richard Rogers & Partners, and it still maintains the original entrance of the building that stood in its place in 1928 – the East India House.
The Leadenhall Building (122 Leadenhall Street), designed by the Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners. It opened in 2014.
The Willis Towers Watson (WTW), designed by Norman Foster, it was finished in 2008.
The Scalpel (52-54 Lime Street), which yields to cool reflections along with the WTW, and has a strange sculpture at the entrance – it made me think of several ship wheels fused together. The building was designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox and only completed in 2018.
And of course The Gherkin (30 St Mary Axe). It was designed by Foster + Partners and it is the first ecological building ever built in London. It opened in 2004.

The historical buildings we encountered (having survived both the Great Fire of London and the Blitz) include:

Saint Andrew Undershaft Church. It dates back from 1147, although it has been rebuilt several times. The current building was erected in 1532.
Saint Helen’s Bishopsgate Church, where Shakespeare himself used to worship in the 1590s. The building can be traced back to the mid 12th century, and it was restored during the Victorian period and later during the 20th century.

Skyscrapers reflected on the glass that covers yet another huge skyscraper

A small church built in Stone in the background with a huge modern high-rise building behind it

Afterwards, we headed towards Embankment on the Tube. There, I was happy to find a Costa Coffee and get my vanilla latte fix. In the area, we saw the Victoria Embankment Gardens and I wanted to visit Cleopatra’s Needle – half of a pair of obelisks (the other one is in New York), originally made and carved in Heliopolis, what is Cairo today. It has inscriptions from the 18th and 19th Egyptian dynasties (around 1450 BCE). It was presented to the United Kingdom by Sultan Muhammad Ali in 1819, and later transported to London in 1877. Two sphinxes and other decorations were added when the Needle was erected, and the plinth under one of the sphinxes was damaged during London Bombings – it was never restored as a tribute to memory.

An Egyptian obelisk standing against a cloudy background

We walked over to the Westminster area to see the Palace of Westminster and Elizabeth Tower. There was an environmental protest there, which made it packed, but at the same time diverted traffic, allowing for new views from the middle of the street. On the way, I encountered an adorable pit bull mix I got permission to pet – coffee and dog pets made everything better.

A view of the palace of Westminster, with the Elizabeth tower on the left

We continued off to Saint James’s Park, home to squirrels, geese, swans, pigeons, mallard ducks, robins… all of them extremely used to people and tourists, and rather unconcerned by dogs being walked. We ditched the marathon fencing and reached Buckingham Palace, but by then my companion was beat. Thus, we had to go to the hotel so they could get some rest. The hotel was better than expected for a London 2*. It was nice and warm, although the bathroom was tiny – it was difficult to stand inside and close the door.

Buckingham Palace and some of the animals at Saint James' parks

A couple of hours later, we were off into the evening to see Piccadilly Circus, the entrance to Chinatown, and Leicester Square. Companion was beaten, so they were not sure they would be up for anything the following day – we arranged to touch base at 9:00 for them to evaluate. Once in my room, I had a shower and booked a free time slot for the British Museum the following day, just to avoid the queues. I thought, even if we did not make it, at least we had assured entry if we did, and I could always cancel and release the ticket.

Central London at night - Picadilly Circus' Eros and entrance to Chinatown

The next morning, I left on my own around 8:00 to look for a nearby Costa Coffee for a large vanilla latte breakfast, and I came across Brompton Cemetery. This had not been on my radar, but since I had time, I decided to explore it a little. Brompton Cemetery, formerly West of London and Westminster Cemetery, opened in 1840, and it has belonged to the British Crown since 1852. It is on of the oldest garden cemeteries in Britain and comprises around 35,000 monuments. I wandered for about half an hour before I had to head back.

Brompton cemetery, a 19th century graveyard and garden

We managed to get to to the Natural History Museum on time for my date with a dinosaur just after opening. I had my Titanosaur ticket at 10:15, and left off my companion to wander on their own after agreeing to check with each other around noon. The exhibition Titanosaur: Life as the Biggest Dinosaur brings a cast of Patagotitan mayorum to Europe for the first time, along with a few real fossil bones, of a front leg, some teeth, and an egg.

Patagotitan mayorum is one of the largest known animals to have ever lived. It was a sauropod dinosaur – a tetrapod with extremely long neck and tail. It lived in forest regions during the Late Cretaceous (102 to 95 million years ago) grazing on ferns and tree leaves. The species was discovered in Argentina in 2010, and it’s calculated that it could have been up to 31 metres long and weigh over 50 tonnes. It is widely considered the most complete of the South American dinosaurs. The cast that the Natural History museum brought is considered the holotype, and it was reconstructed from the partial skeletons of six specimens.

Titanosaur skeleton. People walking around don't even reach its knees.

The best thing about the exhibit was being able to actually touch the cast, so I kinda hugged my date, I guess. As far as I know, there are only three casts of titanosaur – the one in Argentina (Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio in Trelew), one in the US (Field Museum, Chicago), named Máximo, and this one.

After I had pranced around the exhibition to my heart’s content, and as it filled up with kids, I moved on to reason number two of this visit having to happen asap in 2023. To celebrate 30 (thirty!) years of the 1993 release of Jurassic Park, the Natural History Museum was running a limited-time-only collaboration pop-up shop – the Jurassic Park 30th Anniversary #NHMxJURASSIC store in which I did not even spend that much! I bought a replica badge and a commemorative coin, both limited, numbered editions. The shop had both Jurassic Park and Jurassic World merchandise, especially toys and T-shirts, and a few props, including a life-size sculpture of Blue the velociraptor.

Jurassic Park pop-up shop, with Blue the velociraptor just hanging out

I then headed to the official museum shop to get myself the rock I had wanted – a piece of aura silicon carbide, a shiny mostly-artificial mineral. I also bought a souvenir guide, just because. They did not have anything from the Titanosaur exhibit there, so I backtracked to the exhibition shop to buy a pin.

Whenever I got to the Natural History Museum, I end up in the dinosaur gallery (well, there was that one time I walked through the whole thing throughout a winter day). This time, however, I decided to wander the upper area of the historical building. I was drawn to the Treasures in the Cadogan gallery. I had not been there since it opened in 2013, and my mind was blown. The collection includes a first edition of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, and some of the pigeon specimens that he used to develop the theory of evolution. I also got to see the first-ever-found iguanodon teeth (not the replicas), the first fossil ever found of the Archaeopteryx (the link between dinosaurs and birds), and a skeleton and egg of the great auk, the first confirmed victim of anthropogenic extinction (due to human activity). I was very impressed, these were all treasures indeed – no overselling.

Treasures at the Natural History Museum - ancient bird fossil, extinct penguin-like bird, a book, dinosaur teeth. Whale skeleton.

After wandering the second floor for a bit, I ran into my companion and at noon we left towards the British Museum, where I had booked entry for 12:40. I left them to their own devices again and headed off to the Japanese galleries, which had been closed the last couple of times I was in the museum. I was… a bit on the disappointed side, I remembered them being way more impressive from my early 2000s visits.

Japanese Galleries at the British Museum: Samurai Armour, lion dogs pair, articulated metal animals, a standing Buddha.

I visited the Moai, the Elgin Marbles, the Babylonian bulls and the Rosetta Stone, and I headed off to the shop to get myself a treat – retail therapy is a thing. Eventually, we left the museum and managed to get to Liverpool Street to take the Stansted Express to the airport. Security was smooth, not as crammed as other times, and then, as tradition calls, I got myself some sushi at Itsu.

When we boarded the plane, I had been assigned an emergency exit seat. In order to sit there, you need to be able to take responsibility about opening the exit if something happens. I flagged a flight attendant to inform them that I would be physically unable to do so. I had a new seat in 4.5 seconds, and it turned out to be a window seat. We took off a few minutes late, and landed with a delay of almost a quarter of an hour. Nevertheless, after passport control and all, I managed to reached the parking lot payment machines with a few seconds to spare the overstaying fee – all good!

Balance – The marathon barely interfered with the weekend. I had a date with a dinosaur and hugged them. That was awesome. I got limited edition Jurassic Park and Jurassic World merchandise. I found some Kettle Sea Salt and Balsamic Vinegar of Modena crisps at one of the supermarkets. I got two new books, commemorative coins and a shiny rock. I also discovered new places to explore in the future, and had Costa – twice. Unfortunately, we ran out of time for extra visits on Sunday – so I could not fit in either the HMS Belfast or the Jack the Ripper Museum. Furthermore, the Grant Museum of Zoology is closed for renovation, and the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology does not open on Sundays, so in the end I was not really able to scratch much off my list. Whoops!

Souvenirs from London: books, crisps, commemorative coins and Jurassic Park merch

15th April 2023: Madrid for Sweet Space Museum (Spain)

Posted on 30 April 2023 by JBinnacle

My friend D****e and I met for a fast day packed with activities. We reached Madrid at 10:40 and had tickets to visit an interactive museum called Sweet Space. It markets itself as a “colourful experience which mixes sweets and modern art”. I just thought it would be a fun thing to do with a friend that would give into quirky pictures and a couple of hours of giggles. It actually fulfilled both. If you take the place seriously, it’s plainly not worth the visit – modern art in general is questionable at best, and this could be seen like a bit on the childish side – and regular tickets are 18 €. The place’s best-selling point is “get cool pics for your social media”, and we had decided to just be silly about it and enjoy ourselves.

The “museum”, located in the ABC Serrano shopping centre, gives the vibes of an oversized (maybe overpriced) playground, and just like Monasterio de Piedra, the number of people you encounter weighs a hugely in your experience. Although we had an 11:30 ticket, we were lucky enough to be admitted at 11:15 with a family that lost us on the third room, so we had quite a lot of time on our own, until the group that came afterwards caught up. We did take a lot of pictures, to be honest, and missed no opportunity to fool around – which was the mindset we had.

Since the museum’s flagship idea is mixing sweets and modern art, when you enter some of the rooms you are given a treat – a gummy or a piece of chocolate or a tiny bit of ice-cream. You cannot backtrack, so the route gets a bit weird at points – you go up to the second floor on stairs, but down using a slide… The museum has nine different rooms and a few of them are refurbished over time. Unfortunately, I forgot to track down the artists because it was stupidly fun – I mean, at one point I got to ride a carousel-style flamingo. Back in the day in the day, I would have never dared do such a thing, but I guess I’ve changed a little in the last ten years.

