27th & 28th April 2024: Paris & the Fan Festival (France)

27th April 2024: From the Fan Fest to Les Invalides

My grandmother used to say that nothing good happens before sunrise, and to be honest, when the alarm clock rang at 4:40 on Saturday, I was very tempted to believe so. However, there were planes to catch, and red-eye flights are called so for a reason. My sibling and I had tickets for Paris on a 7:25 flight, which required us to be at the airport with enough time to board ± 30 minutes in case we had to get to the Satellite Terminal. Since I started planning with time – back in January – I had booked a parking spot in the actual terminal parking lot, for just a couple quid more than the long-stay one, and I activated a service the airport has so your card is billed automatically when your licence plate is detected, for convenience.

We reached the terminal with plenty of time (± 30 minutes) but recent problems with French air controllers going on strike, I was anything but calm. However, we took off on time and I just huddled off to nap. Arrival in Orly was early, and we did not taxi much, nor need buses. We just stepped off at the gate, and headed towards the Orlyval. We bought a Paris Visit card each, in order to be able to ride the public transport system as much as we needed for the weekend, and hopped on the shuttle. After a couple of transfers and a short walk, we arrived at the exhibition centre Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, where Paris Fan Festival took place.

Paris Fan Festival is a yearly convention that focuses on everything geek / nerd / niche, whatever you want to call it: video games (and retro video games), Star Wars, TV series, Ghostbusters, manga, comics, K-pop, there’s something just for everyone. I think it’s a bit of what Japan Weekend aims to be, but openly. It felt a little like that Funko slogan “Everyone is a fan of something”.

My reason to be there was European comic, actually. Authors (and married couple) Stjepan Šejić and Linda Lukšić Šejić, whom I’ve been following for a few years now, were in attendance. Stjepan Šejić has worked for DC in works such as Aquaman, Harley Quinn, and Suicide Squad, but he has gone independent, focusing on his own content creation. So has Linda Šejić, who started off at Image Comics and currently works on her own web comics. I’m currently buying his works Sunstone, Fine Print and my favourite Death Vigil, and her Blood Stain and Punderworld, the latter based on the Greek myth of Hades and Persephone. I also have the Aquaman hardcover that compiles all of Stjepan’s issues, and the Batman-character self-conclusive Harleen.

Of course, I wore an appropriate “Velocirapture” T-shirt to the event. The goal was to get an issue of each collection signed, and maybe a commission and some merch. In the end, we could only get a commission from Linda – we almost got one from Stjepan too, but things did not work too well on that front. I hope to get one next time they’re reachable – I actually wanted to go and meet him a while back, but I was in the middle of a weekend in Cuenca back in 2017.

My sibling and I wandered through Paris Fan Festival for a few hours. We had something to eat at a Paul’s bakery, which I had discovered in Toulouse, and whose prices were not stupidly inflated by being inside the convention. Unfortunately though, I had followed the instructions of the venue and I was not carrying any water, and just a small backpack. I could’ve completely ignored the rules though, just like… most everybody else did. I did learn a valiable lesson though – when travelling to conventions for people, you buy tickets for both days. Just in case.

One of the most interesting vendors at Paris Fan Festival was the Lyon Cinema and Miniature Museum Musée Cinéma et Miniature, which had brought many sci-fi props from their permanent exhibition. They had the tip of a pyramid, a hieroglyph stone and a mask from the original Stargate film, ), a compsognathus animatronic, and the velociraptor claws from the Jurassic Park saga (), Loki’s mask from The Mask, a xenomorph head from Alien, suits from one of the older Batman films and Armageddon, prosthetics from X-Men…

As every other niche convention, were tons shops with merchandise, books and comics, not all of them legal. They held an exhibit of figures and statuettes. There were also a number of conferences – pity that the one about Jurassic Park was in French, too. Also, I discovered that France has a lot of “replica” culture – there was an actual “Imperial Army” (Star Wars), someone who had customised a car into the Ectomobile from Ghostbusters (2016), even people impersonating Tolkien’s orcs… It goes a little beyond cosplay… Supposedly, there was someone walking around with a dragon, but we did not run into them.

Eventually, we left the convention to find our way to the hotel and drop the luggage, since comics are heavy, and Paris is on high alert and most places won’t let you through with backpacks. We wasted some time finding the hotel as it was raining cats and dogs – and they were remodelling, so the outer signal was not there. After check-in, we headed out again, and when we reached our next destination, it had literally stopped selling tickets – it was one hour and four minutes to closing time, and the recommended time is one hour and five minutes, so sadly, we could not get in.

It was a bit disappointing, but we moved on towards Arènes de Lutèce. Lutetia (Lutèce) was the Latin name for Paris when it was part of the Roman Empire, and the amphitheatre is one of the most important remains from that period. Built during the first century CE, it would have seated 15,000 spectators. It was restored and open to the public at the end of the 19th century. Today, it is the centre of a park.

After that, we took the underground towards the high-end department store Galeries Lafayette Paris Haussmann. In 1894, two Parisian businessmen opened a shop that would eventually become the biggest department store chain in Europe. Through the following decades, the businessmen bought buildings around the shop in order to grow their emporium. In 1907, architect Georges Chedanne carried out the first main renovation in the Art Déco style, and Ferdinand Chanut completed it with a Neo-Byzantine dome, built in 1912. Today, the galleries focus heavily on luxury products, and not that we could afford any, but I wanted to see the dome.

When we arrived, we snooped around – it was packed, full with high-end tourists, mostly Asians. The brands selling their products were the most expensive ones – from Chanel to Cartier. As we were admiring the dome, we saw there was a glass walk hanging from the balcony on the htird floor. Of course, we had to investigate. It was around 17:30. We found the end of the queue, and saw that there was a QR to reserve a spot. I was able to book us in for 19:20 – surprising, considering it was the same day, and access is free – maybe it was a language barrier or something? I’m not going to complain.

There was a nearby gallery I also wanted to see, Passage du Havre, a typical Parisian shopping passage. It was less impressive than the Lafayette, but also surprisingly cosy – as my sibling put it “the other guys have Chanel, they’ve got Sephora”. It had some nice decoration and quite a different crowd. Furthermore, we had been up since 4:00, and ate quite early, so when we found a Pret a Manger, we decided to buy dinner there.

We went back to Galeries Lafayette for our “Glasswalk” experience, and it was really, really cool. The staff were also impressively friendly and we enjoyed ourselves immensely for the whole… five minutes of it. I really loved the dome.

We finally headed off towards Napoleon’s tomb, the Dôme des Invalides in the complex Hôtel des Invalides. Hôtel des Invalids was originally commissioned by Louis XIV in 1670 as a hospital for disabled soldiers. The church-and-chapel complex was designed by Jules Hardouin-Mansart in several iterations from 1676 on. The complex is considered one of the most iconic examples of the French absolute monarchy Baroque style. When Napoleon’s remains were repatriated in 1840, a state funeral was held, and a mausoleum projected in the crypt under the Dome. Construction of the grave extended until 1861, when the former Emperor was finally entombed there.

We were going to see the light mapping event Aura Invalides, a spin off of sorts from the display in the Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal (Canada). The show highlights the history, architecture and meaning of the monument through light and orchestral music. The event lasts about 45 minutes, and it comprises three parts: First Movement: Creation, which focuses on the architecture of the monument; Second Movement: Collective Memory, through which you get to wander, seeing different effects in the chapels; and finally Third Movement: Universal Elevation, more spiritual and ethereal.

Afterwards, we headed towards the hotel to have a shower and sleep.

28th April 2024: No plans, really

After a nice breakfast at our hotel, we tried our luck at the Paris Fan Festival again. We got our drawings from Linda Šejić, but Stjepan Šejić had brought all the wrong markers and was not doing any more commissions. I offered my own pen, just to test the waters, and it was unfortunate that he did not take the bait.

Oh, well. You can’t win all the time. Instead of wallowing in our bad luck, we decided to get going and do something cool. For me that meant the park known as Jardin des Plantes, to visit two sites of the French Natural History Museum Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle. The day had started weirdly, with my underground ticket not working, but my sibling’s doing so. A lady who did not seem to enjoy being stuck at work Sunday morning waved us through without exchanging it. As the ticket was still not working when we left Paris Expo, another employee exchanged it.

The first site we visited was the Great Gallery of Evolution, Grande Galerie de l’Évolution, the biggest site of the French Natural History Museum. It has four visitable levels – the upper balcony (third floor), focused on “Evolution of life”, the second floor “Impact of man in life”, and the first and ground floors that deal “Diversity of life” (terrestrial on the first, marine on the ground floor). The way it is arranged makes it, in my view, a companion to the Gallery of Compared Anatomy – (which I still like best, to be honest).

The collection finds its core in the disappeared Zoology Gallery, whose building dates back from 1877. Designed by architect Jules André, the interior was a cast-iron structure with a central nave and a skylight. Although the original project was never completed, the Galerie de Zoologie was inaugurated in 1889. It closed down in 1966 for restoration, although works were actually only carried out between 1991 and 1994. During this time, taxidermist also took care of about a thousand animals. Today, the gallery holds a cavalcade of savannah animals on the ground floor, and more conservative vitrines and glass cases on the upper floors. The museum still keeps the 19th century allure and entertaining aura – we did not go into any of the VR experiences, as they were sold out (and, you know, in French), so we did not see the more modern area of the museum.

We started off on the third floor and made our way down to the ground level. There were a ton of taxidermy animals, collections of insects and shells, even a wool one, and some bizarre specimens such as a tiger attacking an elephant with a chair on top… To be honest, though, I think it is more of a regular zoology gallery, just arranged in a surprising way. I found the evolution angle better developed at Brussel’s Natural History Museum. The classical design is extremely cool, though, and it would have given a great feeling had it not for all the free-range kids wildly running around…

Afterwards, we headed off to the geology and mineralogy gallery, Galerie de Géologie et de Minéralogie, which had a really nice collection of gemstones, crystals and jewellery. And of course, fluorescent rocks which kept my attention for a very long while.

It was almost lunchtime and we decided to head out towards a busier area to grab a bite. My Paris Visit ticket was not working again, and I exchanged it yet once more. I went through, but my sibling did not, so they had to wait in queue again to exchange that too. Apparently, I was keeping the tickets too close to my phone – even if it was the one without internet? I deemed my sibling responsible for the tickets from then on.

We stepped out at Palais Royal–Musée du Louvre, hoping there were places to eat, and we were right – there were a bunch of them along the street. The one that grabbed our attention was Café Brasserie Ragueneau, a small eatery close to the Louvre. There, I splurged on a Tartare de boeuf poêlé au foie gras (Pan-fried beef tartare with foie gras) just to be a snob. It was delicious. The foie gras version came slightly cooked, though the raw version would have been fantastic. Our waiters were extremely friendly too, and tolerated my poor French with a smile.

After lunch, we walked to the last place on my list for the trip – the church Église Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois de Paris, which mixes elements of Romanesque, Flamboyant Gothic, Rayonnant, and Renaissance styles, though the tower – my favourite – was only added in 1860 as part of Baron Haussmann’s plan to reconstruct the city. The base of the church dates from the 12th century, and during the 14th and 15th centuries it was decorated with a balustrade by Jean Gaussel, multiple sculptures, and gargoyles. The interior is lighter than usual gothic churches, and there is a monumental set of carved wooden seats for the royal family. There are multiple windows with stained glass, although not all of them are the original Medieval ones, since they were destroyed during the French Revolution and replaced in the 19th century.

The Louvre was not selling same-day tickets, so our idea to spend a couple of hours there went bust. Then, we decided to walk towards Île-de-France to check on the cathedral’s progress, as it is supposed to reopen this year, when reconstruction from the 2019 fire has been completed. I wanted to check something called Tunnel des Tuileries, but I misunderstood – I thought it crossed underneath the Seine to get to the Isle of France; apparently I mixed it with a pedestrian tunnel under the Thames – it turned out to be a place of modern art, and it did not feel too safe. Thus, we continued under the sun, and reached the flower market Marché aux Fleurs Reine Elizabeth II.

We found out that a sort of stage has been built for visitors to sit in front of Notre Dame, and we saw a lot of people taking pictures of the pictures on the wall, which was a bit weird. We sat for a while, but not long because there was a guy singing really badly at the square.

We went on and saw the park Square René Viviani, where the oldest tree in Paris stands. Next to the park is the church Église Saint-Julien le Pauvre and close to Église Saint-Séverin. We could not enter any of them, so instead we decided to sit down to have a coffee – in my case a “detox smoothie” because the orange-and-carrot blend reminded me of one in Japan I really like.

We finally set off to collect our things, and this is when I usually say I got home without an incident. Not this time. The public-transport tickets worked fine to get to the airport, we bought dinner and settled to wait. There was nothing much too strange, we were late – forty, forty-five minutes? I’m not sure, but not an obscene amount of time – the crew announced connections over the PA system, I thought that was nice of them. When we landed… I had a moment that I did not know where we were, which is strange, because the terminal is pretty straight forward. It turns out that in order for the travellers who had connections to South America to make it, we had landed at the Satellite Terminal, not the main building! Which meant over thirty minutes of “commute” back to the parking lot… I had taken a leeway of around an hour and a half after landing to get out, but we barely made it!!

A nice weekend to break out the routine, a lot of comics signed, and a lovely piece of artwork were achieved. Unfortunately, I caught a stupid, stupid cold, my first since the whole Covid thing started, and my immune system freaked out. It seems it’s back to facemasks on planes for me.

22nd March 2024: Trail of the 1808 Uprising, Comic Planet and Genesis (Madrid, Spain)

Among the activities organised by the Pasea Madrid program (Walk Madrid), there was one about painter Francisco de Goya. Goya was probably the most important painter towards the end of the 18th century. He was born in 1746 and died in 1828, having lived through four Bourbon Kings, the Peninsular War, the postwar and the Bourbon restoration.

Goya started his career in Madrid drawing bucolic cartons to be woven into tapestries. He eventually became popular painting portraits for the aristocracy first, the royal family later, until he was appointed court painter. Sometime along his career he contracted an illness that left him deaf, and his character soured. He started experimenting with other media besides canvas and mural paintings, and started creating prints, which are darker and fantastical. During the Peninsular War against Napoleon’s forces, he created paintings about the uprising, and prints showing the most awful part of human condition during armed conflict – the horrors of war. He did not become any more cheerful after the conflict, depicting famine and illness. His last set of art pieces are called the black paintings, black-and-ocre coloured nightmarish pieces which contrast with the life of his initial bucolic scenes and one of his most famous painted – the naked lady La maja desnuda.

In 1807, Napoleon tricked the Spanish king into abdicating and allowing his troops to march towards Portugal. Instead, the French just… stayed in Spain. Madrid was occupied on the 23rd of March 1808. On the 2nd of May, there was an uprising in town, carried out by plain citizens and a very small percentage of the Spanish soldiers. The rebellion was squashed and the rebels shot to death – where “rebel” meant “everyone caught with a weapon”, and weapons had been stones, knives and even plant pots. While the uprising was unsuccessful, it sparkled the Peninsular War, known in Spanish as the War of Independence. Goya, originally open to the French ideas of Illustration, painted two canvasses about the events. The first was “The charge of the Mamelukes” El dos de mayo de 1808 o La carga de los Mamelucos depicting one of the French units charging Madrid’s people; the second was “The third of May Shootings” El tres de mayo de 1808 o Los fusilamientos del tres de mayo, showing the executions in central Madrid.

After I arrived in Madrid, I started off the day with a Starbucks’ Iced Strawberry Matcha Tea Latte, a new flavour introduced this month. I had plans for a nicer breakfast, but my train was delayed so I had to get something to go, so it was this and a cookie. I really liked the drink, I hope it stays. I grabbed both and went towards the meeting point.

The visit I attended was called “Goya and La Florida” (La Florida being a small hermit church the painter did murals for), but it was more of an exaltation of the May 1808 uprising. We met the guide next to the Royal Palace, where she summarised Goya’s life. Then, we moved on to a placard next to the palace that memorialises the uprising, and she described the event. We continued on towards the area of Príncipe Pío, saw yet another memorial to the uprising Monumento al Pueblo del dos de Mayo de 1808 and the archaeological remains of one of the forts.

We went up the park Príncipe Pío – next to the Temple of Debod – and the guide explained the military shootings, and read a document. We continued towards the graveyard where the rebels were buried Cementerio de La Florida, next to which stands a monument to Goya Monumento a Goya: four stones, each one with a letter to form the word “Goya.”

