Dresden: Out of the Flames

After Spain, the country that I got to know best during my time in Europe was Germany. This was, in part, because I was studying the language. But I also came to love Germany because, in some ways, it reminded me of home. Perhaps it was the climate (very similar to New York), or perhaps it was the modern style of architecture, or perhaps it was certain aspects of the culture—more reserved and pragmatic than Spaniards. For whatever reason, I felt very much at home whenever I was in the country, which is why I visited at least once a year.

Yet I was not feeling particularly good on a bright May morning in 2024, as I set foot in Dresden. After enduring a very early flight, a layover in Munich, and then another cramped airplane seat, I felt sleep-deprived and dehydrated. More than that, I realized—with horror—that I was getting sick. But I was not going to let any physical ailment impede my vacation. Resolutely, I dropped off my bags and marched off to the center of Dresden.

Dresden presents itself to the visitor as a landscape of royalty, where stately buildings tower over cobblestone streets. In many ways, it reminded me of Vienna—a place where “high” culture (opera, theater, ballet, the fine arts, and so on) went hand in glove with the ruling class. And the architecture of the old town—refined, ornate, stately—makes this exceptionally clear. Of course, what the modern viewer sees today is a kind of illusion. Virtually every building has been rebuilt since the Second World War. But it is a very convincing illusion.

Though Dresden has not been an important center of power in modern times, historically it has served as the seat of the Saxon kings, who ruled over this part of Germany (as well as Poland, for a time). To get an idea of this long and distinguished history, the visitor can do no better than to visit the Fürstenzug (or the Procession of Princes). This is a massive porcelain mural—the largest in the world—that depicts all of the heads of the ruling house of Wettin for nearly one thousand years. Stretching over 100 meters (or over 330 feet) on the Augustusstraße, the mural depicts 35 rulers chronologically from left to right—and gives the viewer a visual representation of Saxony’s long and rich history.

As a mark of royal power, Dresden has historically been a center of the fine arts. This was illustrated by my first visit, to the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (The Old Master’s Picture Gallery). This is exactly what it sounds like. And it is housed in an appropriately ornate edifice—indeed, a literal palace. This is the Zwinger, one of the most important baroque buildings in Germany. Admittedly, what stands today is a reconstruction of what was destroyed during the Allied bombing; and when I was visiting, some of the inner courtyards were undergoing heavy restoration. Still, from the exterior the building maintains an impressive grandiosity, especially seen from the other side of its watery moat.

After climbing up the monumental stairway, I found myself surrounded by room after room of masterful paintings. It never ceased to amaze me how even lesser-known cities (nobody I know has been to Dresden, for example) can have first-rate museums. As a case in point, here you can find works by Rembrandt, Titian, and Vermeer.

I was particularly interested in the monumental paintings of Bernardo Bellotto. This Italian artist was the nephew of the famous Canaletto—who made such iconic images of Venice—and followed in his uncle’s footsteps with his own careful renderings of cityscapes. Indeed, Bellotto’s paintings of Dresden have an added historical importance, as (notoriously) the old city was almost entirely destroyed by Allied firebombing in the Second World War. But more on that later.

*A view of Dresden and the Elbe. Notice the Frauenkirche on the left.*

The most famous piece in the museum’s collection is, without a doubt, Raphael’s Sistine Madonna. It is classic Raphael—perfectly graceful, harmonious, and beautiful. But like many viewers, I find the “putti” (the little angels) at the bottom to be the most charming part of the composition. They are so very human—with expressions mixed with curiosity and boredom, so discordant in the triumphant heavenly scene above. One wonders what Raphael, a pious man, was thinking when he painted them.

My ticket to the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister also included an entrance to the Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon (yes, the Germans are snappy with names). This is in another wing of the Zwinger palace, and it is a museum devoted, not to art, but to science. I do tend to think that the history of science is unduly neglected in wider culture. We tend to encounter science as a finished product, with all the trappings of modern technology. But in the days before science was so strictly divided from the humanities, it was more approachable and, arguably, a more aesthetically sensitive venture.

This scientific salon goes back to the early 18th century, and has been housed in this palace since 1728. The collection consists of historical—and quite beautiful—scientific instruments, divided into four categories: mathematical devices, clocks & automatons, telescopes, and globes. Every section is full of wonders. The calculating devices (which use mechanical means to do complex operations) are the forerunners of computers, while the automatons—such as a bear that plays the drums—are the first attempts at robots. Both the globes (made before much of the earth was mapped) and the telescopes are evidence of what may be our species’s finest quality: curiosity.

I did my best to feel wonder and awe as I gazed at these artifacts of human genius. But I was really feeling sick by now, and it is hard to be moved in such a state. So I walked back to the Airbnb, ate an early dinner of Vietnamese pho—absolutely the right choice—and went right to bed. Nothing, not even a microbe, was going to ruin this vacation.

The next morning, after over 10 hours of sleep, I woke up feeling fit as a fiddle. To celebrate, I decided to see a little nature. After a trip on the S-Bahn line one, I got off in a little town called Kurort Rathen. From there, I caught the ferry that crosses the Elbe River. There, it was a short distance to the Sächsische-Schweiz national park.

The name translates to Saxon Switzerland, as the Germans—whose country is quite flat in the north—have a tendency to call any hilly area “Switzerland.” In truth, the rocky mounds that I encountered here had little resemblance to the snow-covered alps. Still, it was a beautiful May day and the forest was green and inviting.