Room 1: Palm trees with marshmallow trunks (Antonyo Marest). This was a fun way to start the whole thing and set the mood. It is literally a room with tree trunks that look like colourful marshmallows, with leaves on top.
Room 2 (corridor): Flowers in the dark – a dark room with bright plastic flowers. It was pretty, but probably the less surprising room.
Room 3: Mirrors and hanging pink balloons, inspired by Tokyo’s TeamLab. It was hard to take a good picture that did not catch anyone’s reflection!
Room 4 (corridor): Mirrors and neon graffiti (Álvaro Linares) with Star Wars inspired references. This was one of the coolest areas (though I’m not sure how… legal that Darth Vader painting would be). One of the sides had a throne-like chair you could sit on and feel like an evil mastermind.

Collage. Sweet Space museum. Palm trees whose trunks resemble marshmellows, neon-coloured flowers and grafitti, pink balloon-like lamps hanging in a mirror-wall room

Room 5: Ice-cream parlour “Töto Ice Cream”, including little kart and refrigerator you can step into, giving off a strong 1950’s aura. A lot of pink, I’d say – I did not dare walk into the fridge (for some reason it gave me the creeps), but D****e did; I “drove” the little kart instead. We took silly pictures there with the installed iPad camera, just for the hell of it.
Room 6: Fairytale landscape (Christian Escribá and Patricia Schmidt), a-la Hansel and Gretel or Alice in Wonderland (though it was officially inspired by Wizard of Oz), with a swing and flamingo that you can ride. When I saw that one online, I really, really hoped that it was not only one of those things that only influencers get to do. I got to ride the flamingo. I don’t know why it drew me so much, maybe it was the pure surrealism of it all, but it made me giddy. The rest of the room was fun too – oversized mushrooms, teddy-bears, and colourful decoration.
Room 7 (upstairs): Sky with clouds (Agatha Ruiz de la Prada) painted and carved into sliding doors, a starry rocket (Ivanna Gautier), a bouncing area, a mural where you could take a 3D video for TikTok, and a “planetarium”, with tiny lamp-robots and tons of stars made from light dots. I liked this last one a lot, too. In order to leave the floor and go back to the lower floor, you have to go down a spiral slide, which I was not a fan of – it was difficult to get into it without putting weight on my bad wrist. However, I managed to go down unscathed.
Room 8 (Misterpiro): It held a ball pit with a “staircase to heaven” (or to nowhere). We did not go into the pit, but we climbed the stairs for pictures too.

Collage - fantasy worlds from Sweet Space museum. Overgrown mushrooms, a flamingo, a cloud, a universe made out of green neon dots with a little robot peering out, a cartoonish rocket in front of a starry background, a colourful ballpit full of white balls.

Finally, we reached the shop, where we purchased the pictures we had taken at the ice parlour (8 € for two magnets with four photographs, the downloadable version, and a gif). We were supposed to get a sweet in each room, and we ended up with three or four gummies, a chocolate, and a tiny scoop of ice cream. My favourite was the skull-shaped sweet&sour gummy we got upstairs, but they did not have it at the shop (though it is advertised online). The whole experience was a bit on the expensive side, but I had a discount that helped knock 10 € off the official price. The recommended time I had seen recommended for the museum was an hour and a half, but even if we took a long time, we were done in about an hour.

I had reserved lunch at 14:30 based on the time I expected us to be in the museum (and the availability of the restaurant), so we had some time to kill. We walked by the open-air museum of modern sculpture Museo de Escultura al Aire Libre de La Castellana, but it did not catch our fancy. Too much modern art in one day?

The place we would invest most of that extra time was the museum of Natural History Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales to see some dinosaurs and the gabinete de curiosidades, the 18th and 19th century collection of taxidermy specimens. I’d been there before, and it mostly has replicas (and holy molly, prices have gone up). This time there was an exhibit on the Moon landing, and the gardens had been open. The taxidermy collection is not as good as other museums, but at least it got us out of the heat.

Collage. Dinosaur fossil casts and reconstructions, both carnivores and long-neck herbivores. A flying reptile with some mammooth fossils in the background. Rocks. The old collection dating from the 19th century - a number of glass cases with people looking at them and a painting of king Carlos III overlooking the place.

We left the museum and headed for lunch at one of the franchised establishments of New York Burger, which markets itself as a “gourmet burger” place. It was all right, and the servings were huge. After lunch, we hung around the area known as Nuevos Ministerios, a complex originally designed by Secundino Zuazo Ugalde around 1930. We hung out under the eastern archway for a while.

The archway in Nuevos Ministerios, built in reddish brick and white plaster

Afterwards, we took the train to Alcalá de Henares. We stopped at one of the shopping centres just outside town, Quadernillos, where the comic event Krunch! 2023 was taking place. We did not stay for long as most stands sold bootleg and plagiarised stuff, and I did not find any legit shop, but we had ice cream and D****e did take the chance to do some shopping in the mall before we headed home for the evening.

5th April 2023: The ghost station of Chamberí (Madrid, Spain)

Posted on 21 April 2023 by JBinnacle

Perusing the web for something – I can’t even remember what – I came across one of those things that I had discovered a long time ago, then forgotten because life is hectic and so (read: Covid happened). In Madrid, there an underground ghost station, one that has not changed since the 1960s. Well, sort of – it was closed, then restored, and finally turned into a museum. Anyway, somehow accidentally, I ended up securing a free ticket to visit it during Easter break, so there I went. I decided to round up the trip with a fancy lunch in a place I also wanted to visit.

The Madrid underground system Metro de Madrid was the third underground line to open in Europe, after Moscow and London. It ran a little short of 3.5 km, with eight stations, when King Alfonso XIII inaugurated it in October 1919. Subsequent ampliations and renovations of the line were carried out until it reached its current 24 km and 33 stations (plus twelve more lines). The city expanded, its population increased, and underground trains grew with both, going from four to six carriages in the 1960s. The stations were renovated to fit the new, longer trains. Most of them. The ampliations of the stations of Bilbao and Iglesia made it inefficient to do the same with the stop that lay in-between – Chamberí. Thus, this station was locked down – and bricked off – in 1966.

The city forgot about the station’s existence for decades, until in the early 2000s, it was turned into part of the Underground’s museum network Museos de Metro de Madrid or Andén 0. Today, Estación de Chamberí can be visited for free, but only under reservation. Pre-pandemic, I looked into it a few times, and never found a spot, then the whole thing slipped my mind, until I relearnt about it, and lucked out.

I took the train to Madrid and walked from Recoletos to the square where the station was built Plaza de Chamberí. The original entrance has long disappeared, so the underground area is accessed through an ugly metal kiosk and a spiral staircase. However, the original station looks completely different. It was designed by Antonio Palacios (1878 – 1945), a Spanish urbanist and architect with a very recognisable style, whose most important works still stand in Madrid (such as the Círculo de Bellas Artes and Palacio de Comunicaciones). My entry slot was 11:30, and I arrived with plenty of time – trains have been unreliable lately so I gave myself a wide margin. When most of the group had arrived, we went down the modern stairs that yields to the old hall. Characteristic white tiles are laid along the access tunnel that leads to the original ticketing stands and the exit control. The station used to have a skylight, now closed off. The original stairs and maps still stand, along the Metro logo – though everything has been adapted for wheelchair-users.

Ghost Station of Chamberí. Entrance corridor and old ticketing booths

The group comprised 25 people, with a surprising amount of non-Spanish speakers – at least seven, who of course did not care about the guide’s explanation, which was little more than the Wikipedia page (so I guess anyone can take the visit. Print out the wiki and read along). There were families with kids who tried to yell over anything the guide said. Furthermore, underground trains still run through the station, which make for cool pictures, but their six-minute frequency drowns all the given explanations. It was hard to actually get into the “ghost station” mood.

Estación de Chamberí does look really cool though. Unfortunately, glass panels separate the platform from the tracks – they are dirty and get in the way of pictures of the other side of the platform. However, it was interesting to see the old advertisement mosaics – they used to be painted on tiles, and built into the walls themselves, and surrounded by very cool darker slabs with metallic tint. The visit takes about 40 minutes, and on the way out, you get to go through the old ticket gates, which have a very ingenious way of opening – you step on the little platform in front of them, which triggers a latch, and you can push the gate open. Really fun.

Ghost Station of Chamberí. Collage showing details - the name of the station on the old logo, tiles, the platform, and a train coming through

Truth be told, I had booked another free visit before lunch, but I realised I had messed up the location. I cancelled that one before entering the ghost station so the ticket would be available for someone else to use. And thus, I had a bit of time before my lunch reservation at 14:00. Since the weather was nice, I decided to walk to my next spot, and I spent the extra time – and some not-extra money – in one of the big bookshops in the centre of Madrid. At 13:50, I arrived at the back entrance of the hotel Hotel Riu Plaza España. This hotel opened in 2019 in a mid-20th century skyscraper (Edificio España) designed and engineered by brothers Julián and Jose María Otamendi. It is a 26-floor tower which was the highest building in the city at the time of its construction. Situated in the square called Plaza de España, it is close to the Royal Palace and Main Square.

Edificio España - tower like building in reddish and white brick, spanning 26 floors. It is the Riu hotel now.

The hotel has a large terrace on what would be the 27th floor, a rooftop bar and a restaurant or “gastro bar”, whatever the current buzz word means. Entry to the terrace is 10 € (5 € on a weekday), and food is not on the cheap side (everything around that area is stupidly expensive), but I found a deal at their Edén Gastro Bar: one-course lunch + drink + entry to the rooftop terrace for 30€ which allowed me to skip the queue.

I did skip the “ticket-buying” line, but there is only one lift to go to the rooftop, so that queue I had to wait. I ended up reaching the restaurant around 14:10 or 14:15, and snagged a counter-with-a-view seat. I ordered a salmon poké and a drink, and got a few complimentary snacks and breadsticks to complete the meal.

Rooftop picture showing Madrid's Plaza de España and Royal Palace. Blurred in the foreground, lunch

Afterwards, I climbed the stairs to the terrace, officially called 360º Rooftop Bar, on the 27th floor. Music was blaring and there were tons of people drinking overpriced cocktails. The views were cool, sort of a once-in-a-lifetime thing that I don’t think I’d need again. The terrace has a small all-glass balcony that I did not wait the queue for, and a glass platform that would probably impress a bit more if the glass under your feet were clean(er). The terrace was completed by a tacky bull sculpture with metallic-gold testicles.