We finally reached the hermit church Ermita de San Antonio de la Florida, where Goya painted the ceiling frescoes. Over time, they became so degraded that an identical second hermit was built to be used religiously, and the original one kept as a museum and the painter’s pantheon. The ceiling has a dome in which the artist painted St. Anthony’s miracle – as his father had been accused of murder, he resurrected the victim, who could identify the real criminal. The murals are done in al fresco technique, painted on fresh plaster, directly on the walls.

After I left the hermit church, I headed off towards Príncipe Pío station, where I met my relative. There’s this restaurant that I’d been wanting to try for a while, but I needed two other people to tag along in order to get the table I wanted – yes, I wanted a specific table in the restaurant, more on that later. We had a reservation for a late lunch at 15:00, since my guided visit finished at 13:00. We took the underground and alighted at the area of Cuzco, with still some time left.

While checking out how to get to the restaurant, I had came across an Asian supermarket nearby – and that led me to discover Calle General Margallo, a little cluster of Asian supermarkets and stores. We went into Ibero China Madrid and I was happy to buy a bunch of things at a very decent price, mostly Japanese (curry and miso), but I also bought some Filipino Sky Flakes Crackers that I used to get from an acquaintance and had not found for years. Afterwards, we headed to the restaurant.

Comic Planet is an American-food eatery set around the superhero theme – murals on the walls, actual-size figures from DC and Marvel films, and even some prop reproductions. The dishes are “inspired by” superheroes and villains, with a lot of colourful additions.

When making the reservation, I was luckily able to book the table I wanted – and lacking any John Constantine decoration, who is my favourite “almost mainstream” comic character, the table I aimed for was the Aquaman one; I liked Aquaman before Jason Momoa made him officially cool. To be honest, even if I really wanted to check the restaurant out, I was a bit limited on what I could order – way too much coriander. I wanted a burger and a dessert – and a coke chilled with vanilla ice-cream (Coke & Vainilla Ice 1923). Unfortunately, our third party member was almost forty minutes late, so in order to keep the table we needed to exchange desserts for a starter. When the three of us were there, we ordered our mains.

Our starter (for two) was the “Infinity Gauntlet”: cheese sticks wrapped in dough (tequeños) with five sauces – tartar, spicy, mango, BBQ and comic special “cocktail”. The name of the dish refers a weapon created by Thanos, villain in the Marvel comics Avengers, made famous by the films.

My main was a Cat Burger (a reference to Batman’s Catwoman) – a “snobbish” beef patty with caramelised onion, duck foie gras and melted Brie cheese, with regular chips. My relatives ordered a Super Comic Burger (Grilled beef with egg, Oldenburger cheese, fried plantain, guanciale and “kryptonite” – whatever that is. The bread was… blue, and the chips red) and a Hellboy brioche (smoked and spiced pork, natural tomato, Edam cheese, egg, red onion pickled in lime, coriander, mustard and sugar), a reference to Dark Horse Comics’ Hellboy, one of the few creator-owned characters out there.

One of the greatest things of the restaurant is that you get to hang around and take pictures with and of everything. The restaurant has two floors, and you are free to explore them. Aside from the murals and real-life figures, there are busts of bad guys, and even a homage to one of the most prolific comic-creators in history, Stan Lee. They also have a store with a bunch of merch (surprisingly… no actual… comics).

Afterwards, because the weather was nice and the forecast was rain all the following week, we walked down to the Comunidad Evangélica de Habla Alemana – Friedenskirche (German-Speaking Evangelical Community – Church of Peace), who were running a video mapping show in their church, Genesis.

The show follows the first three days described in the Christian Bible’s Book of Genesis, as God creates the earth. On the first day, God separated light from darkness; on the second day, God created Heaven (the sky in some versions), and on the third, he created the lands, seas and vegetation (nature in some translations). The church is a Neoromanesque building with mosaics which helps the otherworldly aura of the experience.

The show, designed by the company Enoarium has five parts: First Day: Light; Second Day: Sky; Third Day, first part: Water and Land; Third Day, second part: Nature; Meditation. When we went in, there were already lights on, a pretty universe-like lighting. There were pouffes to sit / lean on the floors and chairs. I chose a pouffe, thinking that it would be hard to stand up later, but oh well. I had about an hour to get round to it. It was a really good idea, because watching the ceiling was much more comfortable than having to look up.

It was a bit difficult to notice when the one day became the next, because the lights flowed really nicely and one theme faded into another. First, the whole church went dark, and there was a bit of light in the centre of the ceiling that became wider and wider. The white light started mixing with blue, which first was the sky and eventually turned into the sea. Gold / brown bits after a while represented the land, then more blue / purple as more sea, and when it turned green we had reached the creation of vegetation, which exploded in tons of colourful flowers. Eventually, everything dissolved into candles and lamps. The music was nice, too, mostly coral in Latin, I think.

Afterwards, we separated and I headed off to the train which – what else is new – was stupidly delayed, so I was stuck at the station for almost 40 minutes until my train came. The only good thing was that another in the same general direction came three minutes before, so most people got onto that, and mine was pretty empty.

20th March 2024: Mundo Pixar (Madrid, Spain)

Due to some kind of weird… extended family thing, we ended up with some vouchers for Pixar World Spain Mundo Pixar, happening in IFEMA in Madrid. It would have been a pity to waste all of the tickets, so there we went, on a Wednesday morning, to at least redeem a couple of them. This immersive exhibit comprises several rooms with life-sized scenarios and characters based on Pixar films.

Pixar is an American animation studio which started off as part of the Lucasfilm computer division back in 1979. For over a decade, the group collaborated with graphic design and CGIas a third-party, until it was properly founded as an independent company in 1986. Pixar collaborated with Disney creating computer animations, and kept developing the technology, until it was finally able to pitch its first feature film to Disney – Toy Story, which was also the first-ever completely computer-animated film. Released for the 1995 Christmas season, it was a world-wide hit. Pixar became part of Disney in 2006.

The studio’s films have received 23 Academy Awards, eleven times for Best Animated Feature (a category added in 2001). One of the characteristics of Pixar films is their layering – though they are marketed as children’s entertainment, they tend to have a deeper, more adult-oriented subtext that… kids don’t even grasp. Something weird is that despite its successes, Pixar always seems on the brink of bankruptcy…

We had tickets for 11:00, and thought we had plenty of time until we got caught in a huge traffic jam due to a fair in another part of IFEMA. We had over 45 minutes of leeway, and ended up taking half an hour just to be able to get into the parking lot from the roundabout 650 metres away. That was wild.

We finally got into the queue around 10:50, and it took a while to get in. Mundo Pixar is organised in a U-shaped circuit, so that you can get round to the shop before or after seeing the exhibit. For a weekday, it was packed – not only by families, a bunch of random friend groups and tourists, too. Interesting.

We accessed through a tunnel to the first space, which is a bit of a self-promotion video mixed with the rules of the game – mostly, the one that people seemed unable to follow: do not touch. The immersive experience takes you to recreated scenarios from several films by the studio, to the slightest detail. The rooms are supposed to have different smells, but we only perceived a few. And of course, people kept touching.

Rooms 1 & 2: Up. This films tells the story of an old widower who goes on a last “adventure” to Paradise Falls, where his late wife would have loved to live. To do this he… floats his house away with thousands of balloons. He meets kid Russel and dog Dug. The rooms include a view of the whole house, and one of the interior. The living room is a perfect reconstruction of the one in the film, down to the pictures and the armchairs where Ellie and Carl sit, and the device Carl builds to steer the house while it flies.

Room 3: Monsters Inc.. This is a take on a widespread childhood obsession, the monster in the closet. In another dimension, energy is powered by the screams of frightened children from our world – thus, monsters sneak into kids’ rooms using magic doors to their wardrobes. Sully and Mike are the top-scary team until they run into a toddler who turns their lives upside down. The room has different bits from the film, including the scream factory doors and the two main characters waving awkwardly, recreating a scene where Mike and Sully are made to pose for a picture – I kinda expected them to move.

Room 4: Toy Story. A bunch of toys which / who become sentient when they are not being played with get a new companion, who does not know he’s actually a toy. Enter a house-move, a bully neighbour, and a nasty dog. Chaos (and a trio of sequels) ensues. The fun part of this room is that it’s built so you see the room from one of the toys’ perspective, everything is high up, and the toys themselves are scaled.

Room 5: Elemental. This is a coming-of-age romantic comedy which focuses on overcoming differences. You walk into a train car with the two characters – a water element and a fire element, awkwardly sitting next to each other.

Room 6: Inside Out. In this coming-of-age comedy-drama, every person (and cat) has five basic feelings: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust and Fear. They control a person’s life using a big console, and they collect “core memories” to help with their job. A young girl’s Joy and Sadness must learn to work together to overcome moving to another city. The room shows a perfect life-size reproduction of Sadness and Joy at the console and all the core memories.

Room 7: Ratatouille. This films follows the adventures and misadventures of the rat Remy, struggling to become a chef – to do this he hides in the hat of a young man and “guides” his cooking. The title is a pun between the word rat and a French recipe. The room is a huge kitchen, and you see Remy cooking inside a huge chef hat.

Room 8 & 9: Coco. Set around Mexico’s Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos), this film sees a young boy, Miguel, explore his family roots and his love of music. The first room shows Miguel and his grandmother, and the second area holds skeleton Héctor, a dead musician who accompanies Miguel in his adventures.

Room 10: Luca. This film tells the story of two sea-monster children (Luca and Alberto) and a human child (Giulia), and deals with friendship and acceptance in the Italian Riviera in 1959. The room hosts the size-appropriate children, with Giulia – and her cat – getting the most prominent set.

Room 11: Cars. The film is set in a world populated only by anthropomorphic vehicles. Arrogant young racing car Lightning McQueen learns about humility, sportsmanship and friendship. There was a nice staff member taking pictures of visitors in this room, with the film’s main character.

Room 12: Finding Nemo. Nemo is a little clownfish, the only survivor from a barracuda attack in which his overprotective father, Marlin, lost his wife and all their other fertilised eggs. When Nemo gets “fished”, Marlin embarks on a crazy journey to find him, meeting amnesic surgeon fish Dory, wannabe-vegetarian shark Bruce, and surfer turtle Crush. To be honest, finding Nemo in this room was easy. He was in the middle of it, surrounded by marine mist, with jellyfish and the rest of the characters on a screen behind him. I was severely disappointed there was no Bruce whatsoever in the room.

This was the last room; afterwards there was the shop, and a small photocall with a giant Luxo (a yellow bouncing ball with a blue band and a red star), back at the beginning. I am not sure this area actually counted as a room, because we were told there were thirteen rooms? No clue.

Fortunately, when we left, the traffic jam had dissipated. Unfortunately, I had to go work in the evening, which did not feel great. I obviously enjoyed the rooms dedicated of films I had watched (and liked) more than the others – I personally find the first ten minutes of Up heart-wrenching, but Finding Nemo was my favourite (both as a film and a room). I still uphold my protests about shark discrimination though!

17th March 2024: Council Houses & Royal Collections (Madrid, Spain)

Madrid’s town hall opened a new season of their “walking Madrid” Pasea Madrid to show off some of the usually closed-off monuments in the greater area of the city. I’ve signed up for a few before (also under the name of open for restoration); while I am not a fan of guided visits, the program grants access to otherwise closed off places. This time I was lucky enough to get a spot for the old town hall Casas Consistoriales.

The original council house was built around 1645, following the plans by Juan Gómez de Mora, in the Herrerian style – the exterior is sober and barely decorated, erected in bare brick, with towers in the corners. The interior used to host a square courtyard, around which the whole dependences were designed. Subsequent remodellings closed off that patio, gave the construction a balcony overlooking Main Street, and exchanged the wooden roof for black slate. Even later, the structure was connected to the nearby palace Casa de Cisneros, a Plateresque palace built round 1537, by a passageway on the second floor. The two buildings were the main site of the town hall until 2011. Nowadays, the complex hosts some offices and is used for special events.

After going through the metal detector / X ray machine, we gathered at the entrance. The visit took one hour, and we were shown some of the most important points in both buildings, permanently followed by an armed security guard. In the actual Casa Consistorial, we saw the monumental staircase, the “royal room” with a fantastic glass lamp and frescoed ceilings, the so-called “crystal courtyard”, whose ceilings is a stained glass window, and the room where the council meetings used to take place, now used for formal events.

We crossed over to the palace Casa de Cisneros, where we saw the library, several meeting rooms and the “Andalusian staircase” with ceramic tiles, until we finally reached the actual yard, built in brick, but with some original decorations similar to those found in the palaces of Guadalajara (Infantado and Condesa de la Vega del Pozo).

The whole thing took about 50 minutes, including checking in, security and introductory explanation. It was extremely rushed, and I still find being followed by a guard a bit unnerving. However, I got to see the two buildings, which is what I wanted.

Afterwards, I went to a new museum recently opened by the Spanish Heritage service Patrimonio Nacional, called the “Royal Galleries” – Galería de las Colecciones Reales. The massive space was built into the ground of the terraces that separate the upper area of the Royal palace from its gardens (Jardines del Campo del Moro), and consists of three floors. The building is completely accessible by wheelchair, having ramps instead of stairs. The collection comprises part of the art pieces owned by the State that were originally purchased by the Royal Families before the 1975 Constitution and the 1982 Law. The uppermost floor contains the pieces collected by the early monarchs, especially the Catholic Monarchs and the Habsburg Dynasty. There are a lot of tapestries, armours and so on, as we are talking the Middle Ages. I also found some Last Wills and Testaments, and the first ever Spanish Grammar, by Antonio de Nebrija (1492). During construction of the building, the archaeological remains of the foundations of the first Royal Palace in Madrid were found, so those have been incorporated into the exhibit.

The second underground floor, deeper below, holds the Bourbon collection, from Felipe V (king 1700 – 1746, he abdicated on his son, who died, and he had to go back to the throne) to Alfonso XIII (king 1886 – 1931, when went into exile upon the start of the Second Republic). This is more… French-style, of course, with paintings, decorative items, chariots, and actual objects of everyday use. Here are exhibited works by Goya and Velázquez, musical instruments, and the first photographs.

The third floor is a temporary exhibition of royal chariots and cars, including a Rolls Royce, a couple of sleighs, and a sedan chair. It kind of looks that it’s going to be a forever temporary exhibitions though…

The Galleries were rather… underwhelming. After all, there are quite a few royal palaces and sites in Spain, all lavishly decorated, and most of the paintings are in the museum Museo del Prado, one of the largest painting galleries in the world. This felt a bit of a haphazard collection of “stuff we did not know where to host”. I really struggled to find any link or logic beyond “this king bought this”. And even if it was chaotic of sorts, it felt quite short of other places like the Victoria & Albert museum in London. I am not sure they will “fill it up” eventually, or if the main items will remain in their dedicated locations.

Oh, and in case you are wondering why I did not check out St. Patrick’s parade… It was the day before…

12th March 2024: A free afternoon – the bullring & Pompeii Exhibition (Madrid, Spain)

Due to life being weird sometimes, I was summoned to a work-related event in Madrid on the morning of the 12th. The event took place in one of the buildings erected by Antonio Palacios, the cultural centre Círculo de Bellas Artes (CBA). The centre hires out its facilities for conventions, gatherings and theatre plays. In our case, we were there for the presentation of a new product in the Column Hall Sala de Columnas on the fourth floor.

After all the necessary chatting, networking, and a disappointing (and rather questionable) choice of canapés, the event was over at 14:30. I ditched my companion then and headed out to Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas, the local bullring. I am not a bullfighting fan – my personal view is that it is not an art, nor a “fair fight” as it is presented, and I hope we humans evolve to phase it out. And while I would not attend an event, I was curious to get to know the building and its architecture.

The ring is the largest of its kind in Spain. It was designed by José Espelius in the neo-mudéjar style and erected between 1919 and 1931. The central ring is just over 60 m in diameter, with a metallic structure holding the stands around it, and a façade of reddish brick and porcelain tiles. Aside from bullfighting, it is also used for concerts and other events.