I climbed up a path, navigating hordes of picnicking Germans and busloads of all sorts of tourists—Chinese, American, French—to eventually get to the main attraction: the Basteibrücke. This is a monumental sandstone bridge that connects the several peaks of the Bastei, which is an otherworldly assortment of stone spindles, formed over millennia of erosion. Even amid the crowd, the strangeness of these rock formations was absorbing.

Further on, I reached a rest area with a food stand and a viewpoint, where I could eat a sausage while I contemplated the Elbe valley. The countryside was almost pastoral, and reminded me very much of the Rhine Valley in the far corner of the country. “Is this just what Germany is like?” I wondered. A tall German beer aided my ruminations; and that, after some mulling about, I was barreling down the hill back towards the ferry.

However brief, this dip into the forest was refreshing. Madrid, though beautiful in so many ways, is never lush or woodsy in the way that I crave. Once again, Germany managed to remind me very strongly of the landscapes of the Hudson Valley, where I grew up. In other words, once more I felt strangely at home in this country.

After a return trip on the ferry, I got back on the S-Bahn. But I did not take it all the way back to the center of Dresden. Rather, I got out early to visit another attraction along the Elbe: the Blaues Wunder. This is the pet name for the Loschwitz Bridge, a cantilever bridge connecting both sides of the river. Constructed in 1893, it was considered something of a technological marvel at the time (thus its name).

Nowadays, it is beloved more for being one of the few things that survived the destruction of the Second World War. Set to be blown up by the retreating SS, two ordinary citizens reportedly took it upon themselves to cut the detonation wires. I did not know that historical infrastructure could be so inspirational. In any case, as I stood on the bridge contemplating the river, I cannot say that I found it especially blue nor especially wondrous.

I was more taken with the SchillerGarten. This is a nearby Bier Garten, one of the best in the city. And this was the setting for my next beer/sausage combination—which I enjoyed as I idly watched the river flow by. As a side note, while it is not fine dining by any means, I have to admit that I always enjoy the fare at German restaurants. Simple and hearty, it pairs admirably with their beer—which is, of course, world-class. Indeed, in subsequent days I would spend quite a bit of time at other beer gardens overlooking the river, most notably the Augustgarten closer to the center. Nothing is more pleasant on a sunny day.

Needing to work off this meal, I decided to walk the rest of the way into the center of the city. This took me along a region of the Elbe Valley that was once considered a UNESCO World Heritage site. This designation—granted for its mixture of natural meadows and the many historical buildings alongside the river—was sadly revoked in 2009, as a result of the construction of the Waldschlösschen Bridge. Ironically, this bridge had to be built to relieve traffic on the aging and (by modern standards) narrow Blaues Wunder. History is rich in ironies.

As I walked along the meadow, I hardly felt that I was going anywhere at all—so flat and green was the landscape around me. But I did not follow the course of the river until the familiar profile of the historic city center came into view. Instead, I turned north, walking through the newer part of the city, until I reached a strange building that looked like it had been pierced with a sharp object. This was the Bundeswehr Military History Museum.

The building has a telling history. Beginning its life as an armory in 1876, it has since served as a museum for the Nazis, the Soviets, as well as East Germany. Closed during reunification, it was eventually decided to re-open the museum, but with an important redesign. This is the aforementioned sharp object—a transparent arrowhead, designed by Daniel Libeskind, a Jewish architect—is meant to symbolize the museum’s new role in a democratic society.

Even so, the idea of visiting a military history museum in Germany of all places may not seem especially appealing. But this one has taken pains to distance itself from traditional military museums, which are often a celebration of the machines of war. Rather, here the visitor can walk through exhibits that explore war from a variety of angles—not just technological or strategic, but also political, social, and historical. There is even an exhibit on the use of animals in war.

Indeed, the museum is gigantic, filling up the entire historical armory—and even stretching outside, where the visitor can see several military vehicles parked on the lawn. I should admit that, after the long walk along the river, I probably did not see all there was to see. And I must also admit that I have a limited ability to engage with military insignia, medallions, and uniforms (especially when there are thousands of them). But I was impressed at the massive and earnest attempt to see warfare in such a holistic way, as something humans have done for all of recorded history, without attempting to celebrate, condemn, or reduce it.

As a case in point, my visit culminated in the large transparent arrowhead that sticks out of the front of the building. This was designed to point to the area of Dresden where the firebombing began. Inside, apart from a commanding view of the surrounding neighborhood, you can see relics and ruins of the burnt-out city.

The 1945 fire-bombing of Dresden has become notorious in popular culture, in part thanks to Kurt Vonnegut’s classic novel Slaughterhouse-Five. (Vonnegut himself was a witness to the destruction, having been a prisoner of war in the city.) After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Dresden is arguably the best-known example of Allied atrocity. In short, heavy bombing by British and American forces killed thousands of civilians and obliterated the city’s historical core—one of the finest in Europe.

This blog post is certainly no place to re-litigate this event—condemned, justified, polemicized, used in Nazi and Soviet propaganda, among much else. The museum itself presents the bare facts of the event, with little editorializing. I will only point out that, during the so-called “Good War,” which most people nowadays would say was justified—the Allied war against fascist world-domination—there were still actions that caused the leaders and believers in that fight to pause and recoil. But what makes a war justifiable? And can a justifiable war be won with unjustifiable means? These are not easy questions to answer, but they are worth pondering.

This was heavy stuff. And by now, I was both mentally and physically exhausted. So I decided that it was time for a kebab. The humble Turkish kebab has become a kind of pan-European fast food, available from Portugal to Poland. But the best ones, in my experience, are to be found in Germany—largely thanks to the sizable population of Turkish immigrants. And while the one that I had that day in Dresden (at the nearest shop I could find) wasn’t the best, it did revive my flagging spirits. And with a couple German beers, this capped off my second day in Dresden.