Madrid rooftop view - low houses with red brick roofs, and in the very background a few highrises

I walked around a couple of times, and then I headed back to the train station after calling it a day. I killed time reading one of the books I had just got, and time flew on the train. It was a nice little outing, but I did mess up with one of the locations, so it could have been more efficient. I guess not every little trip can work flawlessly…

4th April 2023: La Granja and Riofrío (Spain)

Posted on 17 April 2023 by JBinnacle

King Felipe V of Spain was born Philippe, Duke of Anjou, in France. He was appointed successor to the throne by his great-uncle Carlos II, who died childless. He was never very interested in being a monarch, or at least King of Spain, which he became in 1700. Around 1718, he fell in love with a hunting area and decided to buy it. Today, this area has become the municipality of Real Sitio de San Ildenfonso (Spain), the Royal Site of Saint Ildephonse. He ordered a palace be built “without disturbing what was already built”. The result was the palace known as Palacio de La Granja de San Ildefonso (The Farm at San Ildefonso), in honour of the hermit church and farm that were there when the King bought the hunting grounds.

Legend has it that the palace is extremely uneven because the King ordered that no parts of the church were demolished, so the walls were built around the old construction – however, it is such a massive building that seeing the irregularities from the inside is hard. The palace, built between 1721 and 1724, was commissioned to Spanish architect Teodoro Ardemans. Later, the garden façade was remodelled by Italians Filippo Juvarra and Giambattista Sacchetti. A fire destroyed part of the building in the 20th century and a lot of the paintings were lost. The gardens – the most famours feature of the site – were designed by Frenchman René Carlier in 1721 and finished by Étienne Boutelou when the former died in 1722.

Today, the palace is managed by the Spanish Heritage Network Patrimonio Nacional – which means that photography is not permitted inside. It is technically one of the royal residences, so of course you have to go through security and X-rays and whatnot. We headed there on what was technically a working day before Easter break, so we were not sure how much traffic we would find, or how many visitors there would be. Thus, we had booked our tickets online for 11:00, anticipating a two-hour-and-a-half drive. In the end, we were in front of the palace around 10:15 and were able to enter at 10:30. Before that, we saw some impressive trees, including a sequoia, which I don’t think I had ever seen before.

Baroque Palace of La Granja peering behind a few large trees

The palace is Baroque, showing the likings of the time in which it was built. A monumental staircase gives access to the first ward, rebuilt after the fire into an area to display part of the royal tapestry collection – Museo de Tapices. The oldest tapestries date from the 16th century, before the Spanish tapestry school was founded. Tapestries are not my favourite form of art, but these were pretty impressive. A collection of nine pieces allegorise some of the virtues, mixing classical mythology with Christianity and historical figures.

The interior of the palace displays the private rooms of the monarchs, on the first floor, and the different ballrooms and social rooms on the ground floor. The private areas are decorated with paintings, and the public ones try to emulate the Palace of Versailles (France). They are furnished with marble and mirrors, and decorated with sculptures and statues.

La Granja: Dizzingly-decorated large hall in golden and white marble, with large open wooden doors

The ground floor opens to the well-known gardens Jardines de La Granja. These are considered the best “French gardens” in Spain. They cover almost twenty thousand square metres. Sprinkled throughout paths, hedges, parterres and trees, there are 21 fountains, most inspired by characters taken from classic mythology. The fountains are made out of lead, painted in bronze colour, and even if built 300 years ago, they still work and are indeed turned on during the summer season, fed from local reservoirs. They were not running during our visit – except for one dragon which leaked a bit. Spring seemed not to have arrived in the gardens yet, and it looked strangely like autumn.

La Granja: Italaian façade of the pakace from the top of the waterfall fountain, which was turned off. A number of bronze statues representing mythology characters line the waterfall

From the top of one of the fountains, called “the waterfall” Fuente de la Cascada Nueva, there is a good view of the Italian façade of the palace. Other fountains include “The Fame” Fuente de la Fama and “Diana’s bath” Fuente de los Baños de Diana. One of the most complex fountains is Fuente de las Ocho Calles (Fountain of the Eight Streets), a complex of eight fountains in a sort of “square” created by the intersection of eight garden paths. The fountains were built to only run when the King approached them, and today they are turned on in a rolling schedule, and very rarely all at the same time. This is to take care of the pipe system, still the original one, and because some of them need a lot of water to function.

La Granja, outside. Two large fountains crammed with bronze figures representing mythological beings. Both are turned off.

After we were done with the palace, we continued off to what I found the highlight of the day, the Royal Factory of Glass and Crystal of La Granja Real Fábrica de Cristales de La Granja. It was also established by Felipe V in 1727, and even today people use the old techniques to make glass items there! Even though it is called a “factory”, the process is completely artisan. The place also doubles as a museum to explain the how glass is (and was) made, exhibiting different traditional instruments. Of course, it has a shop. However, the coolest thing is that you can visit the furnace workshop to see how glass is blown, and the decoration workshop to see the engraving process. We hung around the furnace area and the experts can make a whole goblet in three minutes and a half, from incandescent blob to ready-to-engrave product.

Glass museum: diferent machines used to process glass in the 20th century, and a reproduction of the original glass furnace

Workers at the Glass factory: making and engraving a glass

After the factory, we headed towards the Parador de La Granja, a mix of a modern and historical building where we were to have lunch. We shared some cured beef cecina de León, and I tried the local speciality judiones de La Granja, a hearty bean-and-pork stew.

Collage of the inner patio of the Parador building + lunch: dried meat and a bean stew

When we finished lunch, we took the car to the secondary palace in the area, called Palacio Real de Riofrío, a hunting pavilion also managed by Patrimonio Nacional (though apparently, pictures are okay here, which is cool). The building is surrounded by 600 hectares of forest and hunting grounds. It was originally commissioned by Felipe V’s wife Isabel de Farnesio, who actually never got to live there since when she became “queen mother”, her son Carlos III had her move to Madrid.

We drove past the forest, where some storks were happily wandering around. The SatNav flipped on us because it could not find the correct gate, but we managed to make it on time to spend an hour or so there. Also, the entrance was weird – it is actually closed, and there is a guard inside. If we had not arrived just as another car was exiting, we would have thought it was closed and left.
Baroque palace of Riofrío. It's large and pink, with lots of archeways

The palace is also Baroque, and the areas which can be visited include some bedrooms, dining rooms, and the areas where the servants waited to be called. The palace has been organised as a Romantic museum Museo Alfonsino, that honours King Alfonso XII, who mourned his first wife there. It was actually decorated by his father, King Consort Francisco, Isabel II’s husband, and later “enriched” with paintings from other Royal Sites. The most interesting item was the billiard room, because it actually felt rather unexpected.

Another area of the palace has been transformed into a “hunting museum” Museo de la Caza, to honour the fact that these were the King’s hunting grounds. It mostly hosts taxidermy representations and a collection of pelts and skulls. To be honest, some exhibits were a bit unsettling.

Collage showing the inside of Riofrío: the hyper-decorated rooms, the staircase and taxidermy of local deer

As we left, the SatNav warned us of a 40-minute jam on the way back, so we forgave its previous flop. The warning allowed us to take a detour to avoid it – we had to pay the toll but it shaved off almost an hour.

24th March 2023: Brussels {Belgium, March 2023}

Posted on 8 April 2023 by JBinnacle

I woke up stupidly early to catch a short red-eye flight that was in the end delayed by the French air controller’s strike. Crossing security at the airport was a bit of an issue – I got stuck behind a class of teens going somewhere, and kudos to the teacher for not losing it when about 50% of the kids were sent back because they had not taken out their tablets / liquids / bottles of water and so on. Once inside, I had to head towards the Schengen area transit lounges, which were considerably fuller than beyond passport control in the early morning.

I landed in Brussels [Bruxelles (French) | Brussel (Dutch)], Belgium [Belgique | België] around 9:00. At the airport arrival lounge, I was welcomed by a rocket taken out from The Adventures of Tintin, and some fake flowering trees. I found the station – I had booked all my tickets online beforehand – and after a short train ride I reached the centre of Brussels. From the train I caught a glimpse of the famous atom-like building, the Atomium. I found my way to the hotel throughout a chaos of construction, and dropped off my luggage. Then, I set off to explore the city, which is called the comic capital of Europe: up to 50 comic character murals are painted on walls around the city, to the point that there is even a route dedicated to seeing them all – the Brussels’ Comic Book Route. I had not walked 200 m from the hotel when I saw my first mural, Le Scorpion.

I headed towards the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathédrale des Saints Michel et Gudule | Kathedraal van Sint-Michiel en Sint-Goedele. The current building was erected in the 13th century in Brabantine Gothic, which is a deviation from the French Gothic style that developed in the Low Countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg). It features the use of sandstone or limestone in light colours (unfortunately, these materials are very susceptible to erosion), pointed arches, round columns with decorated “cabbage” capitals, and a very clear cruciform floor plan on churches. Unlike the Spanish cathedrals, there is no choir built in-between, so the perspective of the churches built in this style is fantastic.

The cathedral has two symmetrical front towers with tolling bells. It is accessed from the monumental staircase (built in the 18th century) on the western façade, by one of the gates under the bell towers. It does not feature a round or wheel window, but an ogival one. The nave is wide and lit from all the colourful side windows representing biblical scenes. The pulpit on the side is Baroque, carved in dark wood by the sculptor Hendrik Frans Verbrugge. A lot of the sculptures inside the cathedral are also Baroque, as the originals were destroyed by iconoclast movements (Beeldenstorm) in 1566 – this is a feature along most of the monuments I visited. Along with the Chapel Church and Our Lady of the Sablon, the cathedral is considered one of the three traditionally listed gothic churches in the city of Brussels. The organist was rehearsing, along with a cellist and a female singer, which was cool to hear as I explored. Underneath the cathedral, the archaeological site can be accessed to explore the Romanesque origins of the chapel of St. Michael.

The cathedral of Brussels

After the cathedral, my path took me through the park Parc de Bruxelles | Warandepark, featuring a pretty kiosk in metalwork and a bunch of trees striving to blossom. Along one of the axes of the park, 22 sculptures have been erected for a temporary exhibition “Le Chat déambule” Expo (9th March – 30th June 2023). They feature Le Chat, an anthropomorphic obese cat from a comic strip created by Belgian artist Philippe Geluck. Le Chat ran from 1983 to 2013, comically tackling everyday situations or presenting absurd conclusions.

An obese, anthropomorfic cat on a tutu raising a leg while a mouse uses a jack to keep the cat's leg up.