I took a self-guided tour with an audio-guide Las Ventas Tour Experience, because I actually know nothing about bullfighting – I learnt that it actually has “rules”, I thought it was just taunting and hurting the bull. The passes have names, and there is a whole colour code of handkerchiefs – I had no idea. The tour takes you past the “Great Gate” through which bullfighters come out through when they are deemed to have done a great job. Then you climb up to the first floor balconies, and you can even go up to the highest point to have a panoramic view. You see the outside of the Royal Box, the gate through which the dead bull is brought out through, and then you walk down to the ring itself. There you can stand in the areas where the bullfighters and their helpers wait, and peer towards the stables, the closed door to the infirmity and finally the chapel. There are two VR experiences too that I did not care for, so instead of the expected 75 minutes, I took a bit less than an hour to do the whole tour.

Afterwards, I was curious to check out an immersive exhibition regarding Pompeii called “the last days of Pompeii” Los Últimos Días de Pompeya in the cultural hub Matadero Madrid. It was designed by Madrid Artes Digitales, the same company which organised the Tutankhamun one. At first I was not overly interested in it, but when I went to Recópolis the guide mentioned an actual VR tour, and I became curious (read: it was totally FOMO in the end).

The exhibit has a couple of replicas of archaeological artefacts, but it’s mostly a digital display. The first time I went to the Madrid Artes Digitales building I thought they had rented the place, but now I saw that they might actually own the warehouse and design the exhibits into it. There is a huge room where they project a sort-of film on the walls, a small circuit that you walk doing different activities, and a sitting VR ward, where you get to see a fictional world in 3D.

Of course, there were replicas of the Pompeii casts, and a copy of the novel The Last Days of Pompeii, written by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, which has inspired the exhibit. The novel, in turn, was sparkled by the painting The Last Day of Pompeii. The projection recreated a few passages from the book, then Mount Vesuvius erupted and you were taken “into” the crater, seeing lava bubbling and lightning bolts. Then one was back in the city as the pyroclastic cloud rolled into the city, along with volcanic bombs falling into buildings.

The circuit was a VR walk-through that took you though a house, both in ruins and reconstructed, as a woman led you through it. Walking with the VR glasses was a new experience, I have to admit, but going through doors was strange. Unfortunately, my set had a finger print in one of the lenses which spoiled the view a little. In the final ward, there was a representation of a circus fight with gladiators and tigers that turned into a naumachia (ship games in the amphitheatre) while Mount Vesuvius erupted in the background. All in all, it was a bit weird, and maybe… a tad on the morbid side, if you ask me.

Afterwards I just headed off, and I was lucky to make it into the train, it was so full! The car emptied out enough to sit down after a few stops, but just wow.

9th March 2024: Minerals, fossils & trains (Madrid, Spain)

I might not be the most people-person ever, but if there is something that makes conventions extra fun, it is seeing attendees unapologetically geek out about what they love – in the case of Expominerales, that would be… rocks. Of course, this is an over-simplification. Expominerales is held yearly in the mine and energy engineering school Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de Minas y Energía (ETSIME) in Madrid. The year 2024 marks the 43rd edition of the event, which is considered one of the most important fairs in Spain in the topic of Earth Sciences – minerals, fossils, gems, and meteorites are widely available to the public. Aside from the small historical museum Museo Histórico-Minero Don Felipe de Borbón y Grecia, there were dozens of exhibitors with all kinds of items for sale, ranging from a few euro to several thousands. These year there were a few lectures, too, and coincidentally, the two of them I was most interested in happened on Saturday, one after the other.

I arrived at the ETSIME around 11:00, and I walked around the stands a couple of times. I have to say that I wanted everything, but I set a budget and I was able to stay around it, after shopping and lunch. At noon, I settled to listen to the lectures – one about the rehabilitation of an ancient gypsum mine in a hamlet called Hornillos de Cerrato, in the area of León. The other one versed about the uses of an already-rehabilitated one in the south of Spain, home to a huge geode. Both of them were pretty interesting, though the conference room was freezing. Someone had forgotten to turn on the heater there, it seemed…

After the two conferences, I had a last round to buy a last thing, so in the end I bought an iron-meteorite pendant, a fossilised shark tooth pendant, a plesiosaur tooth, and a soil sample of the K–T boundary. A plesiosaur was a marine reptile with flippers, a short tail and a long neck. The K–T boundary (now named the Cretaceous–Palaeogene (K–Pg) boundary) is the theoretical layer of iridium-rich black sand that was formed by the meteorite that caused the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs – and basically most life at the time, in one of the great world-wide extinctions in the history of Earth.

At 14:30, I had a reservation for lunch at a Japanese franchise called Ramen Shifu. While I had originally been looking forward to trying the ramen (and I got my hopes pumped up when I read that they were Hakata ramen style), the noodles were rather disappointing. Fortunately, the okonomiyaki – Japanese pizza of sorts, made with a base of cabbage and topped with sauce and bonito flakes, was all right. On top of everything, paying was stupidly difficult because they did not have change.

When I came out of the restaurant though, it was raining like crazy. I pulled out my umbrella and hopped towards the closest underground station, as my next destination was inside the metro system – one of the Underground’s museum network Museos de Metro de Madrid the collection of classic trains Estación de Chamartín: Exposición trenes históricos, inside the Chamartín stop. The exhibition displays four historical trains, restored from among the first ones that ran under the city, and some memorabilia. It was a bit underwhelming – more like false advertisement. I hoped I would be able to snoop inside the trains, since that was the photograph that opened the webpage, but unfortunately they were cordoned off. There was however a map with the works by Antonio Palacios in Madrid, which will become handy eventually.

Afterwards, I just headed off towards the train station and got back home.

24th February 2024: Feria de las Mercaderías de San Matías 2024 (Tendilla, Spain)

Going to the Medieval Fair in Tendilla around the festivities of Saint Matthew’s Feria de las Mercaderías de San Matías seems to have become a tradition. Though they close off the village to traffic, I know the area well enough to know where to ditch the car so I can get in and out easily. Since last year, I’ve been driving in early on Saturday, before the scheduled events start so I can help out with the shopping for the day – there’s the tradition of cooking breadcrumbs, migas at my relatives’, and it’s a big meal, so we usually need to get some last-minute stuff.

The weather forecast was miserable – and there was the risk of a huge storm like the previous day, so this year there were fewer stands and visitors. That, in turn, meant I ran into many more acquaintances than usual, as it was harder to blend in…

After getting everything ready, we left the house around 11:30 to walk around the already-set stands and look at the communal migas. There was not much of interest on display. We walked into the women’s association ladies, giving out confectionery items, and we tried those. A bit after noon, the opening parade set off, with musicians, dancers and giant puppets.

Then we found a place at the edge of Main Square Plaza de la Constitución, to watch the equestrian show by the group Caballeros del Alarde, called Privilegio de Juan II de Castilla. It was very similar to the one they did in 2023 – they make sure that the square is covered in sand and prepare two U-shaped courses and they do different activities on the horses, trying to emulate a joust. At the end, they brought out a small hawk – which they called “fat” – so it got used to people. During the show there was a few minutes’ worth of hail, nothing serious. It was chilly all through the day, though.

Afterwards, we went home to make lunch and we happily ate our migas – breadcrumbs seasoned with paprika and fried with garlic and minced chorizo, with a sunny-side-up fried egg on top. Some people like eating them with grapes or orange bits, but I just like them “plain”, so I ate the fruit later.

Once fed, family needed to entertain some guests and I made myself scarce. I headed out on my own, and I went to see the animals at the exhibit at Plaza de Vicente Mariño. It was still early and bright, so I decided to climb up to the ruined monastery Monasterio de Santa Ana. As spring was nearly upon the village, the almond trees were in bloom despite the cold, and it was really pretty.

I went back home and we decided to show up to the “guided visit” that the town hall organised. Right now, this is the only way to see the recreation of a traditional house that has been built in the ethnography museum Museo etnográfico. It made me feel old, because there were a lot of things that I was used to seeing – and using – when I was a kid. However, the guide was… not too good. She even said things like “oh, I’m not rural, I wouldn’t know what that is” about some items.

Afterwards, we tried to find a good spot to watch the parade-show by the cultural group Asociación Gentes de Guadalajara, which started after dusk. They played the funeral parade for the Count of Tendilla Cortejo fúnebre con el catafalco de D. Íñigo López de Mendoza, I Conde de Tendilla. Born in the Mendoza family, one of the most powerful clans during the Castilian Middle Ages, he was a politician and warrior. The Count participated in the power struggle before Isabel I was proclaimed Queen of Castile. He died in 1479, and was originally buried in the monastery Monasterio de Santa Ana. Later, his tomb was relocated to Guadalajara, and eventually destroyed during the Civil War. The whole thing was very solemn, and we ended up catching the parade at three or four points. We even could catch part of it from the balcony at home as they turned to “bury” the Count in the church.

We went back to the square Plaza de la Constitución to watch the last show of the day – by now dark night. It was supposed to involve the Knights Templar arriving, and then dancers and jugglers, but apparently the Templars got lost. A lady danced with fire, and there was a scuffle with fire swords, but no knights. That was a bit of a bummer.

Afterwards, I went to find my car and drive back before all the Sunday drivers finished having their dinner and left. I hoped that would mean fewer idiots on the road. Unfortunately though, I still could not avoid the stereotypical idiot using full-beam headlights behind me. It seems there is always one of those when I drive at night.

23rd February 2024: Zorita de Los Canes & Recópolis (Spain)

Zorita de los Canes is a hamlet at the bank of River Tagus, in the middle of nowhere in the Spanish Central Plateau. It was founded as an Almoravid dynasty fortress (alcazaba), however the stones that erected the castle are much, much older. The fortress was built around the 12th – 13th centuries, and although ruined, it used to be visitable – not at the moment though. The stones to build the castle were quarried from an even older settlement, which today is known as the archaeological site of Recópolis.

During the Middle Ages, Zorita was extremely disputed. After the Moors built the alcazaba, the town was taken over by the Christians, then recovered by the Almoravid dynasty, until it was conquered by Christian king Alfonso VII. The village was entrusted to the Order of Calatrava, the first military order to be founded in the Kingdom of Castile, who were to defend it against the Almohad Caliphate.

I’d been wanting to go to Recópolis for a while, and I found out that the archaeological sites in the area are free until the end of the year, so I thought it would make a nice mini-trip. I booked the ticket a few days in advance as it seemed that the weather would be cold but dry, albeit windy. I thought it could be a good chance before fuel prices go up again.

I had an early lunch and drove off with the idea to get to the archaeological site around quarter to three, as I was booked for three o’clock and the ticket said to arrive ten minutes in advance. The drive was a bit faster than I thought, but the Sat-Nav sent me on a completely different route than Google had, which made me a bit insecure about timings. That’s why, even if I saw a couple of villages that looked interesting, I decided not to stop and explore them, I could do it on my way back. Suddenly, the ruined castle came into view. I pulled over in a safe place to admire it and checked the time – I was good. Thus, I drove into Zorita de Los Canes and stopped at a small parking lot at the entrance of the village. I parked next to the river Tagus Río Tajo, which gave me a couple of nice views.

Part of the Medieval wall still stands, and access to hamlet’s core is done through an ancient gate, which I was happy to cross on foot. There was a small church, and at the summit of the peak stands the derelict castle Castillo de Zorita de los Canes. I decided not to climb as I knew it was closed, and after a few minutes, I got back into the car and drove off.

All in all, I was in town for about a quarter of an hour, and did not drive for longer than three or four minutes before I parked at the entrance of the archaeological site Parque Arqueológico de Recópolis. The interpretation centre was empty and locked, and I was the only car in the parking lot. The time was around 14:30 at that point and I decided to wander around for a bit, as there was what looked like a hiking trail amongst the fields. I found a nice lookout of the castle, but not the ruins themselves.

The discovery of Recópolis is credited to Juan Catalina García López in 1893. Juan Cabré Aguiló started the excavation in 1945, and found a “little treasure” (tesorillo) of coins from looting (one of them fake). Of Visigoth origin, it predates the Moorish town by a few centuries. It was erected around the year 578 by king Leovigildo in honour of his son Recaredo, who would go on to become the first of the Christian kings of Spain.

The city followed the byzantine pattern. There were two perpendicular streets, one of which lead to the palatial area, with shops to the side. Recópolis became important enough to mint its own coins, but the crisis of the Visigoth state lead to it conquest by the Moors in the 8th century. The city was slowly abandoned and became a quarry for the nearby settlement of Zorita. Later, in the 11th century, Christian settlers built a church and a small village, which had been abandoned by the 15th century.

The whole archaeological area spreads 30 hectares, out of which eight have been excavated. The interpretation centre has a few replicas of artefacts that have been found – due to security concerns, no originals are kept on site. To be honest, I was not surprised – I could have walked into the site and left without anyone stopping or even seeing me. When I arrived, it was me and the vultures, and I had a bit of a flashback to that time at the cave Cueva de los Casares, and even fantasised a little about being alone to explore the site. The guide arrived on time and opened the centre, and I was still the only one there, which was weird – I know for a fact that there were a bunch of reservations for 15:00, but only I showed up. Maybe the others became discouraged because of the weather?

The nice tour guide suggested waiting for a few minutes to give time for others to arrive, and offered me the VR experience. I accepted, of course – I’m not going to turn down such a thing. It was really fun, because you could pick up objects as the local goddess and a little child showed you around a reconstruction of the town, the palace and a glass workshop.

Afterwards, we headed off towards the ruins – nobody else had shown up. The guide offered to let me stay after the tour to take all my pictures so I decided to just listen to him as he explained and pointed to some very interesting details – a bit giddy inside. Would I really be alone eventually? He showed me the church, the palace and the grain silos in the ground, where grain was stored. He also took me to the palace and pointed out the main streets, and taught me how to differentiate the Moorish construction (criss-crossed materials) from the original Visigoth one (parallel architectural stones).

We also chatted a little and I mentioned I hoped it did not rain – he said that it had been threatening rain all week, but it would be all right. I eyed the black cloud approaching and hoped he was right.

Spoiler alert: he was not.

After finishing the guided visit, I was left alone indeed. I went around the main area of the archaeological site, and when I was in the church, the storm broke out. I had an umbrella, but I still got drenched. Interestingly though, even if it was raining and windy, it was suddenly not as cold as before. However, I had to give up eventually, since taking pictures was too difficult. As I decided to return to the visitor centre, the cloud finally moved through, and rain slowed down. I was heading down the hill towards the visitors’ centre when it finally cleared completely. I stopped, wondering whether to leave or come back, and when I looked up I saw a rainbow, sprouting right out of the castle. There were even vultures flying against the retreating cloud. It was really cool.

I felt motivated again, so I went back to the ruins of the city to take a few more pictures – after all, it was really cool to be all alone in the archaeological site. I wandered among the houses where it was allowed, and went to the edge of the site to take it all in, then I walked back. As I was in the middle of the street, a griffon vulture circled me a couple of times, maybe wondering if I was food – I think staying where I was taking pictures did not help? It eventually left, and I headed back to the centre, where I arrived just in time to watch the little video documentary about the Visigoth town.

I left afterwards, and I got caught in the storm again – thus I did not stop in any village on the way. The first half of the drive was miserable in the rain, but then it cleared out, and the rest of it was all right. Fortunately, I did not run into too many other cars either. I got home around sunset and went to bed early since I had to wake up early the following day.

Nevertheless, now I’ve got a VIP (VOP? Very only person?) experience, alone in an archaeological site, which is added value to the whole thing and I loved every second of it, even with the rain.

17th February 2024: Hita, Medieval villa (Spain)

Today, Hita is barely more than a hamlet at the foot of a hill, lost in the middle of the Spanish central plateau, in the Guadalajara region. Its origins date back to pre-Roman times, and the settlement was first recorded in Roman roadmaps. The area later became part of the Caliphate until 1085, when it was conquered by king Alfonso VI and the town was incorporated to the Crown of Castile. The town flourished in the Middle Ages. In the 14th century, a then-famous poet, known as Juan Ruiz, the Archpriest of Hita (Arcipreste de Hita), wrote one of the most important literary works in Spanish-speaking history, the Libro del Buen Amor (Book of Good Love), a bit of a parody of the local society of the times in poem form.

Also in the 14th century, the lord Íñigo López de Mendoza took over the region. He rebuilt the castle from the ruined Moorish alcazaba and erected a wall around the settlement. However, the village eventually lost its importance, inhabitants, and vineyards, as the feudal system evolved. It was mostly destroyed during the Civil War in the 20th century. In 1961, historian Manuel Criado de Val wrote a play based on the Book of Good Love and it was played in the town square. People liked the idea, which eventually grew into the town’s Medieval Theatre Festival. It revitalised the village a little, and the first summer of June, the town fills up with plays, a marketplace, tournaments and jousts, and people dressing in period clothing. Today, Hita has fewer than 300 inhabitants, and it’s trying to build a reputation as a picturesque day trip “Medieval villa” – it has even built a visitors’ parking lot.