One of the best parts of my stay in Dresden was the neighborhood of the hotel: the so-called Neustadt. While this translates to “New City,” this is ironically the most authentically historical part of Dresden, as it largely escaped the Allied bombing.

New, of course, is a relative term; and what is new in Europe may be quite old. This neighborhood is called “new” because it was rebuilt after a 1732 fire. The neighborhood was rebuilt on a regular plan, giving it a more tidy and uniform appearance than many old European cities. Yet it retains an important collection of Baroque architecture.

But for locals, the Neustadt is more important for being a center of nightlife and counterculture. This is important in a city like Dresden, which in modern times is known as a conservative bastion (in part a reaction against the communist years of the DDR). The Neustadt has a punkish vibe, full of graffiti and dive bars. Each night, the streets were full of people—young and old—exercising their legal right to drink in public. A little metal shed for street urination is a nod to decency.

One of the most characteristic attractions in this part of town is the Kunsthof-Passage. This is a kind of inner courtyard, surrounded by whimsically-decorated apartment buildings. This is, in a way, the Neustadt counterpart to the historic city’s Fürstenzug—not a celebration of royal power, but of local artists. Dresden would be a dull city without this dichotomy.

You can see a further illustration of this by visiting the Albertinum. This is the other major art gallery of Dresden, picking up where the Old Masters Gallery leaves off. Its collection of paintings is equally impressive, including works by Monet, Munch, and Van Gogh. However, I was more excited to see work by the German artist, Caspar David Friedrich. The quintessential romantic painter, he was unparalleled when it came to depicting the smallness of humanity when faced with the bleak power of nature.

Nothing illustrates this better than the Tetschen Altar. Painted in 1808, early in the painter’s career, the altar depicts the crucifixion from a far distance, as a silhouette at the top of a mountain. Rather than centering Christ’s suffering, therefore, the altar emphasizes its smallness amid the surrounding landscape. Needless to say, this proved to be a controversial choice.

Another standout work is the Dresden Triptych, by Otto Dix. Himself a veteran of World War I, fighting for the German Army, he later became a prolific anti-war artist (which led his art to be condemned as “degenerate” by Hitler). This work, titled The War, is a prime example of his grim vision. Like Caspar David Friedrich, Dix here uses a religious format, but he does so ironically. War is here nothing but carnage and chaos—the furthest thing from the glorious struggle that leaders have so often claimed it to be.

Indeed, the collection of this museum is marked by war in several respects, as 196 paintings were destroyed during the firebombing. War and art are, so often, opposing poles in human history.

The Albertinum is also the home of the city’s excellent collection of sculptures. This is immediately apparent when you walk into the museum, as there is a room jam-packed with plaster casts of famous statues, including a full-sized replica of Michelangelo’s David (which, when I visited, was holding a Ukrainian flag). The museum’s collection ranges from antique Greco-Roman sculptures—some of them quite excellent—to modern works, by Degas or Rodin.

Yet for me, the highlight of this collection was the contemporary gallery. Housed in an expansive room on the lower level, these statues ranged from hyperrealistic portrayals of the human body to geometrically arranged heaps of junk. Indeed, although I cannot say I am normally a huge fan of the avant-garde, I found these works to be more exciting than still another white marble statue. My personal favorite was a work by Tony Cragg—a huge piece of wood that has been carved into an amorphous, otherworldly undulation.

Indeed, as I sat in the enormous atrium, sipping on a coffee from the museum cafe, I decided that I liked this museum even more than the exceptional Old Master’s Gallery. Far from being an interesting secondary city, I had found that Dresden is, in fact, one of the great cultural centers of the country—and, perhaps, of Europe.

*The atrium has an appealing Backrooms aesthetic.*

When I exited the museum, however, I felt that I’d had my fill of the fine arts for the day. So I opened Google Maps and searched for something different. Soon, I’d found it: the Transparent Factory. This is a working Volkswagen manufacturing plant, designed to be “transparent” in several respects—literally, because the walls are made of glass, but figuratively, because the factory can be visited, and their entire process is on display. In other words, it is kind of a marketing stunt, but still an interesting opportunity to visit a working factory.

I walked in and asked (in German) to be put on the next tour. The clerk, hearing my accent, informed me that the tours were only available in German. Bravely, I said alles gut. Soon I found myself being whisked around the assembly line, listening intently to an explanation that I found almost entirely unintelligible. Still, I had never been in a factory like that before, so it was interesting simply to watch.

Sadly, the factory ceased operations in 2025, the year after my visit. But it is still owned by Volkswagen, and can still be visited.

*A poster for the fundraising campaign.*

My last stop for the day was, perhaps, the most ironic building in the city: the Frauenkirche. This is the towering Protestant church at the heart of the city. Architecturally, it is interesting—eschewing the usual construction of three naves that culminate in an altar. Instead, it is more of an amphitheater, with the seating surrounding the pulpit—all of this underneath the resplendent dome above (one of the largest in the world).

Like so much of the city, however, this iconic structure was reduced to rubble in 1945. As Dresden was incorporated into the communist (and officially atheist) DDR after the war, there was little political will to invest in the reconstruction of the church; and the pile of rubble was eventually cordoned off and declared a “memorial against war” (rather a lazy choice, if you ask me).

After the reunification of Germany, however, it was finally decided to revive the church and reincorporate it into the newly reconstructed city. The old materials were sorted and cataloged, and a massive funding campaign—with many individual donors—raised the necessary euros. Finally, in 2005, the new church was completed—in time for the 800-year anniversary of the city’s founding. Nowadays, the Frauenkirche, rather than a memorial of war, is a symbol of the city’s phoenix-like rebirth from the flames.