I continued walking for a bit of a long walk that led me past the Royal Palace of Brussels Palais royal de Bruxelles | Koninklijk Paleis van Brussel and the Monument to Leopold II. I went on until I reached something I felt that I could not have missed – the Museum of Natural Sciences of Belgium Muséum des sciences naturelles de Belgique | Museum voor Natuurwetenschappen van België, part of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. This was on my to-visit map long before this little trip came into plan. The museum’s Dinosaur Gallery is the largest room dedicated to dinosaurs in Europe. It holds a replica of Stan the T-rex (the original one was auctioned a while back and bought into private hands for 32 million USD), a piece of the Mont-Dieu meteorite, similar to the one which might have caused the extinction of dinosaurs, along with a bit of the boundary K-T (Cretaceous-Tertiary) or K-Pg (Cretaceous-Palaeogene) – this is a sedimentary layer of black rock with a lot of iridium that separates the “age of reptiles” and the “age of mammals” in the fossil registry.

There is also a room completely dedicated to mosasaur findings, and a lone Allosaurus fossil called Arkhane, which is considered the only discovered specimen of its species. Allosaurus was a Jurassic carnivore and this skeleton, clocking at almost 9 metres long, comes from Wyoming (US) and is 70% complete. However, this was tucked away in a completely different area of the museum. I also saw a Dunkleosteus head. This one was behind glass and I did not find the information to read if it was a cast, so maybe I found an original one?

Fossils at the Belgian Museum of Natural History: dinosaurs, mosasaurs, the Allosaurus Arkhane, and a massive fish head

The most important feature of the Dinosaur Gallery though is the collection of iguanodon fossils – the Bernissart iguanodons. Iguanodon (meaning “iguana tooth”) was the second dinosaur to receive a name. This herbivore lived from the late Jurassic to the early Cretaceous, and it is thought to have been able to on either two or four legs. In 1878, as many as 38 iguanodon fossils were found in the Bernissart coal mine. Nine are displayed in “wrong” standing positions – what was believed at the time to be correct, called the “kangaroo standing” – and nineteen can be seen partly covered in plaster just as they were found in the mine. The standing skeletons are too fragile to be dismantled now – though early palaeopathologists did the best they could, the skeletons contain a lot of pyrite, which disintegrates in contact with air, so they are extremely brittle. Thus, they are exhibited in a protective chamber as historical testimony. These fossils were the most abundant and complete ever found of the species. They unseated the previous English hegemony on iguanodon knowledge at the time, and one of them became the Iguanodon bernissartensis holotype. Today, one of the skeletons stands outside the case, posed in the modern interpretation of how iguanodon would have moved.

Collage: The iguanodons. The upper picture shows a modern interpretation of the iguanodon on four legs standing in front of the older "kangroo posed" reconstructions. On the bottom, the iguanodons as they were found in the mine.

Other exhibits in the museum include a gallery of evolution (which I saw backwards as it was full of high school kids), a mineral collection, a gallery on humans and human evolution, and a biodiversity collection. They have the preserved body of the last captive Tasmanian tiger that lived, and a small ward about the history of the museum and urban flora and fauna.

Collage. The centre is the mascot of the museum. Around it, a tasmanian tiger, a mammoth skeleton, some rocks and taxidermed animals.

I had lunch halfway through the museum visit, and then set off to the centre of the town, undoing my previous way. By now I had got a hold of the construction detours, and I reached the city centre more easily. I walked past Mont des Arts | Kunstberg next to Central Station, with a very fun clock, and eventually reached the central square Grand-Place | Grote Markt. This central square, declared Unesco Heritage site in 1998, is surrounded by monumental buildings dating from the 15th to the 19th century, forming a particularly recognisable unit: the Town Hall Hôtel de Ville | Stadhuis, a Brabantine gothic building with a spire or tower; the Maison du Roi | Broodhuis in Neogothic style; and the so-called guildhalls and private houses, traditionally built buildings, either crammed together and cutely thin, or almost palatial – including the house where Victor Hugo, the writer, used to live in the city.

Grand Place. The buildings are light coloured or grey with a lot of gold decoration

I went down one of the side streets, debating a typical Belgian waffle, but I was not brave enough to try and eat one on my own. I saw the Adventures of Tintin mural (by Belgian cartoonist Hergé) painted on a wall (art by Oreopoulos and Vandegeerde). About five minutes away from the square, one of the corners hosts the fountain known as Manneken Pis, which depicts a naked little boy urinating into the basin. The current fountain features a replica of the boy, the original (sculpted by Jérôme Duquesnoy the Elder) is in the Brussels City Museum. The one on the fountain is often dressed up, and this time round, it was characterised as a construction worker – I can understand why. One of the many legends about the design tells of a young boy who put out an explosive charge fuse by peeing on it.

Collage. Tintin and Captain Haddock climb down some stairs. Manekken Pis fountain boy dressed in yellow reflective clothing.

I walked on to find another comic mural I was extremely interested in – actually two, but the Astérix mural (by Goscinny and Uderzo) was covered by construction. After a quarter of an hour I found the Lucky Luke mural (by Belgian cartoonist Morris, painted by Oreopoulos and Vandegeerde). When I was a child, I absolutely loved the Lucky Luke animated series, and especially his white horse Jolly Jumper and dog Rantanplan, so this was a bit of a tribute visit, rather than tackling the whole comic route.

Lucky Luke mural. The Daltons have robbed a bank and Luke prepares to arrest them (again)

On my way back towards the city centre, I stopped by a number of points of interest – the Baroque church and convent Église Notre Dame aux Riches-Claires; a mural by artist Mr.Doodle called Mr. Doodle Artwork; the late 19th century market Halles Saint-Géry; the 12th century church Église Saint-Nicolas; a “parody” of the Manneken Pis depicting a dog doing the same Zinneke Pis; and the Brussels Stock Exchange Bourse de Bruxelles (under renovation).

Collage showing different buildings in Brussels, and a bronze medium-sized dog peeing on a bollard

As I was making my way back towards the Grand-Place, the weather, which had been behaving most of the day – there had been some rain while I was inside the museum – took a turn for the worse, and there was a bit of a shower. The problem was not the rain itself, but the wind that made it come sideways. I had packed my umbrella, though it was not too helpful. When rain subsided down, I continued walking, and I got to see a rainbow over the Grand-Place. Great timing!

Rainbow peering through buildings at the end of the street in Brussels

It was only round 18:00 but I decided to go back to the hotel, check in, and get some food and rest. En route, I crossed through the classy shopping gallery Galeries Royales Saint Hubert. At first I had considered grabbing a bite here, but prices made me decide on a supermarket dinner, which was all right. I ate a sandwich and lots of berries.

After checking in, and warning the hotel staff that my companion would arrive late during the night, I got some rest, warmed the room, and when it was dark, I went out to see the illumination on the cathedral Cathédrale des Saints Michel et Gudule | Kathedraal van Sint-Michiel en Sint-Goedele, the square Grand-Place | Grote Markt, the fountain Manneken Pis and the shopping centre Galeries Royales Saint Hubert.

Cathedral and Grand Place at night, illuminated in warm light

I finally returned to the hotel and fumbled a bit with the shower until I found the nice massage mode.

11th March 2023: Rocks from the land and fish from the sea (Madrid, Spain)

Posted on 17 March 2023 by JBinnacle

Back in 2018, when going to Madrid’s Geomineral Museum (Museo Geominero), I stumbled upon an event in the Mining Engineering University – something called Expominerales. At the time, I did not have time to explore it, and only later did I realise what I had missed – an international fair for the trade of minerals, rocks and fossils. I made a mental note to check the event out the following year, but something came up and I completely forgot about the whole thing. In 2020 the pandemic struck, and finally in 2023, almost five years to the day, I went back to this event held in Madrid.

Expominerales is held yearly at the working engineering school Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de Minas y Energía (ETSIME), which offers the bachelor’s degree in Mining Engineering, and the one in Energy Engineering (whatever this last one is). The first weekend of every month, the school organises a “mineral-world flea market”, and the second weekend of March, it hosts an international mineral, gem and fossil fair, with shopping stands and different workshops and activities. After a few cancellations due to Covid, it returned in 2022 and it’s back to its former glory in 2023 – Expominerales XLII, the 42th edition of the fair.

The ETSIME in Madrid. Pink-and-white building from the 19th century, accessible through stairs, with flags hanging over the door

Mining Engineering became a formal education path in Spain in 1777, originally in the town of Almadén, a mercury hub. The school was moved to Madrid in 1835 and a two-building campus was ordered. The historical building in the ETSIME (M1) was designed by architect Ricardo Velázquez Bosco, and decorated by ceramist Daniel Zuloaga between 1884 and 1893. The second building (M2) was damaged during the Civil War, and has suffered several modifications to accommodate classrooms and laboratories. The premises also include a reproduction of a mine, Mina Museo Marcelo Jorissen, however this one is closed for renovation – a lot of that seems to be going on around the university, since part of the decorations of the buildings are also covered.

The M1 historical building has a central cloister with an ironwork colonnade. The building is rectangular, and on the short sides there are two symmetrical wards. One holds the historical mining museum, the other one the historical library. The central cloister is the main area where Expominerales is held, on the ground and first floor. On Saturday, the exhibit opened at 10:00, and we were there a bit later in order to sign up for the first guided visit at 11:00 (3€) – we wanted to take it so we had access to several rooms that would otherwise be closed to us. The idea was being there before families with kids started arriving and the activities became overcrowded – it turned out in the end that most the activities were indeed organised for children, so it did not really make a difference. Furthermore, the visit we feared full only had 6 attendees.

We had one hour before the guided visit that we spent looking at the stands on the ground floor on the M1 building. The guide was a student who might have been partying the previous night, because he sounded a little out of it – forgetting info and words, even things related to his own degree.

First, we went to see the mineral collection, the origin of the historical museum in the M1 building, Museo Histórico-Minero Don Felipe de Borbón y Grecia. The mineral collection was started in 1831, and throughout the years it was increased with new minerals donated by different institutions. It was later expanded to cover palaeontology and historical artefacts related to mining and other earth sciences. Though a lot of the displays are scattered throughout he building, the original museum dates from the 19th century, and it has four sections: the mineral collection, the fossil collection, the cave bear collection and the mining archaeology section, totalling over 10,000 items.