We arrived around 11:00, and left the car at the entrance of the village, in said parking lot. By 11:20 we had walked by all the whole historical centre – which, given how the town is promoted as a Medieval marvel, was a little underwhelming. We parked in front of the area named stockade or palisade, Palenque, where the medieval tournaments are carried out. Its construction is fairly recent, so it does not hold any historical importance outside the festival.

Next to the Palenque stands one of the remaining sections of the medieval walls Muralla Medieval that still remain around the village. There is also the sculpture of a semi-mythical figure – Álvar Fañez de Minaya. Minaya was Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, El Cid’s, right-hand man. El Cid’s deeds are known from the Spanish epic poem Cantar de Mío Cid, which presents him as someone akin a Round Table knight. Though he probably did exist – along with his lieutenant – he was probably more of a mercenary and a warlord than the legendary hero.

The access to the historical centre is done through the stone gate Puerta de Santa María, the only one of the wall entrances that has survived – although it has been heavily restored. It was originally an arch, in civilian gothic; today the upper part is completely reconstructed, with two turrets. In front of the gate stands the pillory Picota, which signals that in medieval times there was a justice department.

The village is small, and mostly uphill. There is a main square, some ruins, and a church. Since the church was closed and we could not snoop around, we decided to visit the local museum and sign up for the guided visit that was offered, as they would open the visitable monuments up.

The museum, Casa Museo del Arcipreste, multitasks as archaeological display, ethnographic museum, festival promotion, and recreation of the Archpriest’s writing chamber, with some facsimiles of the pages. There are masks from the festivals, and the town’s botargas.

When the guided visit started, we first overlooked the landscape. We got a commentary of the location of the village and its historical importance, and the kind of soil and crops that used to and still are grown in the area. I had chosen the weekend because the weather was going to be nice, and it was – especially no wind, which would have made things awkward.

We then visited the ruins of Saint Peter’s church Ruinas de la Iglesia de San Pedro. Originally a Romanesque temple turned mudéjar, it was blown up during the Civil War. Today, only the altar stands, and it is used as stage for cultural acts. As a memento of its original mission, the town has kept the tombstone of the last governor of the castle before it was destroyed, still on the ground.

We moved onto the church Iglesia de San Juan Bautista. The building was erected in the mudéjar style throughout the 14th and 15th century. The tower is herrerian, erected in the 16th century. Inside, the most remarkable detail are the wooden ceilings, also dating from the 16th century. The floor is sprinkled with gravestones that used to be in the other church. There are two baptism fountains, and a small statue of the Virgin Mary with the Child, carved halfway between Romanesque and Gothic styles. Then she was embellished with baroque jewellery.

Thankfully, we only looked at the ruins of the castle,and did not climb up to it – today, only a wall and the base of a tower stand, high up the hill that in the Medieval Age controlled the whole plain.

Instead, we were invited to peer into a bodego, a traditional cave-house. The one we saw was restored, but it felt pretty authentic. There was a bedroom, a kitchen, and the end of the dwelling was more cave-like, working as stable and barn. The smell was damp, and it was good that they’ve put electric lights on it, because the tiny windows would have made it a little claustrophobic.

We then descended towards the main square Plaza Mayor, which was the old marketplace and even older synagogue. A hollow on the wall has been used to recreate a cell where the Archpriest was imprisoned. Opposite the wall, there are popular architecture houses, with typical porticos.

To end the visit, we looked at the gate Puerta de Santa María, and then were invited to see a traditional wine cellar excavated into the medieval wall. Though wine production was abandoned long ago, the cellar Bodega de Doña Bellida still exists with its traditional structure and huge clay vessels. It was excavated into the mountain, just like the bodego.

There was not much more to see in the village, so we just headed off afterwards. I was a bit underwhelmed about the whole thing, I am not going to lie.

11th February 2024: The Parade of the Wood Dragon (Madrid, Spain)

Chinese New Year started on the 10th of February of the Gregorian (solar) calendar. Many East Asian countries follow a lunisolar calendar, in which the New Year falls on the second new moon after the winter solstice. In China, it is usually referred to as the Spring Festival, and outside it as Lunar New Year. For a while now, the Chinese diaspora in Madrid has been celebrating with a parade in the District of Usera, the so-called “Madrid Chinatown”, which will eventually have traditional gates and panda decorations in order to try to be developed as a tourist area. Since the parade was on a Sunday, I decided that I would attend.

The equivalent to 2024 is the Year of the Wood Dragon. The Chinese calendar uses a combination of twelve animals that conform the Zodiac (rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig) and the five elements of Feng Shui (wood, fire, earth, metal and water) to name the years. The dragon represents prosperity, authority and good fortune. The Wood Dragon brings abundance and improvident, so it seems to be a promising year!

After keeping an eye on the ever-changing weather and rain predictions, I decided to bite the bullet and go, whatever happened. The parade was due to start at noon, and rain was to come a couple of hours later. I packed an umbrella, a waterproof bag inside my backpack, and my all-you-can-travel train pass. I picked up my sibling on the way.

We reached the district of Usera a bit after 11:00, with plenty of time until the start of the parade at noon. We found a street barrier and set positions, ready to wait out the cold until the parade started. I had read that it would last about three hours, but I thought that meant in total – since the first person went out at the beginning of the parade until the last person reached the end. I had never been to Usera before so I had no idea how long the streets were. In the end, the parade took about an hour and forty-five minutes to pass in front of the point where we were. There are a lot of Chinese associations! I do not really know if they were all based in Madrid, or if the Chinese diaspora of all of Spain had congregated for the occasion. And not only Chinese people marched – a lot of Spanish and Latin Americans did to.

The event was called Great Parade of the Chinese New Year of the Dragon Gran Pasacalle “Año Nuevo Chino Del Dragón”. It opened with a locomotive which “pulled” everyone behind it. There were people dressed as lions, others moving huge dragon puppets, dancers, musicians, martial artists, people in traditional clothing, acrobats, walkers on stilts… women, children, men, everyone seemed to be invited to the party. Each group got their introduction with a red banner, and lots of people carried either Chinese or Spanish flags. Some people handed out “dragon masks” for kids, and quite literally ignoring all the adults wanting one (I might have rescued one from the floor at the end of the parade). People in the parade waved and cheered Xīn nián kuài lè and Feliz Año Nuevo, “happy new year” in Chinese and Spanish. There were some drummers too, but most of the music came from portable little devices. An older lady kept telling everyone to hurry up.

About half an hour in, my memory card ran out of space. I had been aware of that being a risk for a while, so I was carrying an extra one, which unfortunately was not compatible – I have no idea why. Luckily, I could use the phone for more pictures. The worst thing about the event was the presence of the “media” – I can understand the ones who were working / recording / interviewing. However, there were also a bunch of accredited people who were just in the way, chatting on their phones or doing nothing in the way of the parade – and of pictures.

All in all, it was spectacular. I loved the lions and the dragons, and I had to wonder how many dragons come out on a non-dragon year parade. Furthermore, everyone seemed to have such a good time!

At the end of the parade there were a few South American organisations who also participated, probably because even if Usera seems to have many Chinese businesses, there are a few Peruvian and Bolivian restaurants. They seemed more Carnival-like anyway.

After the parade had finished walking in front of us, we went to try to check the food trucks and the market at the end point of the parade. Unfortunately, everyone seemed to have had the same idea, and it was packed.

Instead, we found our way back to the underground and went off towards the centre. There we had a snack at one of the big malls, where I also bought a new SD card. I asked the assistant if the card would be compatible with my camera, he had to get another assistant, who had a bit of a waiting list. This second assistant said that my camera would not take a 128 GB card. I showed her the 128 GB card I had been using. She then asked to see the card which was not compatible. I showed her that one too. She said that it was not compatible because of the adaptors, but I pointed out that the cards had the same shape. Then she said that it was not compatible because “TDKs are too slow”. The card is a Philips. Anyway, she offered to let me try the new card to check it was compatible before buying it, which guarantees it works. I bought two, just in case.

Afterwards, we headed off to the shopping gallery Galería Canalejas. This is the new luxury shopping hub in town. The complex occupies almost a whole block, having joined as many as seven historical buildings into the same project – a Four Seasons hotel (the first in Spain), a parking lot, some private residences and the shopping gallery.

The original central building was commissioned by an American insurance company and built in 1887 by the architect José Grases Riera, who designed it in. The construction homed the Insurer’s headquarters, private residences, the former casino, and small shops on the street front. It was called Palacio de la Equitativa, uniting the word “Palace” with an approximate translation of the name of the insurer. In the 20th century, the building was bought by a bank company – and Spanish banks merged, re-merged, disappeared, until finally the building was sold to a private investor in 2012. The Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Baroque façade was carefully restored, along with the Art Decó stained-glass window on the ceiling. Also, under the direction of the architectural firm Estudio Lamela, some of the bank safes were recovered for decoration. The first shop in the gallery opened in 2020, and it seems that the Madrid tourism board started promoting the complex in 2023, following a strategy to drag “luxury vacation-makers” into town.

The gallery has three floors. The basement has been used for the food court. The ground and second floor hold a lot of security guards, since there are shops like Cartier, Louis Vuitton or Valentino… There is a café on the ground floor, amongst all the luxury shops. Behind it there is a staircase that connects all three floors (aside from the escalators on the sides).

The café Galería Canalejas Café offered afternoon tea, and I was even willing to try it despite the lack of scones. But it was cold and drizzling, and I had just discovered that they had afternoon tea the day before. We sat down and ordered.

The set included:

• Café o té Coffee or tea. I chose a Japanese sencha, which was brought quite earlier than the snacks. It was really good, albeit a bit weak. I own up I had finished it almost completely by the time the food came out. I really think they should add some water to the mix.
• Savoury snacks:
  • Mini sándwich chicken coronation. Coronation Chicken mini-sandwich in a salty waffer, made with a salty waffer.
  • Mini sándwich de mortadela trufada y queso Coloummier. Coloummier cheese and truffled sausage mini-sandwich, also in a salty waffer. I think they forgot the cheese in mine…
  • Quiché de espinacas y salmón. Salmon and spinach quiche with wasabi mayonnaise. This was the best, in my opinion.
  • Crep de hummus con vegetales. Hummus and vegetables crêpe. They actually forgot to bring this one out and did so later on.
• Sweet snacks:
  • Bizcocho Valentía. A quite-heavy brioche with honey and lemon. It was nice, but I could have used a smaller size.
  • Mini churros con vainilla y chocolate. Tiny churros with vanilla and chocolate. The vanilla was actually whipped cream, but the powdered-sugar on the churros and the bitter chocolate made it a good combination.
• Petit fours: We got three of these, but I have no idea which ones. According to the publicity, you chose them yourself, but they brought them on their own. They were tiny biscuits that felt really nice to finish off the tea.
  • Bombón Canalejas
  • Diamant Madagascar
  • Florentin aux amandes
  • Noisettine
  • Trufa de turrón

All in all, it felt a little wannabe pretentious, but the staff was extra nice, and allowed us to stay there for as long as we wanted. We left when I noticed that the turn over was slow and a queue had started forming. We snooped up and down the gallery for a while before we headed off. And of course, I totally missed my train connection – what else is new?

3rd February 2024: The Botarga Parade (Guadalajara, Spain)

There is no reason to doubt the folk / pre-Christian origins of Carnival (Shrovetide). Scholars trace it back to Greek Anthesteria to honour Dyonisius and the Roman Saturnalia – Romans liked adapting everything from everyone after all, especially if a party could be had. It might even be related to Imbolc, an ancient Irish festival celebrated halfway between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox (similar to how Hallowe’en is the night between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice). In the European Middle Ages, it was around this time when people consumed all the meat they had from the winter slaughter before it went bad – and then they would have no “good” food for a while. This eventually led to the idea of fasting during Lent, when the Christian church decided to hijack the celebrations.

A lot of what we consider “Carnival” today can be traced back to Medieval Italy – it started the masquerade balls, dressing up, and the carnal parades. The most important event was the Carnival of Venice. From there, it spread into Europe and with the Spanish and Portuguese empires to the Caribbean and Latin America.

Going back to its origins, it seems clear that the celebrations were rooted in nature, especially the coming of spring. Just as Hallowe’en marks the beginning of winter, it is around Imbolc (Christians call it Candlemas, and celebrate it on the 2nd of February) that you start really noticing that the days have grown longer. They are about an hour longer than on the Winter Solstice – at Stonehenge, one of the most natural / mystical points in the world, sunset on the 2nd of February 2024 was at 16:59, while on the Winter Solstice it was 16:02. Like Hallowe’en brings out spirits and monsters, Inbolc starts conjuring spring and nature-related folklore “creatures”.

Looking at Europe, there seem to be a lot of analogous characters in Carnival traditions. The German characters Hooriger Bär (hairy bear) and Strohbär (straw bear) wear a… camouflage / leaves suit covering all its body which looks eerily similar to the English Whittlesea, the Polish niedźwiedź zapustny, the Italian Hermit (tree-man), or even the Slovenian Korant. When one looks at the Korant, it can be seen the “leaves” are actually fur (sheepskin to be precise), which would make it in turn similar to the Hungarian busós, horned and more animal-like. All these appear to represent a connection to nature, only enhanced by the German Hopfennarr, which looks like one would draw a spirit of spring. It would be easy to draw the conclusion that all these characters are indeed related to the advent of spring – both for plants and animals.

As Italy (and especially Venice) made carnival a thing in Medieval Europe, they “exported” the concept of costumes “done right” and “proper” masks. This influenced older characters, giving them a more similar look to the archetypes in the Commedia dell’arte, with colourful clothes and expressive masks. These are more generic, masked, characters as those found in Venice, though in this city every character has its own name and story.

Some of these characters – both newer masked and older nature-linked characters – seem to have their representatives in the current Spanish Carnival folklore. They seem to have been especially important in the centre of the country, more dependent on agriculture and nature cycles than those areas close to the sea. They were popular in the past, and switched from the pagan festival to the Christian one. They were stifled during Franco’s Dictatorship (with the ban on Carnival), and have been recently re-popularised by folklore enthusiast – some of them have been “rescheduled” to more touristic times than around Carnival. It is considered that the origin of these characters lies in fertility rituals and symbols – such as the orange – and dances from pre-Roman Spain, with some authors daring to call them Neolithic.

I attended a parade in Guadalajara which gathered these characters from the town and several other villages in the province. The main and more general name of the characters in this area is botarga. However, there are different characters according to what they look like: botargas, vaquillones, diablos, mascaritas, chocolateros, danzantes, and mascarones. These characters and their recovered traditions were declared Intangible Cultural Asset in 2022. The parade was a big day when most of the characters in the region came together. The parade used to take place on a Thursday before, and it was changed to the Saturday before Carnival so more people could enjoy it.

The term botarga derives from the Italian bottarga, which refers to colourful clothes related to Medieval performances and the Commedia dell’arte (aside from fish roe). The original clothes seem to have taken their name from the 16th-century actor Stefanello Bottarga, who used to wear wide pants, and play one of the archetypical characters, the vecchi (old geezers or masters). Under the name “botarga”, the province has recovered (or reinvented) a few traditions, and up to 36 single characters and groups walked the parade in Guadalajara.

The proper botarga is a usually single character, who wears a mask and garish clothes in bright colours. The masks can be made of many materials, some of them even esparto. The botarga usually carries some kind of staff, and it chases the onlookers, and sometimes pokes them for luck or fertility. Vaquillas (heiferettes) and vaquillones (literally, big male heiferettes) are characters which cover their faces with sackcloth or a similar material; they carry horns, and often cowbells; they represent cattle and are sometimes accompanied by “shepherds” (with staffs – there is a pattern there). The danzantes are dancers, and Diablos means Devils, pretty self-explanatory – some of the latter also wear horns, and a few are covered in black soot, and enjoy “dirtying” the onlookers. Mascaritas and Mascarones both derive from the word mask, and could be translated as “small masks” and “big masks”; the mascaritas are the most common character, usually women in traditional clothes covering their faces with plain white masks.. Finally, the chocolateros or chocolatiers offer the treat (which they… carry in a chamberpot) to whomever they meet – and if they are declined, they use it to “attack” their victim.