Now, I must skip ahead to my last day. My flight back to Madrid was leaving late in the day, giving me the morning for a last bit of sightseeing. Thankfully, I had saved one of the highlights of Dresden for this: the Dresden Castle.

This is more of a palace than a castle, serving as the seat of power for over four centuries. Of course, like most of the historic city, this too is a reconstruction of what used to be.

Nowadays no royals live here. Instead, the great structure serves as a museum complex, with five separate sections to visit. There is a wing devoted to prints and photographs, and another one to historic coins (numismatics). More memorable was the Armoury, full of historic weapons and armor. This includes the so-called Turkish Chamber, which displays objects from the Ottoman Empire—notably, a huge and resplendent three-mast tent.

But the highlight of the visit is, without a doubt, the Green Vault. Space is limited; so when you buy your ticket, it comes with an entrance time. It also comes with extra security, as the Green Vault is the home of Europe’s largest collection of precious objects.

The Vault is divided into two spaces, New and Historic. In the New Green Vault, the focus is on the objects themselves. And they are exquisite.

Now, I am normally not such a big fan of jewels and finery. While the craftsmanship is impressive, such objects usually exhibit the wealth of their owners rather than the artistry of their makers. However, the objects in this space were so wildly ornate, and made of such outlandish and rare materials, that I could not help but be impressed. Gold, silver, emeralds, sapphires, rubies, ivory, enamel, amber, marble, pearl, tortoiseshell, coconuts… The amazing attention to detail, the sheer ingenuity of the designs, could captivate even my most cynical mind.

The Historic Green Vault is also full of such delightful treasures, though here the focus is on the total decoration of the rooms. Here you can see the maximalist impulses of the High Baroque in their fullest splendor, as each room bursts with finery. These rooms were put together in the early 1700s under Augustus the Strong, as physical manifestations of his power. But they have been through a lot. Like so much of the city, the rooms were severely damaged—and, in some cases, completely destroyed—in the 1945 bombing. They were also the scene of a famous heist.

In November of 2019, in the wee hours of the morning, a small fire on the nearby Augustus Bridge caused a power outage in the museum, deactivating the security system. While it was down, thieves cut a hole in the window bars and climbed inside the vault—smashing the protective glass and stealing hundreds of jewels.

Amazingly, despite the power outage, the CCTV kept working—which eventually allowed the German authorities to identify and apprehend the thieves (who were all members of the same family). Even better, most of the jewels were eventually recovered, and were returned to the display in August of 2024 (a few months after my visit).

This dazzling display of wealth and power was my final impression of the city. Afterwards, I had time for one last meal (and beer) and the Augustgarten across the river. It was sad to go.

My return flight to Madrid had a connection in Frankfurt (there were no direct flights). Now, layovers tend to produce a certain amount of anxiety in me, since any delay in the first flight can cause you to miss the second. This has happened to me before, and I was afraid it was about to happen again, since my flight was delayed by an hour.

Indeed, by the time I arrived, I had resigned myself to spending an uncomfortable night in Frankfurt. But I was astounded to find that my second flight was also operating with a delay—giving me a 15-minute window to catch it. “You can make it,” the flight attendant told me as I was leaving the plane. “But you’ve got to run. The airport is big!” It was. With my big orange hiking backpack on my back, dressed in jeans and a hoodie, I found myself sprinting down a seemingly endless hallway until, miraculously, I arrived at my gate and, at the last moment, caught the flight to Madrid.

It was an exciting end to what had been a thoroughly enjoyable vacation. And now, unlike everyone else I knew, I could say that I had been to Dresden. And it is a city well worth visiting.

Cobh & Kells Priory

This is a series on my trip to Ireland. The other entries are:

It is a rite of passage for every Irish American to return to the motherland and to visit their ancestral village. Sure, it is ridiculous, and deservedly makes us the butt of jokes. (There is a great SNL skit about this.) After all, it is the most tenuous of connections, a coincidence of genealogy rather than anything genuine. DNA does not remember where it’s from.

But in a country where nearly everyone is descended from immigrants, where identity is constructed out of bits and pieces, and where ancestry can feel bizarrely abstract, there is something therapeutic about going to a physical spot and connecting our genes with soil. At the very least, it gives us a story to tell when we get back.

So it was that, during our drive to Galway from Dublin, we stopped at the town of Longford, where the Farrells supposedly hail from. There were signs of our family name everywhere—literally lining the roads in the surrounding area, as property for sale signs had a Farrell’s name for the realtor. In town, there was a Farrell stationery store. And next to the main road, there was a monument to one James Farrell.

This seemed especially significant, since this is also the name of my late grandfather. But the monument is to someone who passed away before my grandfather was even born—on April 15th, 1912. You may recognize this date: the day the Titanic sank.

James Farrell was, like many of the Irish on board, travelling third class. Just 26 years old, he was bound for New York, in search of better opportunities. He is remembered today for aiding several women escape to the life boats. While the wealthier passengers were being evacuated, those in steerage were kept below deck. James reportedly said to one of the crew members: “For God’s sake man, let the girls past to the boats, at least!” He was obeyed, and several of the women were allowed up and ultimately survived.

This history was hard to fathom while the three of us—my mom, my brother, and myself—looked at the modest monument. “I bet we’re the only people to come here in years,” my brother said. As if on cue, another car pulled up, and out walked—more American tourists. Our search for roots may lead us to see more of Ireland than the Irish themselves.