The historical mining museum at ETSIME Madrid. It is a large ward with cedar wood shelves from floor to ceiling, filled with rocks and fossils. The picture also shows some close-ups of rocks, two cave bear skulls, and a cluster of fossilised snail-like animals

Today, the museum is named after King Felipe VI, who visited the museum in the late 1980s after the university reached out to him to propose the name. The then prince came to visit then, and the name “the king’s stairs” was given to the set of side stairs he used – Escaleras del Rey.

We also visited the small hall where candidates read their theses, a little hall with spectacular ceramic tiles by Zuloaga, and finally the historical library, with obsolete but cool volumes. The library also dates back from the 19th century, with the walls covered in wooden shelves, with a small metal staircase to access the upper balcony. Unfortunately both this one and the one in the museum were cordoned off.

Library in ETSIME. It is a large room with cedar wood shelves from floor to ceiling, and a spiral staircase.

The visit ended at the lecture hall on building M2, one of the few remaining areas of the original design. It is a marble room with wooden benches and decorated windows that represent the original subjects taught to Mining Engineers. After we were left off, we sat down at the cafeteria for a drink.

Lecture hall in ETSIME (Madrid). It's a marble room, rather dark, with smoked windows representing different subjects of the Mining Engineering Degree

We recharged batteries, and then we had a look at the stands on the first floor of the M1 building, alongside the collection of apparatus that they had. Afterwards, we decided to separate in order to do shopping. Expominerales hosted over 30 stands, national and international.

Expominerales. A view of the ETSIME cloister from the second floor, showing different stands and lots of people peering curiously

I, being the nerd that I am, got myself a tiny slice of iron meteorite (from Geoterra Minerals), a mosasaur fossilised tooth (from Carlos Hammann, who also had amazing megalodon teeth that I will never be able to afford), a decent-sized of recrystallised bismuth (from Rossell Minerals), and a small piece of black tourmaline (from The MineralShop) – all for 51€.

Collage: a fossilised tooth, a bit of mineral in metallic colours, a slice of meteorite with silver orthogonal markings, and a bit of shiny black rock

When we met again, it was a bit past 13:30. There were too many people by then – families had started arriving, so we decided to leave. We had booked at a nearby restaurant for lunch, and they did not mind accommodating us a little earlier. The restaurant, called DeAtún Ponzano specialises in tuna dishes – particularly Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus), sustainably caught in the Straight of Gibraltar.

Before overfishing was even a thing, Phoenicians settled in the south-west of Spain somewhere between the 9th and 7th centuries BCE – the city of Cádiz, credited as being the longest-standing city in Europe, may have been the first port. The Phoenicians observed that the bluefin tuna migrated from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean every year around the same dates, and later they came back to the ocean. These guys came up with a very simple technique – that was later developed further by the Romans and perfected in the Islamic period: the almadraba.

An almadraba is a portable but complex net which is lowered for the migration period. The bigger fish are funnelled into a box-like construction, and the smaller ones swim right through it. Once the almadraba is full, a number of fishing boats lift it in a process called levantada (raising). Expert fishermen walk onto the nets, discard any small specimen that might have been trapped, and choose the tuna that will be sold, generally individuals heavier than 200 kg.

Since the fish are selected on a case by case basis, the amount of both the catch and by-catch is small in comparison to other fishing methods. Both the seasonality and craftsmanship of the whole process make it much more sustainable than others – of course, this also causes fewer pieces in the market, which in turn increases the price. Furthermore, all the fish are wild, hand-picked, and only bled out when they are loaded onto the ship. Thus, the quality is extremely high. Another factor that makes almadraba-caught tuna more expensive is the fact that walking onto the levantada is dangerous. Fishermen have been seriously hurt by struggling tuna, as some of the fish might weigh up to 500 kg.

Working almost exclusively high-quality tuna means that DeAtún is not a restaurant on the cheap side of things. I’ve actually traced down their tuna provider and the prices are rather cost-adjusted for almadraba-caught tuna. There’s another thing to consider, too, which is that the Spanish law forces restaurants to freeze fish that is going to be served either raw or quasi-raw, at least for 24 hours at a temperature under -20 ºC – this is done to destroy a fish parasite called Anisakis, which can cause stomach distress and serious allergic reactions. Apparently, the perfect temperature to keep the tuna properties is -60 ºC. So yay Anisakis-safe almadraba-caught tuna all year round (though it’s true that the freezing law makes it impossible to eat fresh tuna raw).

We got a welcome tapa of boiled potatoes with olive oil and herbs (“papas aliñás”), a favourite from southwestern of Spain, the same area where the almadraba tuna are caught. We shared some European anchovies (Engraulis encrasicolus) “anchoas del Cantábrico” with tomato and toasted bread. These anchovies are salted for at least six months, cleaned, and stored in olive oil. They have a strong flavour, and are not everyone’s cup of tea, but I adore them. We also shared a portion of “ortiguillas” (Mediterranean snakelocks sea anemone Anemonia sulcata, battered and fried), also typical of the south-west – I’ve never been much of a fan though.

Lunch at DeAtún. Collage with a potato salad, anchovies and battered seafood balls

Finally, as my tuna preference is raw, I was wondering whether I wanted sashimi or tartar. In the end, I decided to try a combo (“trio DeAtún”): tuna sashimi (slices), tuna tartar (dice) and tuna tataki (heat-sealed slices), with a side taste of different sauce emulsions – wasabi, kimchi and curry. The tuna cuts used for these preparations (descargamento and tarantelo) would be the otoro or toro Japanese cuts, which are appropriate for raw preparations – technically the best ones, fatty or very fatty meat. I don’t love tataki, thus my original reticence to try this combo, but it was good. My favourite bit was the sashimi though, the tartar was missing a bit of spice.

I was offered chopsticks to eat the dish, and I accepted – easier to handle the fish. That apparently made the maître think that I had been the one choosing the restaurant, because in his words I “seemed to be an expert, chopsticks and all”. That was hilarious – I mean, why offer chopsticks if you don’t expect them to be accepted? For the record, although I booked the table, I did not choose the restaurant – it would have been a little on the “too fancy” side for me. The truth is, there were a bunch of very-elaborated dishes that we decided to give a miss, and we went for the raw tuna.

Lunch at DeAtún. A plate with three tuna cuts. The centre is round, and rose-like, and the sides are extended on a line. The fish is uncooked and it looks dark red. There's a similar dish in the background, with more cuts

Desserts were okay, but not the reason we had chosen this place. The point was eating tuna – raw tuna in my case – and the restaurant delivered. I was however amused by tables around us refusing the raw options even when the chef himself came out to greet them and recommend the dishes (someone over there must have been an acquittance, I don’t really know). Finally, we set back home to compare treasures and plot going back to Expominerales in its 2024 edition – at a time where we can snatch some discounted rocks.

12th & 13th February 2023. The Epic Apocalypse Tour in Madrid (Spain)

Posted on 18 February 2023 by JBinnacle

The year 2020 was going to be so amazing that I actually would have had to choose the things I wanted to do and sacrifice others. It didn’t turn out that great in the end, with lots of rescheduling and cancellations. I was eventually able to budget time and money for one of those rescheduled events – the joint concert by the metal bands Epica and Apocalyptica in their Epic Apocalypse Tour. For a while, however, there was a bit of uncertainty with dates, as they bounced between Sunday 12th and Monday 13th of February, so I needed to juggle work dates in order to make sure I’d be free on Monday. In the end, I was all clear, all the concert-related activities were set for Sunday evening, and I decided to make a two-day trip out of it – I needed to take a hotel for Sunday anyway.

I arrived in Madrid around 9:30 in the morning. I had some time before my first appointment so I walked into one of the large parks of the city Parque del Buen Retiro, which is part of the Unesco World Heritage Site Paisaje de la Luz (Light Landscape), officially called Paseo del Prado y el Buen Retiro, paisaje de las artes y las ciencias, declared in 2021.

Parque del Buen Retiro was built in the 17th century for one of Felipe IV’s palaces, and it was opened in the late 18th century as public park. The park was almost destroyed during the war against Napoleon’s troops in the early 19th century, so most of it has been rebuilt. Aside from the obvious flora, it features sculptures, fountains, buildings… It is home to a lot of birds, and unfortunately a large number of invasive and fearless monk parakeets (Myiopsitta monachus), whose culling has been controversial in recent years. I got to see common blackbirds (Turdus merula), a European green woodpecker (Picus viridis) and a European robin (Erithacus rubecula).

One of the most important features of the park is the sculpture Monumento al Ángel Caído, which represents an angel falling from grace. It was originally designed by Ricardo Bellber, who made it in plaster in 1877. It was later cast in bronze and the original plaster destroyed, and eventually the sculpture was made into a part of a fountain in 1885. Around the area, there is also an ancient water mill, and to my surprise, the almond trees (Prunus amygdalus) had started blossoming.

Retiro Park collage: a pathway with trees and bushes on both sides, ducks, and a robin.

Retiro Park collage: a water mill, blossoming almond trees, and the fallen angel fountain

At 10:15 I had a guided visit to the Real Observatorio de Madrid (ROM), commissioned around 1785 by Carlos III, as an centre to develop and study astronomy, geodesy, geophysics and cartography. The main building is the astronomical observatory, built by Juan de Villanueva in what then was the outskirts of the city. Today, ROM belongs to the National Geographical Institute (IGN), and it is home to the National Astronomical Observatory, the Central Geophysics Observatory, and the data gathering division of the National Volcanic Service, though no measurements are taken there. The main astronomy measurements are carried out in the Centro Astronómico de Yebes, in a town around 80 km north-west of Madrid. The observatory is also part of the Unesco World Heritage Site.

The visit comprises three stops. The first one is the main building, called Edificio Villanueva, which has three rooms – the main rotunda with a Foucault pendulum, the library, with the spot where gravity was first measured in Spain, and the “Time room”, where the sun used to be traced to determine the hour.

ROM collage. A small Neoclassical building, an inner room with a pendulum and telescopes, a telescope and a 19th century library.

The second stop is the Great Telescope, a replica of one that William Herschel built in the 18th century – Hershchel was one of the greatest telescope makers of the time, and is credited with discovering the planet Uranus, two of its moons, and two moons of Saturn. The telescope was destroyed during the war against the French, but later rebuilt thanks to the number of laminates that had been preserved – the original had a focal distance of 7.6 m and a 61-cm diameter mirror (which is displayed in the main building), and Herschel himself considered it the best he ever built.

Herschel grand telescope: a wooden scaffolding structure keeping a huge black tube pointing at the stas

The final stop, the little museum of “Earth and Universe Sciences” has a small collection of ancient instruments used for astronomy, navigation, and geophysics. There are also a couple of seismographs – one of them new, which is up and running – and material retrieved from the volcanic eruptions of El Hierro in 2011 and La Palma in 2021.