There is actually a project called The Botarga Route, with a calendar so one can see each botarga in the original village. Most come out between New Year’s Day and the end of February, but some have been “moved” to the main day of the summer festivals. The great thing about the parade I attended in Guadalajara was that it concentrated a lot of the region’s botargas and further characters, and one “guest” from another region – it was the Desfile de Botargas, Vaquillones, Diablos, Mascaritas, Chocolateros, Danzantes y Mascarones de la Provincia de Guadalajara.

The host botarga, Botarga from Guadalajara (Botarga de Guadalajara) is a team of four. They chase teens and and lightly hit them when they catch them. They play a traditional Carnival game similar to bobbing-for-apples, alhiguí. A dry fig is hung from a sort-of fishing pole, and onlookers can try and catch the fruit – the trick is that one has to use their mouth, not their hands hands. Meanwhile the botargas sing “tothefig, tothefig, not with the hands, yes with the mouth” (alhiguí, alhiguí, con las manos, no, con la boca, sí). Originally, there was only one character that came out on the 17th of January and played alhiguí with the children around the church of Santiago – El Manda (the Order-giver). Later, two more were added – Los Mandaneros (the Order-receivers), and since the custom was recovered in 1998, a new character, Botarguilla (Little Botarga) carries the basket with the figs.

First, all the characters met at Espacio TYCE, then they marched down to the Main Square in front of the town hall Plaza Mayor for the Carnival opening speech, and back.

The host botarga opened the parade. Music was provided by three teams of musicians: Grupo Dulzaineros from Guadalajara, Dulzaineros Pico del Lobo (their main instrument being the dulzaina, an instrument similar to an oboe) and Gaiteros from Villaflores (pipers). Although the parade did not take long to devolve into a lot of chaotic fun, it was organised in three bodies – single botargas, couple botargas, and teams. The signs reading “individual”, “couples” and “teams” were carried by characters wearing full-body costumes that made them look like walking grass-made men. Since I know the town a little, could I watched the parade from three spots, short-cutting from the TYCE area to the square Plaza de Bejanque , and then to Main Street Calle Mayor. Then I walked along towards Plaza Mayor Main Square, where the botargas one by one, or group by group, came on stage as the character was explained.

Aside from the music, there was a very distinctive sound – a lot of the botargas carry cowbells on their belts. The local botargas that participated in the parade are (in alphabetical order of the village they come from, and how they were called onto the stage):

• Botarga de Alarilla: Botarga from Alarilla. It comes out on the 1st of January to greet the new year and send the evil spirits away. When it is not scaring little kids or getting frisky with the single ladies, it gives out little satchels of nuts.
• Botarga de Aleas: Botarga from Aleas. The character used to come out on the 3rd of January, now it comes out on the 15th of August, for the village’s festival. The botarga and a number of dancers go around asking for money and food – especially sweets and wine.
• Botargas y Mascaritas de Almiruete: Botargas and Little Masks from Almiruete. They come out on Shrove Saturday. The botargas throw straw and the mascaritas confetti. There are three other characters – the bear, its trainer, and the heiferette.
• Botarga de Cabanillas del Campo: Botarga from Cabanillas del Campo. The two characters come out on the 3rd of February, sounding bells and cowbells to bother people and summon spring.
• Chocolateros de Cogolludo: Chocolatiers from Cogolludo. They come out on Ash Wednesday to tempt people to break the religious fast. They carry a chamberpot with creamy chocolate, and sponge cakes dipped in it. If they don’t manage to tempt the onlookers, they smear the chocolate on their faces.
• Botarga de Fuencemillán: Botarga from Fuencemillán. On the closest Saturday to the 25th of January, it dances in front of the image of Saint Peter, and chases people to get rid of the bad spirits.
• Vaquillas de Grajanejos: Vaquillas from Grajanejos. They look more like shepherds and farmers than actual cattle.
• Botarga de Hita: Botarga from Hita. Though today the two characters come out during the town’s Medieval festival in July, they are clearly Carnival characters. They represent the struggles of personified Carnival and Lent – though they dress so similarly, I could not tell who’s who.
• Botarga de Humanes: Botarga from Humanes. It comes out on the 1st of January and knocks on doors to wish a happy new year. It wears a colourful costume with 31 tinker bells and seven bells. It blocks entry to the church unless it is given a coin.
• Diablo y Vaquillas de Luzaga: Devil and Heiferettes from Luzaga. Nowadays, they come out on Shrove Saturday. The heiferettes wear red capes, a mask of sackcloths, a hat, and carry bull horns. They toll the cowbells and chase the onlookers. The devil throws straw to symbolise riches and fertility.
• Diablos y Mascaritas de Luzón: Devils and Little Masks from Luzón. The devils carry horns on their heads and cowbells on their waists. They paint their body black and use a piece of potato to feign huge teeth. They “attack” onlookers with a mixture of ash and oil. They are accompanied by the Little Masks, who are safe from their actions, wearing the typical clothing of the area and white face coverings. They come out on Shrove Saturday.
• Botarga de Majaelrayo: Botarga from Majaelrayo. This is one of the characters that comes out “off season”, on the first weekend of September, though the original festival was the third Sunday of January. It is one of the few (if not the only) unmasked ones, and it leads traditional dancing on Sunday.
• Botarga de Casados de Málaga del Fresno: Botarga of Married Couples from Málaga del Fresno. The original botarga came out on the first of January. It stopped for a while and when the tradition was picked up, the festival moved to the 24th of January, and two more masked characters, the mojigangas were added. The botarga carries a staff and a bag of candy and chases people who go and come out from mass.
• Botarga de Mazuecos: Botarga from Mazuecos. On the 23rd of January, they chase the young and hit them with their poles.
• Vaquillas de Membrillera: Heiferettes from Membrillera. They wear two tunics in different colours, a collar of bells, and horns on their waists. They come out on Shrove Saturday to chase the youth.
• Botarga de Mohernando: Botarga from Mohernando. This duo of botarga and buffoon come out on the closest Sunday to the 20th of January. Though they participate on the religious activities in a serious fashion, they chase kids and teens, and play pranks.
• Botarga de Montarrón: Botarga from Montarrón. It comes out around the 20th of January, and panhandles through the village for food and drink that is later consumed by the inhabitants. It is one of the few botargas to attend mass, leaving its bells and mask outside.
• Botarga de Muduex: Botarga from Muduex. This botarga has just been recovered, so it is writing its own tradition. It will come out on the local festival in July.
• Botarga de Peñalver: Botarga from Peñalver. It chases young men and if it caches them, it will ask them a question, and only let them go if it likes the answer. It comes out the first Sunday after the 3rd of February.
• Botarga de Puebla de Beleña: Botarga from Puebla de Beleña. This horned character takes part in the religious ceremonies to honour Saint Blaise (3rd of January) and chases people to hit them with its staff. He also knocks on doors and makes its cowbells toll to call people to mass.
• Botarga de Razbona: Botarga from Razbona. Considered a symbol of prosperity and fertility, it comes out on the closest Saturday to the 25th of January. It picks up donations for charity and cultural acts. It used to attack people who did not cooperate with ash, now it gives out candy for those who donate. However, as it is regarded as a pagan character, it won’t step into the church.
• Botarga de Retiendas: Botarga from Retiendas. It comes out on the closest Sunday to Candlemas. It dances and chases people to the beat of a drum, and takes part in the religious ceremonies.
• Vaquilla de Riba de Saelices: Heiferette from Riba de Saelices. It comes out on Carnival Saturday (though originally it was Shrove Tuesday), charging people and getting mock-stabbed in return.
• Vaquilla de Ribarredonda: Heiferette from Ribarredonda. The heiferette comes out on Shrove Sunday, tolling its cowbells. In the village, shepherds who cover their faces with sackcloth masks keep it in check with their staffs – the person playing the heiferette wears a helmet for protection.
• Botarga de Casados de Robledillo de Mohernando: Botarga of Married Couples from Robledillo de Mohernando. It comes out on the 1st of January and enters the houses to wish a happy new year and wake people up with tolls and chimes from the bells it carries.
• Botarga Infantil de Robledillo de Mohernando: Child Botarga from Robledillo de Mohernando. The only child group in the area, they come out on the closest Sunday to the 24th of January. There is a child botarga, musicians and basket-carriers. They don’t wear masks and they perform traditional dances.
• Vaquillones de Robledillo de Mohernando: Big-Male-Usherettes from Robledillo de Mohernando. Completely clad in sackcloths and carrying horns and cowbells, they charge the onlookers on Shrove Saturday.
• Botarga de Romanones: Botarga from Romanones. They come out on the last Saturday before Carnival (which was technically the day of the parade so… not sure when). The Little Masks throw confetti or flour at the ladies. They are accompanied by a shepherd and a bull – the bull is “fought and killed” a few times, as it can come back to life with a sip of “magic wine”.
• Botarga de Salmerón: Botarga from Salmerón. A group of Little Masks comes out on Shrove Saturday. They throw confetti as a fertility charm. A botarga, Tío Alhiguí (Uncle Tothefig) comes with them to play the game with children.
• Botarga de Taracena: Botarga from Taracena. It comes out on the 23rd of January. Alongside musicians, it walks through the town streets, chasing people towards the church.
• Botarga de Tórtola de Henares: Botarga from Tórtola de Henares. It comes out in the morning of Christmas Eve, knocking on doors for food. It also comes out on the 6th of January and, along the Little Masks, during Carnival.
• Botarga y Danzantes del Santo Niño de Valdenuño Fernández: Botarga and Danzantes of the Holy Child from Valdenuño Fernández. They come out the first Sunday after the 6th of January. There are records that a child got lost in 1721 everyone in the village looked for him. The botarga and the dancers recreate this event, and dance in exchange of oranges. One of the dances, the paloteo, involves the group of eight dancers clashing batons with each other.
• Botarga de Valdesaz: Botargas from Valdesaz. This group chases each other and onlookers on Shrove Saturday.
• Vaquillones de Villares de Jadraque: Big-Male-Usherettes from Villares de Jadraque. They come out on Shrove Saturday, wearing orange capes, horns and a hat, chasing anyone they come across.
• Botarga de Villaseca de Uceda: Botarga from Villaseca de Uceda. Recovered in 2023, this botarga comes out the first Saturday after the Epiphany. Its design is modern, and it has mane-looking hair.
• Botarga de Yélamos de Abajo: Botarga from Yélamos de Abajo. It is the only botarga that comes out during Holy Week (Easter) – but it actually looks a bit like a devil. On Spy Wednesday, villagers light a bonfire in front of the church, and summon the botarga with rattles. The botarga uses the bonfire to light its broom, and dances until the broom goes out. On Holy Thursday the botarga is summoned again, and asks for money. The money-giver says a prayer, the botarga kneels and a coin is inserted in the money-box hidden in the botarga’s hump. On Black Saturday, a dummy botarga is burnt in the bonfire.

Furthermore, the four botargas from Guadalajara walked (and ran) after the kids and teenagers at the head of the parade. The Mascarones (Big Masks) from Guadalajara – a cultural association which has worked really hard on the recovery of the botargas – were clad in colourful rags – a lot of them were accompanied by their kids and toddlers in marching suits, with the children handing out candy to both enthusiastic and terrified onlooking kids. The botarga from Muduex, just recovered, received a lot of attention. The kids who were part of the parade often went to give child onlookers candy.

Every year there is a “guest botarga” in the parade. In 2024, the guests are the Hamarrachos de Navalacruz, a group of very druidic-like characters, preceded by their very own flagpole. Navalacruz is a village in the Ávila region, and they have a whole party of creatures – three types: the ones covered in oak leaves, the ones covered in a hay sack, and the ones covered in fur. They seem to represent ancient winter spirits (big Hogfather vibes).

Funnily enough, I was “attacked” three times – twice by the Devils from Luzón Diablos de Luzón. They paint their bodies black and carry cowbells on their belts, horns on their heads and big teeth made from potatoes – they painted my forehead and jawline black in two different occasions. Another time, one of the Vaquillones from Robledillo de Mohernando Vaquillones de Robledillo de Mohernando mock-charged at me. I startled and he was mortified. But it was all good. Oh, and at some other point one of the Mascaritas dumped a handful of confetti on me – I had found a great spot to take pictures: right in front of a potted plant on main street. I was not in the way, since they had to ditch the plant, but I could take pictures of the characters up front.

Once the parade made it to Main Square, they were called by groups onto the stage. The child botarga did a little dance to show off their skills. The most impressive moment on that stage came with the exhibition of the Dancers of the Holy Child Danzantes del Santo Niño de Valdenuño Fernández. They carry batons that they use when they dance, slamming them against the batons that others carry in a very impressive display of coordination.

The speech of the major had nothing of interest, just the usual political stuff. Mementos were handed to the recovered botarga, and the guests, and then came the Proclamation to open up the Carnival period. The speaker was someone I’ve never heard of – Pepe Sanz, president of a local Vespa and Lambretta motorbikes club. I think.

Unfortunately, as I had been following the parade, I had a horrible spot in Main Square, I could not see the stage at all – but I could use my phone above my head for pictures and videos, while the people in front of me blocked the barriers and played with their phones. I can’t even. After all the speeches, welcoming the Carnival and so on, all the botargas and characters headed back to where came from. I did not stay for the backtracking, because it was cold and it was time to get back home.

24th January 2024: Williams & Zimmer by the Hollywood Symphony Orchestra (Guadalajara, Spain)

I had a good day planned, but it turns out that life sometimes does not go as one wants, so in the end the fun part of it was reduced to attending a concert in the theatre Auditorio Buero Vallejo in Guadalajara. The Hollywood Symphony Orchestra was touring Spain with a repertoire of film soundtracks by Hans Zimmer and John Williams.

The Hollywood Symphony Orchestra (HSO), from Los Angeles, comprises some musicians who record original soundtracks for films. Originally just a recording orchestra with works dating back to 1953, from 2006 they hold concerts and radio broadcasts. Today it is dedicated to perform “live to picture” concerts, playing live music in synch with the original material from the film. I think it would be really cool to watch a whole film with them playing the score!

However, this is not what they brought this time. It was more “snippets” of films with a remix of the main themes. The “Best Cinema Music” La mejor música de cine comprised several pieces by probably two of the most famous composers ever.

John Williams was born in 1932 and is still considered “an active composer and conductor”. Since his career started in 1954, he has been nominated for an Oscar 54 times, and he won five times – Fiddler on the Roof, Jaws, Star Wars, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Schindler’s List. Hans Zimmer, a German film score composer and music producer, has been “only” nominated twelve times, with two wins – one for The Lion King and another for Dune. But he is more than 30 years younger than Williams, so I guess there is still time. Both of them have written film music I enjoy a lot (along with Howard Shore and Jerry Goldsmith), so I really wanted to go. I was even ready to brave the awful Guadalajara crowds and head to the theatre there.

The whole concert lasted about two hours, in two parts with one interlude, and two pieces of encore – a total of 15 songs. The director was not introduced, but he looked nothing like the main director that the HSO webpage introduces. As set up, the orchestra was on stage and behind them, a screen showed scenes from the films whose soundtracks they were playing. They were not too well planned, though, because most of them had to run a time and a half before the music piece ended. I like this set up though, because it gives me something visual to look at while the music plays. For me, it is perfect – it is the same thing they’ve done before at the Final Fantasy live concerts.

Setlist:

Part 1
  1. Main Title from Star Wars (Williams, 1977)
  2. The Lion King soundtrack medley (Zimmer, 1994)
  3. Superman Main Title Theme (Williams, 1978)
  4. Schindler’s List Theme (Williams, 1993)
  5. Pearl Harbor Suite (Zimmer, 2001)
  6. Now We Are Free, Gladiator main theme (Zimmer, 2000)
  7. The Raiders March, Main theme of the Indiana Jones films (Williams, 1982)
Part 2
  8. E.T. the Extra-terrestrial main theme (Williams, 1982)
  9. Main Theme from Jurassic Park (Williams, 1993)
  10. Molossus, Batman Begins main theme (Zimmer, 2005)
  11. Hymn to the Fallen, Saving Private Ryan main theme (Williams, 1998)
  12. Harry Potter Main Theme (Williams, 2001)
  13. He’s a Pirate, Pirates of the Caribbean main theme (Zimmer, 2003)
Encore
  14. Imperial March from Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (Williams, 1980)
  15. The Raiders March, Main theme of the Indiana Jones films (Williams, 1982).