Fast forward to nearly the end of our trip. Coincidentally, it was my brother’s birthday. To celebrate (perhaps morbidly) we decided to visit Cobh, the last place the Titanic docked before embarking on its fatal voyage.

Cobh is a small town—its population only slightly bigger than my native Tarrytown—located on the southern coast of Ireland. During the days of English colonial rule, it was called Queenstown. After gaining their independence, however, that name obviously would not do; and so the Irish searched for something better. They decided on “Cobh,” the Irish spelling of the English word “cove,” pronounced exactly the same. (The word has no meaning in Gaelic.)

We arrived on a beautiful day, a few fat clouds hanging in the sky like overfed sheep, the water glistening in the bay. After parking the car, we were greeted by the sound of church bells. Cobh, you see, has a strangely magnificent cathedral for such a small town. Built in a neo-gothic style, its single spire soars into the air, dwarfing every other structure in the vicinity.

As we approached, we noticed a crowd was gathered around the church, listening to the bells. Strangely, every one of these people was wearing an identical red fez cap. To add to the confusion, there were also two fellows with Hitler mustaches who were dressed in old-fashioned suits and top hats. We listened, and soon realized that this wasn’t merely the tolling of bells, but a concert. Inside, we could see a video feed of a man playing on a keyboard. The church itself was acting as a kind of enormous instrument.

By asking around, we found out that this was all part of a conference of the Sons of the Desert. This is the official fan club of Laurel and Hardy, the legendary comedy duo. The two men with mustaches were impersonators (and quite convincing ones), while the red caps are a reference to a 1933 film, which shares a name with the organization. Even the concert was part of it: the music being played on the church bells were themes from the movies. The whole spectacle was oddly delightful. Although none of us knew anything about Laurel and Hardy, the overwhelming enthusiasm devoted to this niche bit of cinematic history was thoroughly charming.

The main thing to do in Cobh is to visit the Titanic Museum—or, as they call it, “Experience.” This is located in the old White Star Line building, where the passengers bought their tickets and boarded the doomed vessel. Each ticket features a profile of one of the 123 passengers who embarked from Cobh (fewer than half survived). The visit itself is a kind of guided tour, which takes you through models of different cabins, tells stories of some individual passengers, and includes a remarkably bad CGI portrayal of the sinking. It is a bit corny and rather touristy, but still a fun way to pass an hour.

The town of Cobh itself is a lovely place—picturesque, cozy, atmospheric. A row of Victorian houses running down a hillside, all of them painted a different color, creates an image reproduced in countless post cards and screen savers. Next to the water, you can see a statue of Annie More, the first Irish immigrant to be admitted through Ellis Island. And though my own ancestors entered the United States years before Ellis Island opened its doors, they must have taken a very similar journey across the stormy, gray Atlantic—the same trip, indeed, that James Farrell was on when his vessel crashed into the ice.

On our drive back to the Airbnb to cook my brother his birthday meal, we stopped at a place we found in our trusty Rick Steves guidebook: Kells Priory.

Kells Priory is not the monastery that gave its name to the famed Book of Kells, which is located much farther north. This monastery was founded later, at the end of the 12th century; and it has a storied past. Attacked and burned on three separate occasions—notably by Edward Bruce, who tried to make himself king of Ireland in the 14th century—the monastery also has an odd connection with witchcraft.

In 1324, a wealthy and powerful woman in County Kilkenny, Alice Kyteler, was accused of heresy by her stepson. A bishop came to investigate the accusation (which unsurprisingly was based on personal resentment) and was imprisoned by the local lord, in this very monastery. Eventually, the bishop was released, but Kyteler had time to flee the country. She was never heard from again. But a poor maidservant, Petronilla de Midia, was accused of being her follower, tortured, and burned at the stake—the first known such case in Ireland.

Like so many other monasteries, Kells Priory was dissolved in 1540, under the orders of Henry VIII, who wanted to remove his kingdom from Catholic power (so as to have more leeway to decapitate his wives). Since this, it has lapsed into one of the many ruins which dot the Irish landscape.

But it is an arresting ruin. Situated in an open green field, the monastery presents itself to the viewer as a collection of towers, connected by a wall. In other words, it looks more like an abandoned castle or fortress than a religious institution—perhaps unsurprising, given its conflicted past.

When we visited, we were the only people there. It felt like stumbling upon a secret. With the sun low in the sky, we wandered among the ruins—walking up staircases that led nowhere, balancing on demolished foundations, and passing through empty doorways. The ruins were vast, covering the whole hillside, and yet there was little if any signage. When we got to the other side, we found a river flowing quietly alongside the stony pile, where a few locals were strolling, inured by overexposure to the majesty of the ruins.

This was not to be our last glance of Irish ruins—that would be Glendalough—but it was the most evocative. To American eyes, such a place deserves to be world-famous. But in Ireland, and in Europe generally, it is a historic footnote—just one monastery among hundreds. In such a small country with such a deep past, the years seem literally piled up beneath your feet, constantly reminding you of the lives which have come and gone. Having grown up in such a place, it must have felt like a tremendous rupture for those like my ancestors to leave this land behind and step foot on a new continent.

The rest of our night was delightful. We went back to the Airbnb—a cottage in the countryside—and cooked birthday pasta for my brother. Then, we watched Irish public television. As soon as we turned it on, we were amazed to be watching Stan & Ollie, the Laurel and Hardy biopic, which features a scene in Cobh. Surely, that cannot have been a coincidence. That movie (surprisingly good) was followed by The Patriot, one of the most anti-British films of recent history. It seemed appropriate for the Republic of Ireland.