Collage. Ancient telescope, old tide measuring device, an old globe, and lava bombs

I had planned for a typical sandwich at an iconic bar afterwards, but I ran into a political demonstration. Thus, I scratched that idea and took the underground westwards. When I was in Egypt, one of the places I visited was Lake Nasser, created by the Aswan High dam. The lake swallowed a lot of villages and monuments, but a few of them, such as Abu Simbel and the Temple of Philae were saved by Unesco. Between 1960 and 1980, a total of 24 monuments were saved, and five out of these were presented as “grants-in-return” to five countries which had offered exceptional technical and financial assistance to the campaign – Germany, Italy, Netherlands, the United States and Spain, the latter being impressive as Spain was in the middle of the dictatorship, and pretty shunned by the international community at the time.

The monument was a small and ruined temple in the now-flooded town of Debod, to which it owns its name Templo de Debod (Temple of Debod). Dedicated to the god Amun, it was built around the location of the First Cataract of the Nile, some 15 km south of Aswan, about 2200 years ago, though the core of the building may have been older. The monument was actually affected by the original dam at the beginning of the 20th century, and it was covered in water for most of the year, which destroyed its colours and damaged the reliefs.

During the Unesco salvage mission, it was dismantled, and eventually granted and taken to Spain, and “freely” reconstructed – a lot of information had been lost, and there were missing blocks. National stone was used to fill in the gaps, and the gates (remains of the pylons) were built in the wrong order, according to some old pictures. The restorers built an air-conditioning system, a wooden roof, and the main hall was closed off with a glass door and window panes. Today, the temple is open to the public at weekends, but unprotected from the Spanish weather – rather different from the Egyptian one – and pollution, it is rapidly deteriorating.

I went inside the temple once when I was a child, and I had a clear memory of it that kept surfacing when I was in Egypt – so I wanted to go back. The entry is free, but capacity is reduced, so I had to queue for almost an hour to enter. I finally matched my memory to reality. The interior of the sanctuary has a small chapel and some carved stones had been taken to a makeshift second floor to display them as a little museum.

A collage of a small Egyptian temple - it has two floating gates that lead up to the main building, which is small with four columns. One picture shows a tiny and dark inside room with an altar.

After the temple, I got lunch on the go, then walked towards the hotel to check in and change clothes. Around 16:15, I set off to La Riviera for the concert. I had a Meet and Greet ticket and had to be there before 17:00. Personnel from the venue were extremely nice, and there was no chaos at all, even if things had been a little disorganised and some fans were lacking M&G confirmation emails. Everything was well-handed and everyone who had paid for an upgrade got through. There were about 30 people to meet and greet Epica and we were ten for Apocalyptica.

Apocalyptica is a Finnish four-man band – Eicca Toppinen, Perttu Kivilaakso, Paavo Lötjönen and Mikko Sirén – founded in 1993. They are “semi-officially” a symphonic metal band, but they’ve ventured into everything from Metallica covers (which was their origin) to pure classical works. They have a very specific style heavily using classical cellos and combining them with modern drums. They currently collaborate with American – self-identified as Cuban in the concert – singer Franky Perez for vocals.

Meeting the four of them was really fun. I got autographs and took the most epic picture I’ve ever taken with a band or artist before. As we were only ten, after it was over, I had time to buy some merchandising and still be the second person to settle on first row – despite having decided that I was going to sit back and relax.

Apocalyptica white and black poster, signed by the four members

General admission started at 18:00, and the crowd was surprisingly tame throughout the whole thing. The venue filled up and the supporting band, Wheel, came up at 18:30. Wheel is a Finnish progressive metal band that consists of James Lascelles (Vocals/Guitar), Santeri Saksala (Drums), Aki ‘Conan’ Virta (Bass) and Jussi Turunen (Lead Guitar).

Wheel Setlist

Hyperion
Blood drinker
Movement
Vultures
Wheel

Wheel playing, each member at his insturment: bass, guitar, singer and drummer

The second band was Epica, which I remember having listening to back when the world was young. They are a Dutch symphonic metal band currently composed by Simone Simons (lead vocals), Mark Jansen (rhythm guitar, vocals), Coen Janssen (keyboards, synthesizer), Ariën van Weesenbeek (drums), Isaac Delahaye (lead guitar) and Rob van der Loo (bass). Simone can go insanely high with her voice, and she has an amazing presence on stage, and the whole band has an immense amount of energy – she also reminded me of a comic character. The keyboardist had a lot of personality too, and he was extremely fun.

Epica Setlist

Abyss of Time – Countdown to Singularity (recording)
The essence of silence
Victims of contingency
Unleashed
The final lullaby
The obsessive devotion
The skeleton key
Rivers
Code of life
Cry for the moon
Beyond the Matrix
Consign to oblivion

Collage of Epica playing, showing different members at their choice of insturment - singer, bassist, guitarist, and keyboardist with a portable keyboard

Finally Apocalyptica came on stage, and it was extremely fun. The things those guys do to their classical cellos would make some classical musicians cry, but the sound is super-powerful. We had Franky Perez for vocals, and a very fun moment regarding “listen to our classical music album at home, because we still feel like death metal”. They interacted a lot with the public, and it felt somehow very friendly / warm – yes, I’m talking about metal here. It was really that fantastically weird.

Apocalyptica Setlist

Ashes of the Modern World
Grace
I’m not Jesus
Not strong enough
Rise
En route to mayhem
Shadowmaker
I don’t care
Nothing else matters
Inquisition Symphony
Seek & Destroy
Farewell
In the Hall of the Mountain King

Apocalyptica playing with Franky Perez. Perez is in the foreground, dressed in black. The thee cello-playing members are in the frame, playing. The drums peek behind them, but you can't spot the drummer

Apocalyptica playing at La Riviera. They have classical cellos. Two of the members stand on the sides, playing their cellos. Another one is walking swinging his as if it weighed nothing, The final one is slamming drums in the background.

We finished off just short of 23:00, I bought off some fast food for dinner, and headed back to the hotel to have a shower and get some sleep. I was woken up early in the morning due to the cleaning crew and the garbage mini-vans noises, but I did not leave bed until 9:00, then set off at 9:30. I bought some cold coffee on the way and walked into the former royal palace gardens, now public park Jardines del Campo del Moro.

Though I’d seen the gardens a few times before, this was the first time I actually walked into them. Despite the frost covering everything, I got a nice view of the palace and different fountains and buildings sprinkled throughout the green – Chalet de Corcho, is a small hut with coloured windows; and Chalecito de la Reina a wooden house that is currently closed. I was insanely amused by a little grass-cutting robot.

Jardines del Campo del Moro. Collage. It's winter and most trees are grey and bare. At the end of the walkway stands the Neoclassical Royal Palace. Two smaller buildings - one of them is white with brown beams, reminscing of German architecture; another one is a small kiosk with colourful windows - red, green...

I wandered around for an hour or so, then headed off via underground to the National library of Spain Biblioteca Nacional de España for the absolutely worst guided visit of my life. Like… it’s true that it’s free, but tickets run out within hours of coming out – on the 20th of the month, for the following month. I’d actually been trying to do this since Covid lockdowns ended… It turns out, we did not see any real books, we could not even peer into the reading area, the book and reading museum is closed and the only information we got was… that the guide did not like the Library. We did not get to see anything interesting or that we could not see on our own, and we did not get to learn anything, so this was a huge blunder. Live and learn – but it was one of the few things that was open on a Monday. The library is a huge Neoclassical building with a fantastic marble staircase inside. The doors and gates are protected by intrincate ironwork fences.

Biblioteca Nacional de España. A Neoclassical building in white and grey tones. The exterior has columns and statues of writers. The interior showcases a pair of twin staircases with the statue of one of the most important library directors between both.

I met with family for a quick lunch and then we went for a walk. We had thought about going to one of the terraces to see the cityscape, but it was closed because it was a Monday. We ended up at the Parque del Retiro park again to make some time and walk. We sat in the sun for a while, then went to see the Palacio de Velázquez there. Currently, it’s part of the modern art museum Museo de Arte Reina Sofía, and I did not really care much about the exhibits, but I like the building. Architect Ricardo Velázquez Bosco built it in brick (with ceramic tiles by Daniel Zuloaga) for the Mining Exhibit in 1883, inspired by London’s Crystal Palace, now gone. The interior is pristine white with hints of iron architecture, but the building’s official style is “neorenaissance historicism” whatever that means.

Palacio de Velazquez: A brick building with large windows and tile decoration. The inside is all white with bits of iron architecture.

Velázquez Bosco and Zuloaga also came together when they designed another building I really like, the glass-and-iron greenhouse Palacio de Cristal, which was built to home tropical flora and fauna from the Philippines in an exhibit in 1887. In front of the palace, there’s a small pond home to some cheeky ducks and geese.

Palacio de cristal. A huge greenhouse with a dome, and two wings. A white duck wanders in the foreground. Between the greenhouse and the duck there's a small pond.

Then, we went to have a snack. Trying to find something on the map before the trip, I’d come across a place called La Mejor Tarta de Chocolate del Mundo, which translates to “The best chocolate cake in the world” and that had to be tried! It was really nice, even if the place was pretty small and felt a bit cramped.

A slice of chocolate cake in front of mugs and teapots

We finally took a stroll down towards the sunset, and I took the train back without much of a hitch, then drove home

3rd & 4th February 2023: Final Fantasy Distant Worlds 35th Anniversary – Coral – in Barcelona (Spain)

Posted on 5 February 2023 by JBinnacle

3rd February 2023: Mummies, fish, and music

Though I would not have minded to become a gamer back in the day, my joint issues discouraged this. Thus, my relation with the Final Fantasy saga is tangential. However, my sibling is a big fan of one of the instalments, and last year I accompanied them to Final Fantasy VII Remake Orchestra World Tour in Barcelona in 2021. Having had more time to prepare for this one, we got VIP tickets, and I planned a two-day outing.

Our arrival in Barcelona happened right on schedule, and we walked from the station to Caixa Forum Barcelona to see the exhibit Momias de Egipto. Redescubriendo seis vidas – Egyptian mummies; Rediscovering six lives, in collaboration with the British Museum. I am not sure whether the items are part of the actual collection over there or are in the archives, because I don’t really remember seeing any of the mummies. The Barcelona exhibits focus around six mummies and how they lives could have been before their deaths. Aside from the actual mummies and their sarcophagi or coffins, there are objects that they may have used in life, and images of what the bodies look like inside the wrappings.