All in all, the day did not pan out as I had planned it, but it did have a bit of an epic ending, and I was glad that I managed to squeeze the outing. I did miss hearing the theme of Jaws, but I got Jurassic Park, Pirates of the Caribbean and Indiana Jones. I have to admit that The Lion King was way intense (hello, inner child!). And I did not like the Gladiator film, but the rendition was epic. Most of it was. Except for E.T., which felt a bit too long, I thoughtfully enjoyed the performance. A great way to end a not-so-good day.

13th January 2024: Commemoration of Ricardo Velázquez Bosco in Guadalajara (Spain)

In general, I’m not a fan of guided visits, but I’ve learnt to accept that they are sometimes the only way to get access to several monuments. Thus, I signed up for the free* “themed visit” about Ricardo Velázquez Bosco in Guadalajara. The route was organised by the town hall to commemorate the centennial of the architect’s death in 1923 (I know it’s 2024, the activities started in 2023, but they spread through January).

Velázquez Bosco is considered one of the most important architects in the Spanish late-1800s – early-1900s. Among his works are the Spanish Crystal Palace and the Madrid mining school. His style has been called “emphatic eclecticism” and described as eclectic historicism with academicist tendencies – which basically means that he did not like Modernism, and preferred combining historical styles instead.

In Guadalajara, he worked for the most important noblewoman of the period – the Duchess of Sevillano and Countess of La Vega del Pozo, María Diega Desmaissières y Sevillano (Duquesa de Sevillano y Condesa de la Vega del Pozo). The Duchess lived in Madrid, but was connected to Guadalajara through her aunt, Catholic Saint Maria Micaela, founder of the nun order known as Handmaids of the Blessed Sacrament. The Duchess of Sevillano (known in town as “the countess”) had a lot of buildings erected in Guadalajara and around it, most of which are now private property and have a very-limited-to-inexistent visit regime. The town loved its countess since she commissioned (also to Velázquez Bosco) the farming hamlet Poblado de Villaflores – the construction and subsequent agriculture and livestock activities created a lot of work in the area.

To honour her aunt’s charity work, the Duchess ordered Velázquez Bosco to build a school and an asylum, and though she never really lived in Guadalajara, she commissioned him to build her a palace when her Madrid home was expropriated. She never got to live there, as her heart failed in Bordeaux at the age of 64. She was buried in Guadalajara, in a pantheon that she had also ordered the architect to erect for her.

Today, both the asylum and the palace are schools, and cannot really be visited. The pantheon is privately managed by a private foundation Fundación San Diego de Alcalá, which also manages one of the schools, the adjacent gardens, and the church of the former convent.

The first stop of the visit was the pantheon Panteón de la Duquesa de Sevillano. It is a small eclectic building, the inside is a Latin cross, the outside is a homage to the First Romanesque buildings, with neo-Gothic ornamentation. The characteristic purple dome and the interior mosaics are of Byzantine influence. The crypt is a false one, as the pantheon is reached by climbing up a monumental staircase, so when you “go down” to the crypt, you are actually at ground level. The Duchess’ sepulchre, carved in marble by modernist sculpture Ángel García Díaz, represents the funeral procession. We had to pay 1 € in order to visit the pantheon, as there was no agreement between the town hall and the foundation.

We then were taken to another of the foundation’s buildings, the school Colegio Niña María Adoratrices. Today is a semi-private Catholic centre run by nuns from the congregation founded by Saint Maria Micaela. The school cannot generally be visited, so I was glad this worked out. The school building was erected in red brick, with a white limestone façade echoing the Renaissance building of the University in Alcalá de Henares. The school used to be a convent, and there is a restricted cloister. Legend has it that the cloister is only open for wedding photographies to brides who studied at the school. It is square, with two stories of neo-Romanesque arches and columns with vegetal decoration. We were also shown the chapel, with neo-Mudéjar panelling on the ceiling, and the monumental staircase.

Finally, we walked to what was built as the Duchess’ palace in Guadalajara, Palacio de la Condesa de la Vega del Pozo, today another school, Colegio de los Hermanos Maristas, also Catholic and semi-private, and extremely difficult to visit. We were shown inside and got to see the actual outline of the palace. Inside, we saw the panelling and the ceramic decoration before we reached the inner patio, a mix between Castilian and Andalusian styles.

We then visited the smoking room upstairs, an astonishing ward with ceramic tiles decoration and wooden floors. As a last snoop, we could peek into the balcony, which keeps the original cement-tile (baldosa hidráulica) floor. It was extremely impressive – and one can forgive the horrible pale yellow exterior the palace has been painted. Ricardo Velázquez Bosco was one of architect Antonio Palacios’ teacher, and I had the feeling that Palacios took his ideas for the Fundación San Diego de Alcalá, Panteón de la Duquesa de Sevillano, Colegio Niña María Adoratrices, Colegio de los Hermanos Maristas, Maudes hospital from the walls and floors of this palace.

The visit took around two hours, and it was free except for the pantheon. Being able to see the inside of both schools was the best, because it is rare that visitors are allowed in either. Thus, I am glad I signed up for this, especially as the weather held – we had a tiny bit of drizzle, but not much, and the clouds kept the cold at bay.

29th December 2023: Parque Mágicas Navidades, Torrejón de Ardoz (Spain)

For the last escapade of the year, I organised an outing with the family. I had thought that after our annual Christmas / New Year’s lunch gathering, the younger squad could go on for a while while older relatives caught a break from us. For a few years, the town of Torrejón de Ardoz has been organising a bigger and bigger “Christmas park” called Magical Christmas Park Parque Mágicas Navidades. During the last decade, the display has grown to be a massive event which runs throughout December to after Epiphany day. It has become so popular that they started charging people from outside town for entry.

The park is huge by any standard. This year there is a small amusement area with winter-themed rides, an ice-skating rink, a Christmas market, a small house for Father Christmas / the Three Wise Men (depending on the date), and several displays: the “Ice Festival”, the “Frozen Mountain” and the “Asian Lantern Festival”. There are smaller decorations sprinkled all over the park

Unless you are a local, entrance is 6€ / person. Once inside, you can buy tickets for the rides and the Ice Festival, but if you get your tickets in advance, it’s a tiny bit cheaper. In our case, I bought an entrance + Ice Festival combo that was 16€ – buying tickets inside would have been 11 €, so we saved one whole euro!

We reached the station by 19:45, and it took just a few minutes to reach the park entrance and go in. We found ourselves in a path with some food stalls, the Christmas house (sold out when I bought the tickets), some light sculptures and a few meninas. I noticed similar statues when I was in Madrid back in December, but I did not pay much attention to them. It turns out that they are part of an art project by artist Antonio Azzato collaborating with other creators and some of the city’s schools, and a pretty big deal – a modern art project. The word menina refers to a young girl from a noble family who enters the court to serve the queen or her children. Probably painter Diego Velazquez’s depiction of them is the most famous, and is the inspiration for Azzato’s figures.

Since we had a timeslot to enter the Ice Festival at 20:30, we decided to find that first to make sure we did not miss our entry; once we located it, we would see what to do. On our way, we crossed a literal starry field – sorry, starry forest Bosque de Estrellas. We walked by a giant snowman, a huge teddy bear, Cinderella’s carriage and Father Christmas’ sleigh, all made of lights. Then, we found the Magical Gate Puerta Mágica – this is a huge structure made of thousands of small light bulbs that looks a bit like the façade of a gothic cathedral. Every hour o’clock there is a show, and we had a three-song disco show that we stayed for, as I had just spotted the destination.

After the show, we headed off to the Ice Festival, a giant tent kept at -6 ºC – we were let in early, it was barely 20:15, so I’m thinking timing is… a suggestion. During the first week of the festival, ten two-person teams compete to build an ice sculpture from 25 ice blocks, according to the theme of the contest. This year, the topic was “freezing up the world”, so each piece tried to represent a city or area. Unfortunately, after almost a month of competition, some pieces were damaged or… slightly melted. Such as the… let’s say the “leaning tower of Paris” a.k.a. the Eiffel Tower. In all seriousness though, there was Las Vegas, Rio, Kyoto, New York, Kuala Lumpur… Did I mention the below-zero temperature? I think I lost sensitivity on my right pinky, and by the time we were out some of my fingertips were actually blue…

Next, we decided to see the Asian Lantern Festival Festival de las Linternas Asiáticas – a number of figures made out of fabric with light inside, similar to Brilla Zoo, and just as Christmassy, I guess. We actually started on the Second Space, which was dedicated mostly to dinosaurs. There was also a dragon (as 2024 is the Chinese year of the Dragon), some contemporary animals – elephants, flamingoes, lions, red pandas… oh, and lots of Venus flytraps.

Our following spot was the “Way to Bethlehem” Camino de Belén, which recreates the Biblical story of the Nativity, from Joseph and Mary heading off to the census, to the stable and the adoration by the Three Wise Men. It is described as the largest Nativity in Spain – the figures were actual-size, but not too well made, and the whole thing was a bit creepy. Furthermore, they had the same two songs on a never-ending loop.

Afterwards, we decided to “climb” the Ice Mountain Montaña Helada, which has a ton of light-reindeers and some white sculptures of creatures of Scandinavian mythology – I think. There were faeries, elves, a winged lion, dragons, horses, a pegasus, trolls… and two very non-mythological polar bears. There was finally a sculpture of a reindeer standing on a sleigh. I’ve recently learnt that a reindeer that keeps its antlers in winter is a pregnant female, so there’s a lot to say about Father Christmas’ sleigh… There is also a light Christmas tree Árbol de Luz in amongst all the reindeer, and you get a glimpse at the ice rink Pista de Hielo, designed by former figure skater Javier Fernández.

There was a bit of a photocall area and we fooled around there for a few minutes. Next, we went back towards the Asian Lantern Festival Festival de las Linternas Asiáticas, to see the First Space, which we walked backwards, apparently. It was mostly about bugs and creepy-crawlers – even bigger than the Naturaleza Encendida ones. There were ladybugs, a praying mantis, butterflies, bees, a scorpion for some reason, flowers and… pandas. Because something is not Asian if there is not a panda?

Once we were out of the area, there were some pink and purple flying penguins which gave way to a small garden with a lot of laser lights and other standing penguins, reading “Merry Christmas” in several languages. We headed back towards the train station then, passing by the Christmas market Mercado Navideño and Christmas Village, though it was hard to know when one ended and the other began. We did not go into any of the rides, not even the carousel, because they were extremely expensive… Neither did we try any food, but I am willing to be the prices were on the same range.

We walked out of the park, and we saw a train leave as we were approaching the station. We settled to wait for the next one, which – surprise, surprise – was delayed, so although we were at the station before 23:00, we did not make it home until almost half past midnight, despite the ride being just under 35 minutes. However, I think I’m going to start the family tradition of a mini-adventure after the yearly big-family meet-up, we had a lot of fun.

20th December 2023: Brilla Madrid Zoo (Madrid, Spain)

After an unwarranted amount of stress in the morning, I decided to take a little escapade in the evening to see some lights. The city of Torrejón is known as one of the local “Christmas hubs”, but it was “family day” and tickets were free, so there was no way to get a same-day entrance. I was a bit bummed, because that was convenient to reach by public transport. Instead, I resolved to go to Madrid instead – there was a light show on the topic of animals which had a small same-day discount – with it, I could get the skip the queue “upgrade”, the ticket itself, and the processing fees for the price of a nominal ticket. The downside was that I had to drive there. I booked entrance for the 18:40 timeslot, and left about 17:15, anticipating the traffic jams on my way to the park Parque Juan Carlos I. Traffic on the motorway was rather aggressive and all the exits were jammed. Thus, instead of driving to the main entrance to the park, I decided to drop the car off near one of the side entrances, and walk the last couple of kilometres instead of driving them. When I strolled by the parking lot, I saw that it was full and there were emergency vehicles there – I would have had to go to the inner parking lot, which means walking almost as much, and I saved one merging into the highway and one exit. I don’t mind driving, but I’m not a fan of other drivers.

As I walked into the park, I ran into the first sign reading Brilla Madrid Zoo (Madrid Shining Zoo). They had placed signs all along my path – rather convenient. I walked for about 15 minutes and I was at the gate just past the 18:20 timeslot. Since it was a schoolday, and quite cold, it was almost empty and the staff had no problem letting me through. Brilla Madrid Zoo is a project by Brilla Events, who claim that there are over 500 light figures – I did not count – in a path that takes about 1.3 kilometres.

After the entrance arch, you go down to the actual ticket control. I had bought the skip-the-queue ticket which allowed me to see an “extra” exhibit in a tent, called Pollinators (Polinizadores). The whole Brilla Madrid Zoo exhibit has a “take care of the earth” kind of message, but it gets old really quickly as each “animal” repeats the same few words every couple of minutes. The Pollinators area had giant displays of a hummingbird, a bee, a butterfly, a bloom, and a bat for some reason. There was a screen with “Gaia” addressing the crowd, and it would have been creepy if not for the kiddos running and screaming around.

As I went in, I was greeted by giant giraffe necks, then I moved into the Savannah (Sabana), with lions, leopards, zebras, hyenas, antelopes and elephants. Afterwards, there was the Jungle (Jungla) with gorillas, capybaras, jaguars… From there, after a turn, there was Australia, with echidnas, koalas, dingos, kangaroos.

The entrance to the Ocean area (Océanos) could be done through a whale. Along the fountains / ponds of the park stood sharks (great whites and hammerheads), lionfish, turtles, clown fish (a.k.a. Nemo), blue tangs (a.k.a Dori), barracudas, koi carps, corals… There were also two real geese who seemed to be enjoying the exhibit too. It was really hard to take straight pictures as there was very little reference outside the actual animal.

As I got close to the River areas (Ríos), there were otters and frogs. The coastal biomes were represented by the Swamp (Pantanos) and the Mangroves (Manglares). There were crocodiles, anacondas, Venus flytraps… for the first, and a flock of birds for the latter – flamingoes, pelicans, herons…

Then there was a bit of an avenue flanked by Flamingoes (Flamencos) to reach the Butterfly zone (Mariposas) and the Peacocks (Pavos reales). After another turn, there was the area dedicated to Nocturnal Animals (Nocturnos), with lemurs, bats, owls, and a wolf howling at the moon, perched on a dolmen.

After the dolmen, I found the Reptiles (Reptiles), with more frogs, iguanas, chameleons, a cute Komodo dragon… The path lead to what I guess is China by any other name: the Tiger (Tigre) and Pandas (Pandas). The Extinct Animal section (Extintos) was sad – with a dodo, a Tasmanian tiger, a white rhino, a Yangtze dolphin, a species of emu…

But then came the fantastical animals: Griffon (Grifo), Dragon (Dragón), Alicorns (Alicornios) – winged unicorns – and a Phoenix (Fénix).

Once outside the area, you find the Ice figures (Hielo), with seals, Arctic foxes and penguins. There was a tent with a souvenir shop and some food stalls, but I did not go inside. I thought I would just walk back through the park before it became too late – and colder.

I liked Brilla much better than this year’s Naturaleza Encendida, to be honest. It was quite cold though, and a bit windy. I ran into another jam on the way back, this time caused by an accident. I have a theory regarding signals in this country – half of the drivers don’t use them, and out of the ones who do, yet another half think that signalling gives them immediate preference, even when what they are doing is illegal…

16th December 2023: A day out of ExpoGema (Madrid, Spain)

Since the mineral expo ExpoMinerales back in February was all cool and fun, I decided to attend its shinier (and unbeknownst to me, way more unaffordable) sibling, the gem expo ExpoGema, and make a day out of it. Thus, I headed out for Madrid on the 9:00 train with temperatures below zero – I was not made for winter. It was not much better when I arrived, but for once the train ride was uneventful, I actually made my connection, and it seems that after a chaotic year, the underground train tunnels are finally open. Everything going smoothly gave me some unexpected 45 minutes to wander around as the square Puerta del Sol slowly became fuller and fuller with people.