It had been a strange day, and yet oddly appropriate for the end of our trip. We had come to Ireland, in part, in order to wring a little bit of meaning out of our past. And in different ways, this is also what we did by celebrating my brother’s birthday, or what the Sons of the Desert did by visiting Cobh, or what the public television did by playing The Patriot. Ireland is, of course, far more than a landscape of ruins, or a playground for Americans to find their roots. It is, as we discovered, a thoroughly charming country—whose people, places, and past all promise a great future. And I look forward to seeing it.

The Rock of Cashel & Kilkenny

One thing that an American visitor quickly learns on a trip around Europe is that there are simply some parts of the landscape that cry out to be the site of a castle. At a time when every town was its own kingdom, a time before police forces or standing armies, a time of great scarcity and instability, it was only the presence of a castle that could guarantee the safety of the local ruling family. And the safest place for a castle is usually on the highest available ground—where enemies can be spotted from afar, and where attackers must struggle uphill. The outcropping of limestone that rises dramatically over the fertile, level land known as the “Golden Vale” is just such a place—a natural pedestal. You might even say that it was destined to be the site of a great edifice.

The Rock of Cashel has been important in Irish history for a very long time. Indeed, it is difficult to say precisely how long. There are legends about its formation—about St. Patrick confronting Satan, who then hurled this great rock from a nearby mountain—and there are stories about the early Christian leaders, Patrick and Declán, meeting here all the way back in the 5th century. What we can say with more certainty is that this was the seat of the kings of Munster, who ruled this corner of Ireland from the Iron Age all the way to the Middle Ages. For this rocky outcropping, in other words, geology became history.

By the time we drove up and parked in the shadow of this old pile of rock, it was the middle of a hot, sunny day. We walked up the hill to the entrance and signed up for the next available tour, which luckily was about to start. Our guide was—like so many Irish—eloquent, witty, and engaging, leavening her historic spiel with the right amount of humor. Still, during my visit, I found it difficult to pay attention. The ruins were so vast and so evocative that I felt swallowed up, overwhelmed by their scale and splendor.

But time alone is not solely responsible for the building’s ruined state. Although the Rock of Cashel was a fortified castle for centuries, religion eventually overtook politics as the dominant local force, and a large Catholic cathedral was instead built in its place. Yet such a prominent symbol of Catholic power was an obvious point of resistance during the Irish Rebellion of 1641; and it was an obvious site of English reprisals in the following Irish defeat.

The invading troops massacred the Catholic clergy and looted the church. Among the dead was Theobald Stapleton, one of the fathers of Irish orthography. Henceforth, the cathedral came to be used by the Anglicans. The English clergy were, however, little disposed to invest in the upkeep of the cathedral, which fell into disrepair. Finally, Arthur Price, the local archbishop, overruled plans to repair the roof—considered a jewel of Irish architecture—and had it dismantled, thus leaving the ruin we see today.

But some parts of the original structure remain standing—most notably, Cormac’s Chapel. Completed in 1134, this is a Romanesque chapel, one of the finest in Europe. Unlike the flashy Gothic architecture of the high Middle Ages, this chapel strikes the modern viewer as elegant, meditative, and soulful. Unfortunately, the builders of this chapel used sandstone—which has an attractive hue, but which soaks up water over time. This severely damaged the wonderful ceiling frescoes, as well as weakened the structure. Nowadays, the interior is climate-controlled, and visitors can only enter in small groups, for a limited amount of time.

The other notable structure on the site is the round tower. This is a distinctly Irish design, consisting of a free-standing stone tower with a pointed roof. The one here is nearly 30 meters (100 feet) tall, and was built before the cathedral was even started. The purpose of these towers is somewhat mysterious: they would not make good bell towers (there isn’t room or a sizable window), and they were not used for storing grain. Because they had such a small foundation, it was structurally necessary to put the entry door well over the ground, accessible only by a ladder. Our guide explained that this made the towers ideal places for the monks to hide during attacks, as the ladder could be withdrawn into the tower and the door tightly shut.

Our tour ended on the northern side of the site. In the far distance, the low, lush fields of the Golden Vale spread endlessly outwards. After the cathedral’s destruction, the hill was still used as a cemetery for many years. Many graves thus adorn this side of the hill, giving a somber mood to an already haunting place. As usual in Ireland, many centuries seemed to be compressed beneath our feet.

Learning history is tiring work, so we next headed to a nearby restaurant for some hearty Irish fare. And this gives me an opportunity to talk about Irish cuisine in general. Most people, I would reckon, do not visit Ireland for the food, and it is not especially well-known outside the country. Nevertheless, I found it to be consistently comforting and enjoyable. Both literal and figurative meat and potatoes, it is honest, hardworking food that will keep you fit and fed all day. Yes, it is somewhat bland; and yes, it sits a bit heavy in the stomach. But it does exactly what it promises to do. Besides, if you get tired of it, Ireland is well-supplied with cuisines of other varieties. During our time there, we had good Italian, Indian, and Mexican food.

Our next stop was the nearby town of Kilkenny, just an hour’s drive away. We were behind schedule. It was already afternoon, and we had only allowed for a single day to see the city. After finding a place to park, we rushed to the town’s main attraction, Kilkenny Castle—only to be informed that it would close in an hour. Our visit was thus abbreviated.

If some castles seem to emerge from the landscape, others are imposed on them in order to exert control. This is precisely the origin of this fortification, which was built along the River Nore—a natural choke point for commerce and travel. Kilkenny Castle does not have the same antiquity as the Rock of Cashel. Instead, this building came about during the Norman invasion of the 12th century. The Normans came bearing a new language (French) and continental ideas of architecture. If the Rock of Cashel is a symbol of Irish identity, then, Kilkenny Castle is a symbol of foreign occupation.