It was at the very same time interesting and creepy, everything we can get to know through technology about these poor souls who passed away millennia ago. There was information about their age, illnesses, and objects they had been buried with – god statuettes, jewellery, funerary miniatures… One of the mummies in display was that of a small child with his face painted on the wrapping, that was more than a bit creepy, to be honest.

A collage showing a a mummy and a turquoise wrapping; a sarcophagus; four canope jars; three statuettes: Horus, an ibis, Thoth; close-up of a sarcophagus, with bright colours; a mummy and a plain wooden casket.

We took the underground towards the waterfront to visit L’Aquàrium de Barcelona, located in the harbour. With more than 11,000 animals and 450 species, it is the largest aquarium dedicated to the Mediterranean Sea. It was inaugurated in 1995 and it holds 35 aquariums, including an oceanarium with capacity for almost four million litres of water (36 metres diameter, five metres high) with two tunnels at the bottom. Species-wise, the aquarium does not have anything out of the ordinary, but the size of the tiger sand sharks is impressive. There are a few sharks, some tropical fish, axolotls, frogs… and a very fun sperm-whale room to keep the jellyfish in darkness.

A collage of the aquarium. Seahorse; swimming sharks; anaemone; baby dogfish shark; tiny crustacean similar to a prawn; sand tiger shark; octopus trying to eat the viewers; penguin showing off; fabulous tiny jellyfish

We grabbed an expensive-but-convenient bite to eat at the aquarium itself during some of the feeding events to make sure the cafeteria was empty. AFter we had finished viewing all the exhibits, we went on towards the hotel, which was well-placed between the auditorium and the shopping centre. Since check in had been so bad when we went to the previous Final Fantasy concert, this time we had booked different accommodation, and it was a total 180 – everyone in the hotel was super friendly, and we had zero issues. We procured some sandwiches for dinner, then got ready for the concert.

The Final Fantasy Distant Worlds 35th Anniversary – Coral – directed by Arnie Roth is a compilation of the background pieces from all the Final Fantasy games, from the first (1987) to the latest to date not counting the remakes (Final Fantasy XV, 2016). The concert was held at the CCIB – Centre de Convencions Internacional de Barcelona. We had no idea what time doors would open, but I calculated that an hour should be good for queuing for merch and then get to our seats.

By the time we got to the queue, the concert booklet had already been sold out. When we reached the front, my favourite plush toys were also gone. I decided to get the previous year’s CD in order to get it signed later at the meet & greet event that was included in the ticket we had bought. Looking back, maybe I should have asked for the autographs on the tote bag we got for the spending.

The concert had two halves and an encore, and was… strangely not very coral, for something called so. The choir was placed over to one side, and only did three or four songs – they actually did not show up for the whole first half. The set list was accompanied by projected images on the screen and it was super-impessive to see the first 8-bit games at first compared to what the technology of the latest Advent Children (movie from Final Fantasy VII) managed to create.

First half

Final Fantasy I~III: Medley 2002
Final Fantasy III: Eternal Wind
Final Fantasy IV: The Red Wings ~ Kingdom of Baron
Final Fantasy IV: Main Theme of Final Fantasy IV
Final Fantasy V: Home, Sweet Home ~ Music Box
Final Fantasy V: A New World
Final Fantasy VI: Phantom Forest ~ Phantom Train ~ The Veldt
Final Fantasy VI: Kids Run Through the City
Final Fantasy I~VI: Battle Medley 2022

Second half
Final Fantasy VIII: Liberi Fatali
Final Fantasy XI: Ragnarok
Final Fantasy XII: Flash of Steel
Final Fantasy VII: Aerith’s Theme
Final Fantasy XIV: Torn from the Heavens
Final Fantasy XV: Apocalypsis Noctis
Final Fantasy IX: Not Alone
Final Fantasy X: 素敵だね [Suteki da ne] (Isn’t it wonderful?)
Final Fantasy Main Theme with Choir ~ The Definitive Orchestral Arrangement ~

Encore
Final Fantasy X: Zanarkand
Final Fantasy VII: One-Winged Angel

The concert was all right. I did not feel the general chill I had through the previous one. I really liked Liberi Fatali and One-Winged Angel, but I guess I don’t have enough of an emotional connection with most of the games. Aside from the conductor Arnie Roth, we had composer Yoko Shimomura present, and vocalist RIKKI, who is the original singer of 素敵だね in Japanese, and did the live version.

Collage. Three pictures show a classical orchestra with different things projected on the screen behind them - the logo of Distant worlds, several 8-bit screenshots of games, a very realistic depiction of a blond man with a very unrealistic sword. The last picture shows singer RIKKI, composer Yoko Shimomura and conductor Arnie Roth

The M&G was fun, and I got to tell Roth that when I grow up I want to have as much fun as he does at work. They signed autographs and took pictures with people – it was much less stiff than the usual, too. We headed off afterwards for a sandwich, a shower and a good night’s sleep. In general though, not much value for money considering how much more expensive the VIP tickets were, even though the seats were good. Also, the fact that most merchandising sold out showed poor planning.

Collage. The ticket reading the name of the concert, the autographs of the three main artists, and a plush of a Final Fantasy imaginary being, it looks like a white teddy bear with a huge pink nose, a red ball on top of it and cute wings

4th February 2023: Ramen with Friends

We had bed and breakfast at the hotel, and the latter was fantastic. The buffet had both a juice bar and a milk bar – both of which I sampled, of course. I overdid it with the fried egg, I fear, but they were just cooked and it looked just too appetizing not to fall for one. After breakfast, we packed up, vacated the room, and asked the hotel to keep our bags for a couple of hours. We went to the science museum Museu de Ciències Naturals NAT, where we spent a couple of hours. This is the only place where they refused to speak Spanish to us.

The museum is divided in several areas. The first one is “history of the Earth”, where you can see a few interactive exhibits, fossils and reproductions. The second one is the collection of living animals, most of the stuffed, some of them just skeletons. There was another one about fungi – with the edible ones exhibited in tins. Then there was one on plants, and finally rocks and minerals. Not a bad place to spend a couple of hours, but it is just one of those places that takes itself much more seriously than it should, to the point that it felt pretentious. Some items were exhibited over and over again, as if they just wanted to use up the room – I counted at least eight elbaite specimens in different locations, and there were a bunch of reproductions taking up important spaces, you would believe they were originals if not paying lots of attention to the writing, and the blue light made for horrid photographs.

Collage. Four pictures show prehistoric animals in blue light, stuffed animals, a tin of mushrooms along real specimens, a red algae and some shiny rocks.

We transited to Sants train station to drop off my sibling’s bag at the cloakroom there and went on to meet my Barcelona friends E**** and P***o who had offered to take us to eat really-real Japanese ramen. Since I had a feeling that the restaurant would be on the small-ish side, and my sibling’s luggage was a bit oversized since they had cosplayed for the concert, I decided on the Sants detour for convenience.

The restaurant is called KOBUTA ramen i més (Kobuta Ramen and More) and I was amused when all of us made the same choice – tonkotsu miso ramen with an extra of half an egg, and water; then we shared some gyoza (dumplings) and karaage (fried chicken). The restaurant is not cheap, but the food makes up for that, it is very authentic Japanese food.

Collage. A dish of breaded fried chicken, some dumplings, and a bowl of ramen, with the ingredients floating - algae, half an egg, noodles, pork meat and spring onion

Though P***o had to leave early, the rest of us headed off towards the bullfighting-ring-turned shopping centre Arenas de Barcelona. There, we climbed up the terrace for views, then sat down for drinks and a long chat. We also popped into the local comic store, since it was convenient, and eventually we headed off to the station.

Collage. Shopping centre las Arenas, a round building that used to be a bullfighting ring, there are two pictures, one by daylight and another one at night, lit up. There's a picture of the views- two clock towers leading to a palace; finally three glasses together showing brightly coloured drinks - yellow, orange and dark pink

The train ride home was surreal. People playing music on their phones, yelling, talking loudly and making the footrests squeak – apparently there had been some kind of sporting event for kids and a lot of families were coming back home. All in all, not a bad couple of days, lots of laughs, I got to see dear friends and eat nice food, and listen to cool music – in the CCIB, not on the train.

1st January 2023: The Lotus Flower {Egypt, Winter 2022-2023}

Posted on 21 January 2023 by JBinnacle

I read somewhere once that you should start the year doing what you love, that is why I decided to go out on the 1st January 2022. I could have never imagined 2023 would start as it did, in Cairo [القاهرة] of all places. As a settlement, Cairo can be traced to the Babylon Fortress, built around the 1st century BCE, but its real foundations were laid in the second half of the 7th century by the Fatimid dynasty. The city survived the Caliphate and kept spreading. Today, it is the largest metropolitan area in Africa, and the 12th in the world with 22 million people.

After waking up around 7:00, I was the first in my group to go down to have breakfast, and when I did, I saw that the breakfast buffet had added a ‘hangover’ buffet – Ibuprofen, Strepsils, painkillers in general… I thought it was hysterical. To be honest, I was tired and sore from the pyramid climbs, and probably a bit hungry since dinner had been… strange. One out of three was dealt with after some coffee and a very… British breakfast somehow – scrambled eggs, potato wedges, roasted tomato, a sausage… this gave me energy for the day, which we were to spend in the Unesco World Heritage Site Historic Cairo.

Departure was scheduled for 9:00 – too late, in my opinion. First, we got caught up in the horrible traffic. Then, when we arrived at our first destination, we had to turn around because the bus parking lot was full. On the way we caught a glimpse of the City of the Dead (Cairo Necropolis, or Qarafa [القرافة]). In this area, tombs, mausoleums and houses cramp together, up and down. Some people have made their houses out of the mausoleums due to Cairo’s crazy urbanisation. The City of the Dead was created almost at the same time as the city of the living.

Cairo, City of the Dead from the moving bus. A bunch of low constructions with flat celings or domes, with some trees sprinkled inbetween.

We also saw the ending of the Cairo Citadel Aqueduct [سور مجرى العيون]. Though originally designed during the Ayyubid period between the 12th and 13th century, it was later reworked by several Mamluk sultans (13th – 16th century) to expand water provision to the city. Today, it does not carry water, and it is under ‘redevelopment’ in order to display it as a heritage monument.

Aqueduct. Built in dark grey bricks, it has been buried by the sands of time so only the upper part shows.