I had booked a guided visit through the company Madrid en Ruta, who has the exclusive concession to show the business centre Casa Comercial Palazuelo. Located in downtown Madrid, it was designed by architect Antonio Palacios. The promoter, Demetrio Palazuelo, bought the lot left behind by a fire, and commissioned the building with the goal of renting it out to shops and professionals – it was thus the first office building in Spain conceived as such, and not repurposed from a manor or an apartment building. Palacios drew inspiration from the Chicago School commercial architecture and used iron to stabilise the building, which allowed him for bright interiors using lots of glass. The office building was erected between 1919 and 1921, and the offices are still rented out today, with the only caveat that the beautiful interior translucent-glass doors have been painted white – to either protect privacy or hide the fact that today the house seems to be almost empty – at least according to the building’s own directory.

The exterior façade could be considered eclectic – the main frame tends to neoclassicism with huge glass windows framed in black iron. The interior tends towards Art Deco and modernism. The offices are distributed around a central indoor patio, with curved balconies that overlook it and lots of lights mainly due to the skylight. There are two classical lifts which are the original ones, in peartree wood. When we went up, I took the stairs, which have white treads, and the riser is made out dark green ceramics. I have seen these in other works by Antonio Palacios.. The interior, with the iron balustrades and its curvy design, was really cool, but I think it is really a pity they painted over the glass.

The visit started at 11:00. We spent the first fifteen minutes outside getting context, roughly half an hour inside, and the last twenty minutes on the roof of the building, waiting for the clock of the Puerta del Sol to strike 12:00, then we were ushered out. I really wish we could have wandered the house a little bit, even if we could not go into the offices. The ten euro we paid surely did not feel like we were paying customers, but more like we were sneaking around like unwanted guests – which we probably were anyway.

I grabbed a quick snack then and headed off towards the engineering school Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de Minas y Energía (ETSIME) for the sixth edition of the gem fair ExpoGema. The fair itself was neat, but most everything was way above my budget range. I was there at the typical Spanish lunchtime, there were few people, and most were at the stands. Thus, I had the museum Museo Histórico-Minero Don Felipe de Borbón y Grecia almost completely to myself. I really like old-style museums, and this one has a huge amount of specimens, most of them are minerals, but there are also fossils and a collection of cave bear skulls and bones. I had decided not to book any guided visit or activity as none happened within the couple of hours of lunch downtime.

I bought an ammonite pendant, a small pyrite with almost perfect right angles, and another pendant made with a small meteorite from Campo del Cielo, along with a tiny extra piece. Campo del Cielo is an area in Argentina where four or five thousand years ago an iron meteorite fell. The meteorite shattered upon entering the atmosphere and, when it impacted the surface, the different created up to 26 craters. About 100 short tonnes of a fragmented iron meteorite have been recovered to date, and I now own around four grammes of it – yay me. I did not buy any precious stone though since the pretty shiny rocks were way out of my budget.

I left the ETSIME and I walked towards the square Plaza Pablo Ruiz Picasso, where there is a temporary art installation called El Regalo (The present) by Amigo&Amigo, a studio specialising in art installations. The artwork comprises a few arches that end in pads that can be stepped on – when they are, music sounds. The day was still bright, so the artwork was not shining, but a bunch of kids jumped on the pads to keep the music playing.

Afterwards, I took a train and headed off towards central Madrid again. I had a reservation for an afternoon tea at Nubel, an “avant-garde gastronomy space” in the modern art museum Museo Reina Sofía. I had been drawn to the place due to the “freshly-baked scones” they advertised.

The experience was beyond disappointing. First, I had to wait to get seated, but then the person who checked me in forgot to notify that I was there – this is what I assume happened, I was literally told that “the kitchen had forgotten about me”. The set menu took 40 minutes to come out, and the scone was cold anyway, so not even freshly-made. I had got a decaf latte that was also cold when the food came.

The menu, 16€ as I don’t drink alcohol, consisted of: two mini-sandwiches – the two of them had been made from the same bread slice, so you can imagine the size, with some kind of mayonnaise filling which was not bad but rather unidentifiable; one shot-sized glass of (pre-made) gazpacho; one scone; a piece of red velvet cake; a piece of carrot cake; one chocolate brownie; a side of cheese cream, butter and jam; and in my case the already-stone cold decaf latte.

The scone was cold – so much for freshly-made, the only thing that had kept me waiting. Furthermore, the cheese cream, albeit nice, did not fit it like at all, so I had to use butter on it. I laughed to myself thinking about “the horror!” while I clutched my metaphorical pearls. The red velvet was probably the best, but in general the cakes were too sweet – good thing the menu included free tap water. Afterwards, I was comped another free decaf as an “apology for the delay”. However, when I tried to pay, more drama ensued. First the card-reading machine was not working, then they could not take cash because they were balancing the register, then they could bring the machine to the table. All in all, I spent almost hour and a half there – about five minutes waiting to be seated, forty minutes waiting for the tea set, and twenty minutes trying to pay. I’m sorry to say I did not tip, nor do I plan to ever come back.

I missed my train due to the paying delay, and I had to wait almost half an hour for another one. I hung out the Christmas market for a bit, and looked at the lights around Puerta de Atocha station. As it was cold, I walked in and went to check out the original train station, now turned botanical garden. I had never stopped to look at the iron ceiling, just at the plants – and the tortoises people used to dump there – but there had been an old photograph during the Casa Palazuelo visit that made me want to look at the building itself, and I recognised that old station in today’s building, with its wrung iron columns. Funny, how you can look at the same old things and recognise them.

3rd December 2023: Sushi, I“k”ons, Goddesses and Light Bugs (Madrid, Spain)

I had evening plans in Madrid with my sibling, and they wanted to have lunch in town and make a day trip out of it. Since I had previously ascertained that the Running Sushi franchise was all right and fun, I proposed to check out another of the locations. They agreed and I had booked a 13:00 slot at Running Sushi in Akihabara, near Plaza de España. It was even more fun than the one I had checked out before, with Godzilla, Taito Station signs, Pacman, neon, anime graffiti in the toilets, and Japanese music playing. From the outside, the restaurant is shaped like a train carriage, and the sliding doors relay the same message they do when Tokyo JR stops at the station at Akihabara. In general, Running Sushi Akihabara offered the same food as the In Market restaurant, but this time there was tuna. I don’t know if it is because of the location, or because it was a weekend – and thus more expensive. Reservation was a great idea, because though I had no problem booking for 13:00, there were plenty other people with and without bookings, and when 14:00 – standard Spain lunch time – approached, the place became almost crowded. We stayed for the whole hour since we had a late start due to missing chopsticks and napkins, and I own up that the last takoyaki might have been excessive. This time, I remembered to ask for the membership card – you get a reward if you visit all the restaurants in the holding, something I’m considering to aim for.

After lunch, we had a 14:50 ticket for a place called IKONO. I have to say I’m warming up more and more to these Instagrammable places – I’ve recently read one of them described as a “fun house” and I think it’s a more than accurate idea. I like them because they’re silly places for, quite literally, kicks and giggles. According to themselves, IKONO was born as a leisure option alternative to “restaurants, shopping and clubbing” for young people – I disagree with the “young people” take though. Out of the permanent establishments of its kind in Madrid, it is probably my favourite.

The IKONO mood kicks off even before you go in, with a peacock-like armchair just outside the main entrance. Spread over three floors, the venue has 15 different experiences / things to do. Once your tickets have been checked, the first “door” you go through is a thick wall of foil fringe curtains in a gradient of shiny colours,which felt like going through the Stargate! (I know, I know, niche comment). All through the place, there is bouncy music playing.

Once you have crossed the curtain – I somehow ended up in a weird inner space instead of where I was supposed to reach, but that’s just me – the first room is a ball pit, and a deep one at that. It was quite hard to move there. There are quite fewer rules than in other ball pits too – you can jump in, and throw balls up. Once you manage to drag yourself out of the ball pit, you get to go upstairs, what I’ve mentally named the “paper floor”. It has three rooms – the landing one has a pretty origami tree and some wings for you to take pictures with. There is a “psychedelic” ward with black-and-white décor and a blue-and-pink confetti cannon. The third one is a dark “jungle scenery” with glow-in-the dark colourings and paintings that I really loved – the frogs were adorable, and the serpent god quite impressive.

Back on the ground floor, the following room is a Japanese-style bamboo forest with wooden lanterns and a torii [鳥居], the traditional entryway to a Shinto shrine. As you may imagine, this was my favourite area. The room walls are covered in mirror, so it looks like a long path, that ends in the following room, a “bamboo forest” which a felt a little underwhelming in comparison. According to the website, the idea of IKONO cemented while visiting the Japanese Arashiyama bamboo grove, and these two rooms are a homage to that place.

Then we walked downstairs, to the “lights area”, with a few more rooms, including some hanging bellflower-shaped lamps, and another with lights made with marbles that went on and off to the music, some modern art inspired by The Last Supper, and a cube of infinite light dots. Back upstairs, there were a couple more panels for photo-ops, and a small souvenir shop. The staff offered a small present if we left a Google review, so we did. Oh, and they had a cloak option for coats, which was amazing.

We walked outside towards our following spot Caixa Forum Madrid, where there are two exhibitions at the moment. The one I really wanted to see was Veneradas y Temidas: el poder femenino en el arte y las creencias, “Worshipped and Feared: Feminine power in art and beliefs”, an exhibit on the female presence in the religion and spirituality of different cultures. The other one was Horizonte y Límite: Visiones del Paisaje. Colección de Arte contemporáneo, “Horizon and Limits: Views / visions of Landscape. Collection of Contemporary Art”, which I had not read about beforehand – because I am biased.

Veneradas y Temidas: el poder femenino en el arte y las creencias is a British Museum’s touring exhibition, Feminine power: the divine to the demonic (which I feel is a more appropriate name, but that’s just me and my problem with translations). It is a collection of artefacts (most of them not exhibited anywhere else) originating from different cultures, trying to convey the “female spiritual power”, though it also has snippets of erotism and homosexuality. One of the most important and impressive pieces include a copy of the Campo Iemini Venus, a “modest Venus”, halfway though covering herself – a copy of the Capitoline Venus, it was found in an Italian Roman villa in 1792. Aphrodite / Venus was the Greek / Roman goddess of Goddess of beauty, love, lust, passion, pleasure, and sexuality. Other Ancient Greece and Rome pieces include Hecate / Trivia (goddess of boundaries, crossroads, ghosts, magic, necromancy, transitions, and the New Moon), Athena / Minerva (Goddess of handicraft, warfare, and wisdom) or Eros / Cupid (God of desire, love, lust, and sex). There are several pieces of pottery, both red and black, depicting different scenes of various… degrees of erotism.

Halfway between Athena and Aphrodite, the goddess Ishtar, Queen of Heaven, and goddess of love and sexuality was worshipped in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). Though according to the mythology, she had many lovers and was responsible for creation, she was not considered a “mother goddess”, and one of her advocations is the goddess of war.

The first thing we saw from Asia were three masks. There was Taraka [Tāṭakā], a Hindu spirit, whose rage upon the murder of her husband turned her turned into a man-eating ogre (ogress?). From Bali, there was Rangda, the demon queen, antagonist of the forces of good, leader of an army of evil witches, and child-eater. From Japan there was a hannya [般若], the jealous vengeful spirit of a scorned woman.

Also from Hinduism, there is a creepily fantastic (or fantastically creepy?) devotional icon (murti [मूर्ति]) of Kali [काली], goddess of death, doomsday and time. The sculpture is the advocation Dakshina Kali – depicted with four arms, a scimitar, a collar made of heads of her slain enemies, and Shiva at her feet. The murti represents a passage in which Kali goes on a rampage after fighting demons, having lost control, and her consort Shiva throws himself at her feet hoping to calm her down.

Among the Egyptian representations, there was Sekhmet, the warrior goddess, represented as a lioness, who was also the goddess of medicine and one of the sun deities. There were also Bastet, who started off similar to Sekhmet but became more of a protector figure, represented as a cat. There were also references to the cosmic goddess Nut, who symbolises the sky, stars, astronomy, the universe, and mothers.

From China, there was a gorgeous Guanyin [觀音] as the Goddess of Compassion, a very different style from the one I had seen in either the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. There was also a Shiva porcelain which was astonishing.

From Meso- and South America, there was a beautiful sandstone of Toci, the “mother of the gods” who is depicted with bare breasts and her hands on her belly. There was also a statue of a Mexican cihuateotl. The cihuateteo were spirits of women who died in childbirth, and received the same honours as the warriors who died in combat. There were other references, such as the Hawai’ian goddess of the sea Na-maka-o-Kaha’i, talismans of sex and love (because the Victorians were a bunch of perverts), references to the Mesopotamian demon Lamashtu, Egyptian protection sculptures, funerary steles… and some modern art kind of thing, like a lady sitting down with a ball python slithering on her because… yeah? I really enjoyed the exhibition, though I have to admit I ignored the interactive art a little, to focus on the mythological aspect.

Afterwards, we visited the contemporary art exhibition Horizonte y Límite, which focuses on different… I’m not sure because I know squat about contemporary art (see above comment about the lady and the snake). There were paintings, imaginary photographs, a piece made from different geological cores representing a fault, a panel with postcards, a glass box filled with smoke to represent climate change… Pleasant, but not really my thing. Except the geology cores, they were cool.

After seeing both exhibitions, we headed off towards our next stop. We took a break and sat down for a while to have a great banana-and-strawberry smoothie of all things. Then we walked towards the park Parque Enrique Tierno Galván, where we had tickets for the light show Naturaleza Encendida: Insectos “Lit-up nature: Insects”. The Naturaleza Encendida show used to take place in the Botanical Garden, which is smaller. This year, it has been relocated this year for “reasons unknown” and it feels a bit too long and almost unconnected. All that without taking into account that the idea of a larger-than-me butterfly and giant spiders is a bit creepy to be honest. We had premium tickets which gave us access to the enclosure at any time between 18:00 and 19:00 without queueing, and decided to arrive there around 18:30 as it would already be dark. We had also ordered a cute “magic lantern” – a bunch of sparkling LED filaments – for the giggles.

After an entrance of archways and carpets of light, there is a swarm of dragonflies as a centrepiece. You walk around it, and enter the zig-zagging path. Along the route, you encounter butterflies of different kinds, a line of hard-working ants, bees, grasshoppers, more bees, mosquitoes and flies, more bees, eggs, more grasshoppers, disco balls, larvae (I think? If I had to hazard a guess I’d call them anemones), beetles, ladybugs, spiders and a row of differently-coloured Christmas trees. There were “light corridors” in-between, hive-like hexagons projected onto the trees, and lots of artificial smoke. There are supposed to be some praying mantises somewhere but… I did not see those?

All in all, Naturaleza Encendida: Insectos felt too spread out, as if trying to justify the bigger space. Though we had a premium ticket, there was no special premium-only area, and the only benefit was having an hour to go in, without having to queue – which is already enough in my books. I think you really have to be into the topic – we came across a lady who was very freaked out and mostly running so she could get away from the bugs. I have been to three editions of Naturaleza Encendida, and the only one I really enjoyed was the sea-creatures one, Explorium. I thought that the bad weather last year had damped the experience – literally – but I’m going to stop holding my hopes high.

Finally, we headed back to the train station. My morning train had had a five-minute delay, which by the early evening had progressed to the upper 40s. Joy. I’m hoping that when free ticketing is over, service will improve, but I’m not holding my hopes too high…

2nd December 2023: Iron balconies and croquettes (Madrid, Spain)

I wanted to do a full day in Madrid this weekend, but ticketing did not align, thus I had to organise two half days. So on Saturday morning I set off for an 11:00 visit to Frontón Beti-Jai. A frontón is the court where games of Basque pelota (pelota vasca) are played. The term refers to a number of sports that use a small hard ball which is hit by the players so it bounces off the vertical walls of the court. Depending on the specific variety, the ball can be hit with the hand, a racket, a bat or a type of basket, and it can bounce on one or two walls of the frontón as long as they are at right angles with each other. Basque pelota is mainly played in Spain and France, and it is also popular in some Latin America countries. Though it was originally included in the 1900 Olympics, it has only been played as an exhibition sport and never in competition.

In the 19th century, Basque pelota was a popular and lucrative business in Spain, especially in Madrid. In 1891, businessman José Arana commissioned architect Joaquín Rucoba to build a frontón in Madrid, “similar to but better than” the one in San Sebastián, the original Beti-Jai. The capital’s Beti-Jai (“always party” in Basque) was placed in the district of Chamberí, witch construction starting in 1893. The architect designed a white-and-grey outer façade in an eclectic style with Neoclassical reminiscences in order to blend with the mansions in the area at the time, and a red-brick Neomudéjar secondary or side façade. The inner wall that stands behind the main entrance is also Neomudéjar. The playing court is plain concrete, and he whole area is shaped as a half-ellipse. There were long-lost stands on the ground, and three upper stories supported and adorned by cast iron balconies and columns, with a wooden roof on top. The decoration on the balconies is different for each floor.