Ironically, however, this castle was also used as a headquarters of the aforementioned Irish Rebellion of 1641. Indeed, it was even used by the provisional Irish parliament. But Oliver Cromwell put an end to that. His troops besieged the town and, in the process, damaged the castle—brutally suppressing the rebellion and instituting laws that would severely reduce the rights of Catholics.

The castle is now a museum, thanks to the 6th Marquess and 24th Earl of Ormonde, who donated it to the Irish government in 1967 for the symbolic sum of 50 pounds—long after his ancient family had run out of the necessary funds for its upkeep. In his words: “We determined that it should not be allowed to fall into ruins. There are already too many ruins in Ireland.” Of course, after decades of neglect, the castle was already quite dilapidated. It took many more years to restore it to its present glory.

What the visitor encounters now is not so much a fortification as an aristocratic home. There is elegant furniture, richly woven tapestries, and lovely floral wallpaper. The showstopper is the picture gallery—an enormous room with wooden vaulted ceilings, every inch elaborately decorated. Even the fireplace is intricately carved. Yet despite the many attractive paintings adorning the walls, I found the ceiling to be the most impressive. Every single board was shaped and painted.

Soon our tour was over, and we were deposited in the sweeping lawn of the castle grounds. It was a delicious evening—warm, cloudless, and still quite bright—and this great lawn, which now serves as a city park, was full of people. We sat on a bench and took it in. A group of high school boys caught my attention. Their backpacks on the ground (it was a school day), they were tossing a ball back and forth with wooden sticks. This is hurling—the quintessential Irish sport, which requires great dexterity to manipulate a small ball with a kind flat wooden club. There, in the shadow of a fortress built by invaders, the Irish culture blithely soldiered on.

It was our misfortune not to have had more time for Kilkenny. One of the most charming and best-preserved cities in Ireland, it is worth a longer visit than we allotted. Still, we enjoyed strolling the streets and walking alongside the placid waters of the River Nore. Indeed, as we searched for a restaurant, we observed a group of school-age girls taking turns jumping into the river. With nobody else around, it felt like a strangely intimate moment in a small town, rather than something I expected to see in a center of medieval Norman power.

As the 6th Marquess and 24th Earl of Ormonde observed, Ireland is indeed quite full of ruins. And yet among them, above them, and between them, it is also a living place.

The Blog Turns 10!

Today marks the 10-year anniversary of the first ever post on my blog. A lot has changed since then. At the time, I had just moved to Spain for what was supposed to be a single year. I was 24 years old, and immature even for that age. My Spanish was terrible, bordering on non-existent. And Europe was shockingly new.

The idea of starting a blog came from my habit of writing book reviews. That practice began just from a desire to really keep track of what I learned from all of the books I was reading. There is a famous quote, often attributed to St. Augustine: “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” Not well-traveled himself, the good saint almost certainly never said this. Still, in that spirit, I decided that I ought to write up my trips, if only to really suck the marrow out of each experience. After all, I was only supposed to be there a year.

My first post was about Toledo. This was appropriate, as Toledo was the first place I visited in Spain that really astounded me. There is simply nothing in the United States that even remotely resembles the city’s perfectly preserved medieval core—its twisting, narrow streets, its stone bridges and walls, and above all its gothic cathedral.

The grand church was a revelation. Inside and out, the building was simply covered in artwork—statues, friezes, frescoes, and paintings—every inch of it made by hand, over centuries. It wasn’t just that the cathedral was beautiful. It gave me a new concept of time. Even the most negligible adornment would have taken hours, days, weeks of painstaking work.

The structure of the building itself, its stone roof seeming to float above me, seemed almost miraculous. That it could be designed without computers and assembled without machines was a testament to human perseverance, if nothing else. It did to me precisely what it was made to do: make me feel like an insignificant, ephemeral nothing in comparison with the world around me.

It was this experience, above all, that prompted me to write up the visit and to begin this blog. Since then, I’ve published over 700 posts here, including another one about Toledo. Over this time, the purpose and nature of the blog has fluctuated. At first it was meant to be a sort of diary, recording my own experience. Later, I tried to make it more like a travel guide, providing useful information and context to would-be travelers.

Yet I must admit that I haven’t had the discipline to stick to any one concept of this blog. So it is very much a mixed bag—of reviews, essays, short stories, travel pieces, and anything else that I deemed worthy of writing. This lack of an overarching concept has irked me, and I have often chastised myself for being such a self-indulgent writer. But at this point, I can at least say that this blog is an accurate reflection of myself—both my strengths and my shortcomings.

Much has changed during this time. I stayed in Spain far longer than I ever dreamed, spending over a decade in that enchanting country. My Spanish improved to the point where I consider myself nearly bilingual. And Europe went from shocking to comforting, as I saw cathedral after cathedral, city after city, and grew accustomed to the sights, languages, customs, and the different pace of life in that continent.

Change in life can happen so gradually that it is difficult to even notice. But I was given a chance to reflect on my new perspective on a recent visit to Toledo, back in October, nearly ten years after my initial trip. The city was still beautiful, the cathedral still magnificent. Yet I was not transported in the same way as I was. Not that I think any less of Toledo, just that it was no longer an alien world to me. It was home.

Rereading my original post about Toledo is another chance to reflect on this change. Now, I normally avoid reading my old writing, as I find it acutely embarrassing. But I actually came away from this reread with some affection for the Roy of that time. True, he had a lot to learn, and a lot of growing up to do. He was pretentious, often condescending, and took himself far too seriously. But he was curious, he was passionate, and he wanted to improve himself intellectually and even spiritually. He was on the search for wisdom.