Finally, after way too many scares with the bus, we reached the area called Coptic Cairo. It is located in what used to be the fortress of Bayblon, and in order to access it you have to go down a flight of stairs that feels way too long due to the pyramid climb. I do know a thing or two about soreness, and as I was hopping down the stairs as fast as I could, someone complained that it was unfair that I was ‘fresh like a lotus flowers’ while they were sore. That made me laugh – I guess I’m more used to being in pain than others.

The Coptic Catholic Church is the main branch of Christianity in Egypt. The Coptic Church seceded from Catholicism in the 5th century due to disagreements about the “nature of Christ”. Coptic Catholics believe the same general things as other Christian faiths, and fast a lot – 40 days before Christmas (7th of January), and 55 before Easter. They have a different Pope and rules for priests. Copts are a minority in mostly Muslim Egypt.

Our first stop there was the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus [ϯⲉⲕⲕⲗⲏⲥⲓⲁ ⲛ̀ⲧⲉ ⲛⲓ⳥ ⲥⲉⲣⲅⲓⲟⲥ ⲛⲉⲙ ⲃⲁⲭⲟⲥ ϧⲉⲛ ⲡⲓⲥⲡⲉⲗⲉⲱⲛ]. Christian traditions tell that the Holy Family fled the Massacre of the Innocents. In the nativity narrative, Herod, King of Judea, ordered the killing of all male children under two years near Bethlehem, in order to get rid of the “King of the Jews”. Having been alerted by an angel, Joseph took Mary and infant Jesus to Egypt. According to the tradition, they rested in the cave underneath the church, now turned into a crypt. The church is dedicated to the two martyrs, who died for their faith in Syria in the 3rd century CE. The building, erected in the 4th century, has a central nave and two side aisles, with 12 columns, probably quarried from Ancient Egyptian monuments and temples.

Collage. The upper part shows the Coptic chruch. The walls are made out of red brick, and the altar is hidden by a wooden structure. The lower picture shows a crypt with a small wooden altar, brick ceilings, and white columns

We then made a small stop at a Roman Tower, one of the Roman emperor Trajan’s addition to the original Fortress of Babylon (not that Babylon, the name was probably corrupted from the Pharaonic name). Trajan also created a quay back to the Nile, which has now dried out.

Ruins of a rounded tower built in white and red bricks. The colours alternate to create horizontal patterns.

We had a small stop at a bazaar shop, then we went into the so-called Hanging Church [الكنيسة المعلقة or ϯⲉⲕⲕⲗⲏⲥⲓⲁ ⲉⲥⲓϣⲓ], officially Saint Virgin Mary’s Coptic Orthodox Church [ϯⲉⲕⲕⲗⲏⲥⲓⲁ ⲛ̀ⲧⲉⲑⲉⲟⲇⲟⲕⲟⲥ ϯⲁⲅⲓⲁ ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ ϧⲉⲛ ⲃⲁⲃⲩⲗⲟⲛ ⲛ̀ⲭⲏⲙⲓ]. It is called the Hanging Church because it would have been suspended over the water gate of the Roman Babylon fortress – though today the ground is higher and the view is less impressive. It was built somewhere between the 7th and 9th centuries, and holds over a hundred icons. It is built in a basilica style, with 13 pillars representing the apostles and either Christ or Judas – depending on where you read. The rich decoration, with mosaics and reliefs, especially on the outside, mixes Arabic and Coptic motifs.

Collage of the Hanging church. The façade is sandstone, carved with Coptic and Arabic designs. Then there is a courtyard with a staircase that yields to a white building with two bell towers and a wooden porch. The lower picture shoes the interior, with the altar behind a wooden structure, very decorated ceilings and bare stone columns

That was all for Coptic Cairo, as we moved on towards what should have been our first stop – the Citadel of Saladin | Qalaʿat Salāḥ ad-Dīn [قلعة صلاح الدين الأيوبي]. There was going to be a high price to pay for all that time in the bus that morning, we just didn’t know yet. The Citadel was built by Saladin in the 12th century CE. Saladin was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. He became Sultan of Egypt in 1171, fought the Christian Crusaders, and conquered Syria. He was considered smart and noble, even by his enemies.

A sand-coloured wall with two minarets peering from the background

In the Citadel, we visited the Mosque of Muhammad Ali [مسجد محمد علي] in the Southern Enclosure, also called the Alabaster Mosque. It was built in the first half of the 19th century in the Ottoman style, and had to be completely restored in the 1930s due to cracking. It has two minarets, and a metal clock tower – the Cairo Citadel Clock, which apparently was a gift in return for the Luxor Obelisk that currently sits in Paris. The mosque has a courtyard for ablutions, and although the interior is usually carpeted, the carpets were out for cleaning, which created an interesting effect. It was my first time in a mosque, and I was pretty impressed by the huge glass lamps. Most of the courtyard and the interior are covered by alabaster – the upper part of the interior is only wood – and the mausoleum of Muhammad Ali is built in Carrara marble.

Before leaving, the Citadel, we went towards the wall to catch a view of what is modern Cairo, in what we were told is called the Wall of Saladin, which is basically the limit of the Citadel. Looking very carefully, one could spot the pyramids in the background, among the high rises.

A ruined medieval wall, with a view of Historic and modern Cairo in the background. A floating image superimposed shows a high-contrast close-up of the skyline, making the pyramids visible through the haze

Afterwards, we went back to the bus to find the restaurant we were supposed to have lunch at – a “luxury boat” on the Nile that tried to short-change two of us – a travel-mate for 20 EGP and me for almost 60 EGP. We had nothing of it, though I had to be a bit more forceful than he did. We finally got into the most interesting part of the day at 15:17 – The Egyptian Museum in Cairo [المتحف المصري]. Considering that the museum closed at 17:00, this was outrageous. We had to run through the museum, with the tour guide complaining that we were not fast enough – he actually grunted that I was not there when I was. Considering how many people there were, we spent time trotting behind the guy, trying not to lose him.

We saw – thankfully – the Tutankhamun Galleries, with his sarcophagus and mask. I say thankfully because at this time, the treasures were scheduled to move onto the Grand Egyptian Museum next to the pyramids within the same month – and the tour guide could not even tell us where exactly the treasure was. We also saw most of the masterpieces:

Galleries of Yuya and Tuya (18th Dynasty), containing most everything regarding this couple, including the Book of the Dead
Statuette of Khufu (Cheops) in ivory, a tiny representation of the pharaoh, the only sculpture of his in existence
Scribe statue CG 36 (Fifth Dynasty)
Menkaure triads, in alabaster (Fourth Dynasty). Statues of deified Menkaure.
Narmer Palette, a cosmetic palette considered the “first historical document in the world”, documenting the union of Lower and Upper Egypt by Narmer (Dynasty 0, 3000 BCE) with the first hieroglyphs
Bust of Akhenaten, Amonhotep IV
Sphinx statue of Queen Hatshepsut
Small wood sculpture compositions from different tombs
Sarcophagi from several pharaohs and noblemen
Rahotep and Nofret (26th century BCE)
Statue of Seneb and his Family (25th century BCE)
Face of Queen Hatshepsut

Cairo Museum Collage: a view of the building, striking pink; the first gallery showing the top of a few pyramids and some colossal statues; sarcophagi.

Cairo Museum Collage: Close up of a black basalt sarcophagus, showing colourful hieroglyphs; canopi jars; a sitting scribe; a spynx.

Cairo Museum Collage: Face and Sphynx of Queen Hatshepsut; bust of Akhenaten; mummy

By the time he actually cut us loose, it was almost closing time, 16:40. I managed to wander a little on my own, and at least catch a glimpse of some colossal statues and the exhibited pyramidia (tops of the pyramids). I am not going to lie, I was miffed. We should have gone out of the hotel earlier, and if the bus could not enter the Citadel, we could have walked for ten minutes rather than waste an extra hour driving around Cairo. The best, though, was still to come. My travel-mates had come later than me, but they left earlier than me – almost 12 hours earlier. Back in Aswan I had tried to organise a day trip for myself for the second, and throughout the bus rides, I insisted thrice about organising something, but was just told that my pick-up was 14:00.

We were driven around Cairo for a little while after the museum until we reached the area known as Islamic Cairo | Al-Mu’izz’s Cairo [قاهرة المعز], the heart of the Unesco Heritage Site – it is also known as Historic Cairo or Medieval Cairo, and it existed before the current city expansion, built throughout the Middle Ages around the Citadel. It is surrounded by a wall, that can be crossed through a number of monumental gates. We had a walk down Al-Muizz li-Din Allah al-Fatimi Street [شارع المعز لدين الله الفاطمي], the most important artery of the historical city, with a number of historical buildings, such as the Qalawun complex [مجمع قلاون] and the Mosque-Madrasa of Sultan Barquq [مسجد ومدرسة وخانقاه الظاهر برقوق]. At the end, there is a tourist market that we were told was Khan al-Khalili, but I was not able to find the historical part of this famous souk, and to be honest, I did not feel too comfortable hanging out alone – we were given an hour of time to ‘do shopping’ here. Though the street itself was quite neat, and the buildings were nicely lit, again, I was not in too much agreement with the timing, and the shopping area was not welcoming at all – at one point I was sent a child to beg me for a pound, and she kept crying around me. One should never give money to beggar children, as it encourages the practice, but it was hard to force myself to ignore her.

A collage of Medieval Arabic buildings at night, lit in pink and green lights. The decoration is rich and ellaborate. The street is full of people.

When we came back to the bus, we got on route towards Al-Azhar Park [حديقة الأزهر], and a supposedly famous restaurant with views. Though it has very neat views from the terrace, the set menu was weird. The barbecued meat was okay, but it came after way too much rice and fries. I’m not sure how much the restaurant got from the extra trip price (60€ per person) though.

A collage. The biggest picture shows the Mosque of Muhammad Ali in the background, lit in purple for the night, with a darkened garden leading up to it. Two other pictures show the entrance to the restaurant, and a small Arabic fountain. The other two picrures show Cairo skyline, and the food we were served: Egyptian bread, hummus, and a barbecue of chicken and lamb meat

Most of the group was exhausted and they had to leave at 3:00, so we just bailed out on the rest of whatever was planned. I insisted on the following day and I was told I’d receive a call to my room the following morning. We said goodbyes to the tour guide, and I said my goodbyes to the rest of the group.

I went to bed wondering what time I would get that call. I set my alarm clock for 7:00 just in case.