The frontón opened in 1894 and it hosted games until 1919 – it is said that the crackdown on the betting systems and loan sharks caused Basque pelota to slowly fade out of fashion. Throughout the period and afterwards, it also had some alternative – and creative – uses, among them aeronautical experiments by renown engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo, car workshop (a few times in different years), motorbike shop, political hotspot, even industrial bakery. The stands were eventually walled off – which protected the ironwork. Though both in the late 1970s and the early 1990s the building was “declared” as protected, the structure was eventually left to rot. The building was bought and restored by the Madrid Town Hall between 2010 and 2019, finally attaining protected status in 2011. It is the largest and oldest frontón standing.

I like cast iron architecture a lot, which is why I signed up for this Pasea Madrid guided visit. We did not get a nice and knowledgeable guide this time, so I mentally checked out. She was not just nervous, she read the whole visit out of a phone, gave some wrong or plain false information, and relied on people “knowing things” and “having visited places”. I wandered around taking pictures and approaching the group periodically trying to fish out any interesting bit of information, until the guide grew tired and kicked us out when most people decided to just stand in the sun, even if there was some time left. People who had been listening to her had barely any time for photographs.

After the frontón, I had a reservation for lunch a restaurant part of a franchise specialising in croquettes, is called Solo de Croquetas Zurbano – a pun between “only croquettes” and “croquettes’ solo”; Zurbano is just the street. It has been a bit of a buzz lately so I was really curious about it. The place was organised in three floors – a bar on the ground floor, a loft-like seating on the first floor and a bigger restaurant-like area in the basement.

Though the Internet said the restaurant opened at 13:00, I was offered a reservation at 12:45, which I took because I did not want to be wandering around in the cold for too long. I was not extremely surprised though when I popped by at the reservation time and it was indeed crossed. I ended up wandering for a while before 13:00 came up and I could sit down. I decided to try a basic “croquette tasting”, which includes six savoury croquettes two sweet ones, and a drink. There are three lists to choose from, and I took the B-set:

• Rulo de cabra con pimiento caramelizado, goat cheese roller with caramelised red pepper – happy to report the pepper was barely distinguishable, just added some colour to the filling. Very cheesy, cheese is always good.
• Boletus con trufa, boletus with truffle. Lots of mushroom, little truffle, but okay. I’m not that much of a truffle fan anyway.
• Provolone con tomate seco y orégano, provolone cheese with dry tomato and oregano. There is never such a thing as too much cheese.
• Cachopo; a cachopo is a typical dish from the North of Spain that consists on two beef steaks with a filling between them, and everything breaded, which I ate once in Astorga. This one was weird.
• Cecina con puerro y queso gorgonzola, beef jerky with celery and gorgonzola cheese. Probably my favourite out of the savoury ones.
• Sobrasada de Mallorca con queso Mahón, sobrassada (cured pork sausage filling) with Mahon cheese. All right.
• Croqueta de Oreo con chocolate blanco, Oreo and white chocolate. Rather good, which is surprising considering I don’t even like Oreos…
• Croqueta de Cheesecake con frambuesa , Cheesecake and raspberry. Surprising, to say the least.

All in all it was good. The croquettes were decently sized and had distinctive flavours. The set felt a bit scarce though. Not that I went hungry, but I could have done with another couple of croquettes. I think it is what they are counting on – the tasting is okay, price-wise, considering the novelty (18.50 €), but if you want anything else, the meal will get very expensive very fast. I guess it is noteworthy that all croquettes are gluten-free, and the tasting has a lactose-free set and a vegan set.

I left the restaurant and walked towards the train station. On the way, I was distracted by the small Christmas market, more precisely by the a gorgeous 1900 merry-go-round that had been installed among other attractions. I had a bit of a walk around to check out the stands and then I went to wait for the train – which was, predictably, delayed.

26th November 2023: A Bunker and a Greenhouse (Madrid, Spain)

I have been to the park Parque del Capricho in Madrid before, and I was not really impressed. As it is considered a “hidden gem” in town, I expected something… I don’t know… more grand? It has different “attractions” such as a bee hive, a casino, ponds, fountains, statues… quite into the Romantic spirit of the times it was built, but I really did not connect with its design. I have to admit though that when I first visited I did not register the locked-down door with the word “bunker” surrounded by a brick structure next to the palace. It turns out, there is a Civil War bomb refuge 15 metres underneath the grass (I did see a machine gun spot in the grounds of the nearby castle, which was actually installed there to protect the military position). The refuge is a place you can only visit through the town hall’s Pasea Madrid program, as it is usually closed to the public.

The park was built as a recreational garden between 1787 and 1839 at the whim of the 12th Duchess (and Countess) of Osuna, who placed a summer house Palacio de los Duques de Osuna, in the centre of it. It became wildly popular among the high classes at the time – just like walking around cemeteries had become popular in France and England. However, at the turn of the 20th century the park had dwindled in fame. It changed hands, and after the 1929 crash it became all but abandoned. With the advent of the Spanish Civil War, the palace became an orphanage first, and it was later confiscated by the Republican government to be used as military operation centre. General José Miaja was in charge of defending Republican Madrid from the military coupists and moved the emergency command centre from downtown to the so-called Posición Jaca in the outskirts. The park was chosen because it is close to the airport, and it was easy to deploy defence batteries. Some of the most important battles in central Spain were “supervised” from there.

The day started dark and gloomy, so I picked up a thick coat – the webpage also noted that the temperature in the refuge is around 15 ºC. Public transport was just not feasible – round trip would have been about four hours by train – so I took the 40-minute drive and parked in the main avenue, a few minutes away from the park entrance. I had calculated a wide berth of time because I was not sure how easy it would be to park, but I apparently got there before the family weekend-makers. I was early for the 11:00 tour, so I just hung out the park for a little. By the time I walked in, the weather was nice and sunny.

One of the buildings in the park is a miniature farming house that today has an equally-tiny orchard with cabbages, cauliflowers and… a pumpkin patch. I swear, I had never seen a pumpkin patch before, not one so… colourful. I walked around for a little, then waited for the guide to arrive.

The Civil War bunker or refuge Búnker del Capricho was built next to the palace where the command was set, excavated into and down the small hill. It was designed to withstand bombings, and protect its occupants from chemical attacks – people were rightfully freaked out as World War I had yielded to the development of chemical weapons. Building the refuge was commissioned to miners-turned-soldiers, who were able to finish it within the first few months of 1937. In case of an attack, the palace would be evacuated from the doors and windows, the personnel would go down into the refuge and close and lock the doors. Once operational, the refuge could host 200 people for up to two of weeks.

The bunker is dug between 14 and 16 metres into the ground. The walls could withstand most bombs designed at the time, with some of them being over two metres thick. The thirty-metre gallery could be sealed with submarine-like doors – designed by marine engineers – and keep out any toxic gas. There is a ventilation system and different wards on the sides, one of them identifiable as an operating theatre, another as a shower room. The floors are tiled, with different patterns for different rooms – the theory is that the patterns would allow anyone to know where they were even in low visibility conditions. The gallery is tiled too, but in white, and it has round ceilings, also painted white – also in theory, this is to counteract the claustrophobia from being underground; this idea was also applied when the first underground stations were built in Madrid.

Upon entering the bunker, there are two flights of stairs at a ninety-degree angle to each other. Then, there is another right-angle turn to enter the actual refuge. There are two metal doors that could be hermetically shut, now peeled-off and rusty, but which really look like ship or submarine safety doors. This design minimises shock waves and blocks any gas that could be used against the Republican Command. The structure is bigger and wider than I thought it would be.

I guess it is part of the Spanish history, so good enough to see once and then move on – know about history not to repeat it, but do not dwell in it. Which is what I did. Once the guided visit was over, I wandered the park for a little. I found the park miniature fortress, the lake with its black swans, and the small casino. I was hoping for some nice autumn colours like I saw a couple of weeks before in Retiro Park, but there was not much on that front. I however did come across a few bees hard at work.

I left the El Capricho and went across the avenue to walk into the neighbouring, bigger park Parque Juan Carlos I. I wanted to see the so-called Estufa Fría – just a fancy name to call a greenhouse. The greenhouse did have some pretty autumn colours in the Japanese garden, as the small maples (Acer palmatum) had started turning gold and red. The structure hosts palm trees, ferns, a small “bamboo grove” and an autochthonous forest that was composed of mostly evergreen plants and ivy. I had no idea that the Estufa Fría even existed until a few days before, so I guess I’ll need to keep it on my radar for future springtime visits – I want to see the blooming cherry trees in that park anyway.

It was not much of an outing, barely a few hours, and I was home for a late lunch. I did not want to stay out long, as that evening I had tickets for the opera.

12th November 2023: Trains and Parks (Madrid, Spain)

I had booked a visit for 15:30 using Madrid’s program to divulge the Heritage of the city Pasea Madrid (“Walk Madrid”), and I had planned a great day around it. Unfortunately, such plan had me on the best train to get to the demonstrations happening there at noon and therefore it would most likely be “delayed due to uncontrollable circumstances” or worse. Thus, I needed a new plan. Since there was a yellow weather-alert in effect across the parks in the area I wanted to be , I just drew a general list of places I could check out and decided to keep it flexible.

The day did not start off as I had imagined it. I slacked off a bit in the morning and by the time I was ready to leave, it was too too late to catch the original train of the second plan. There was part of me which was really not in it, and I considered just cancelling the visit and staying home. Then again – I reasoned with myself – the visit was sold out every other day, I had been lucky to secure a spot. I did not know whether I would be lucky enough to be free when the next batch of tickets were released, nor if the dates were convenient – if they ever opened again, or as the webpage said, it was a “special occasion” (honestly, I think that they just say it is to hype up the reservations). Thus I set off to catch the next train, still in good time for plan B as it was flexible and I could just kick one stop off if necessary.

Once in Madrid, I headed off to the Railway Museum Museo del Ferrocarril, technically closed that day due to the monthly flea market Mercado de Motores. It turns out that the ground floor of the museum is still open, which allows you to have a look at the main train collection (actual historical trains) and take some cool pictures. For once, I was not the only one with the camera, but one among a bunch – to the point that a few of us ended up queueing for a similar picture at some point.

The Railway Museum is located in what remains of the former terminus of Delicias, which opened in 1880. Designed by French engineer Émile Cachelièvre, it had three distinctive areas – the passenger building, the loading docks, and the customs building. The last train left the station on the 30th July 1969, at 22:15, headed for Badajoz. In 1984, the Railway Museum opened in the passenger building, which kept the former platforms.

I am not sure how crowded the museum is during normal days, but for the market, it was packed. I had secured a free entry reservation, just in case. The main building hosts a number of actual trains which serviced passengers and cargo throughout Spanish history – real locomotives and cars on the tracks they used to travel. Before Covid, one of the cars was used as cafeteria, and another as an Orient-Express-inspired restaurant, neither of which are in active now. Though the side rooms of the ground floor and the upper floors were closed due to the market, I got to see the trains from the outside and admire the building structure.

In the outer part of the museum, I found the food court and the former tracks which disappear into the nearby park. To the side stands the miniature train complex Ferrocarril de Las Delicias a layout of tiny trains – a 265-metre long, 127-millimetre wide track, to be exact – where you can travel on equally-scaled trains, with classical tickets and all. My original idea had been riding it, but I found a great spot for photographs and decided not to queue through all the toddlers and their parents. I thought that since I wanted to go back to the museum to see all the rooms, I could do that on a day when the tiny trains were running.

I left the station-turned-museum and walked towards the so-called Pantheon of Spain Panteón de España, a burial site for remarkable Spanish politicians, noblemen and military personalities – formerly known as the “Illustrious Men”. Before mobile phones with a camera were a thing, my school took my class to the crypt, but nowadays only the upper area and the gardens can be visited. The original plan, designed by Fernando Arbós y Tremanti in the Neobyzantine style, comprised a basilica with a bell tower and a cloister. The project began in 1891, but only the tower – now part of a school – and the cloister had been built when construction stopped in 1899 due to astronomical costs. In the cloister, there are funerary monuments to a number of important Spaniards who were exhumed and reburied there, such as Mateo Sagasta, Antonio de los Ríos y Rosas, Anonio Cánovas del Castillo or José Canalejas. Eight tombs and a central monument can be visited in the cloister and the central garden. The entrance is decorated with golden mosaics, and the interior is white calcite and grey slate, with domed rooftops. The central garden had flowering winter roses and a view of the abandoned bell tower.

I headed out towards Madrid’s main park Parque del Retiro, part of which had been restricted until noon due to predicted strong winds. The weather, however, was fantastic, even warm, which felt weird for such autumn-coloured day – it made the yellow alert issued a little strange. The park was gold, red and orange everywhere, a stark contrast with the green grass and bushes. I reached the crystal palace Palacio de Cristal, which looked extremely cool with the fall tones, though it was packed.

I took a turn towards an area that I had not visited before inside the park. In the 18th century, when the now-public park was the monarch’s garden, the royal gardeners kept complaining that flowers bloomed where they had not planted them, and blamed a magical force living in the park. The Spanish word used is duende, which is a nature creature somewhere in-between a fairy, a spirit and a gnome. The sculpture Duende del Retiro was created by José Noja in 1985 to honour the legend. The duende plays a flute while sitting on a stone hut, which used to be a cage for the bears of the former zoo Casa de Fieras del Retiro, now turned into the garden Jardines de Herrero Palacios. I’m glad no animals live there any more, except some geese and ducks that can fly – or waddle – away any time they want, but considering how much they get fed by passers-by, I doubt they care about doing so.

I finally made my way towards the central pond of the park Estanque Grande and the monument to King Alfonso XII Monumento a Alfonso XII, my 15:30 visit. The monument is composed by a colonnade, two lion-gates, four mermaids sitting on different marine animals, and a triumphal column with a sculpture of the king riding a horse on top. The complex measures 30 metres high, 86 metres long and 58 metres wide. The colonnade is public access, and I would not have booked a guided visit for it. However, what made the visit special is that we were granted access to inside the column to climb to the lookout that lies within the top pedestal where the horse stands (97 steps, thankfully on newish metal ones).

Alfonso XII became king of Spain in 1874. He grew up in exile in France until his mother, Queen Isabel II abdicated when he was 17 years old. He reigned for almost eleven years. His first wife, reportedly his one-and-only love, died within a few months of marriage. He married again, and had three children with his second wife, Queen María Cristina, two more with his opera singer lover. He was charismatic and the Spanish loved him, he was called “the bringer of peace”. He died while María Cristina was still pregnant with his son, king-to-be Alfonso XIII, and she became Regent. It would eventually be Alfonso XIII who inaugurated the monument to his father.

The monument was designed by architect José Grases Riera and involved as many as 20 sculptors. Probably the most important one was Mariano Benlliure, who made the horse and the king in bronze – the horse is about seven metres long, and the whole sculpture from the horse’s hooves to the King’s hat, about eight metres high. Grases Riera placed his project on the existing pier of the pond, in order not to cut down any tree from the park, as a pier could always be rebuilt somewhere else. The monument was funded by the public, so it alternates cheaper stone and more expensive bronze, according to how much money there was at nay given moment. The colonnade features shields from the different Spanish regions at the time, and the main column has scenes from the King’s life and allegories to Peace, Industriousness, the Arts… Completion took 20 years from the call for projects in 1902 to the monument inauguration in 1922.

The lookout is encased in the pedestal where the horse stands. It has windows made of glass to allow a 360-degree view of the park, and I swear I had never even realised it was there. The stairs were not steep and there were cool views from the lookout, especially with the autumn colours, and the sun starting to set. The guide was good – just again impressed by the camera – and explained to us everything that could be seen from there. A relative, however, took the same visit a few days later and, when we compared notes, the information we had been told was rather… different.

The whole visit took an hour, with 15 minutes at the lookout, and we were out by 16:30. It took me a bit over 25 minutes to reach the station, but the train was late – it was actually at the platform when I got there even if it should have left ten minutes beforehand. I hopped in, and I spent the ride organising the photos on the phone. I am glad I did not cancel the visit and went on with it. I shall remember that for the upcoming one.