I don’t know if the Roy of that time would be pleased with the Roy of today. I’m not always pleased with myself. Certainly I didn’t achieve his dream of becoming a famous writer, though I have gotten a couple books published. In any case, I should thank him; I owe my former self a lot. At a crucial moment in his life, he decided to go on a journey rather than embark on a conventional career. I just hope that I can make proper use of the experience he gave me.

My life changed, once again, on the 20th of October, when I moved back to New York. It was a tough, complicated decision, and of course there is much I miss about Spain. So far, however, it seems to have been the right one. In any case, it does put the future of this blog in doubt. Admittedly, I have a backlog of travel pieces that I want to write up in the coming months. And, hopefully, there are new trips to be taken, and much of the world still to see.

Realistically, though, I imagine that I’ll be doing significantly less traveling in the foreseeable future—especially as I get my career on track here. But, knowing myself, I will find something to write about. I always seem to.

I can’t end this post without thanking everyone who has taken even a passing interest in this blog. Hopefully, we’ll see each other here in another ten years. Until then, cheers!

Difficult Day Trips: Patones de Arriba & Las Cárcavas

For years I had been beguiled by images of Las Cárcavas—a crazy undulation of land, tucked away in the sierra of Madrid. Photos made the place seem otherworldly; and I was dying to see it for myself. Unfortunately, however, there did not seem to be any good way to get there on public transport. Studying the bus routes and the map, I found that the closest that I could get was a tiny village that I’d visited once before: Patones de Arriba.

So early one Saturday morning, I took the metro to Plaza de Castilla, and caught the 197 bus to a small village called Torrelaguna. From there, I caught the 913 bus—a mini-bus, which followed the winding path up a hill to the old and picturesque village of Patones de Arriba. I was the only passenger on board that day. And by the time I arrived, it was still so early that the streets were virtually empty.

Patones de Arriba (unlike its modern cousin, Patones de Abajo down the hill) is a time capsule of a place. It seems to have survived virtually unchanged since antiquity. Stone huts cover an otherwise barren hillside—the town hidden among the foothills of the sierra, in a place that would be naturally defensible should any dare to attack it.

The architecture is a prime example of what the Spanish call arquitectura negra: all of the buildings made out of the distinctive black slate of the area, which naturally breaks off into thin plates. This gives the town a striking uniformity—both between its buildings, and with the landscape. The tallest building is the old church, though nowadays it is used for the tourism office. Indeed, I am not sure that anyone actually lives in Patones de Arriba these days—it is a kind of living museum attached to the modern settlement below.

The town is full of relics of its agricultural past. There are stone threshing floors (for separating the wheat from the chaff), pig pens, and cattle sheds. We can also see signs of village life, in the form of ovens, wine cellars, and laundry basins, all made from the local slate. But the real pleasure of visiting the village is simply enjoying the ambience of the past—and, perhaps, a good lunch. On my first visit, years prior, we went into one of the restaurants and had a hearty meal of good Spanish mountain fare—bean stews and red meat.

But by the time I arrived, there was nothing open and, apparently, nobody there. So I walked through the town and then out into the surrounding hills, on my way to Las Cárcavas.

The countryside here is, like much of the interior of Spain, windswept and bare. In the best of times, the soil and rain could not support luxuriant vegetation; and, in any case, centuries of human habitation have destroyed a large portion of the old forests. The result is that much of Spain, though dramatic in its vistas—the view extending until the horizon—unwinds itself in a patchy surface of rocky ground covered with low shrubs.

The walk was long, winding, and somewhat monotonous—going up and down hill after hill. The only thing to attract the eye were the many pieces of water infrastructure. Large tubes shot out of the hillside, down into valleys and back up again. Further on, stone aqueducts crossed from elevation to elevation. Finally, the explanation for all this came into view: the Pontón de Oliva.

This mammoth construction was the first dam built under the auspices of the Canal de Isabel II, the organization responsible for Madrid’s water supply. And this brings me to a small detour in our hike. Like New York City, you see, Madrid has long struggled to supply its citizenry with clean, safe drinking water. And this is due to the location of both cities: New York is surrounded by brackish, dirty, ocean water, while Madrid has virtually no natural water sources to speak of.

When Madrid was still a relatively small city, local wells and streams were enough to solve this problem. But by 1850, with the city’s population nearing a quarter of a million, the lack of water was becoming a serious issue. The engineers in both NYC and Madrid hit upon the identical solution: dam the rivers in the mountains to the north, and transport the fresh mountain waters to the thirsty city. The Pontón de Oliva was the first step taken in this effort.

It was constructed during the reign of Isabel II, who became the first (and, so far, the only) ruling queen of modern Spain after a succession dispute, which involved a rebellion by her uncle, don Carlos. These wars, called the “Carlist wars,” ended in her victory. This left the new queen with quite a few prisoners of war, whom she put to use building this dam under extremely gruelling conditions. (I tried to look up the number of prisoners who died during the construction, but I couldn’t find it.) To make matters worse, the engineers who designed the dam had chosen a bad location of the river Lozoya, making it all but useless. Today, it stands as a kind of monument of wasted effort—something for hikers and history buffs to appreciate, but dry as a bone.

Just beyond this dam, I finally arrived at my goal: Las Cárcavas. Now, “cárcava” is just the Spanish word for “gully” (though it certainly sounds more attractive); and this one is just a particularly big example of a common phenomenon—namely, water erosion. Though the details are complex, the principle is quite simple: intermittent water flow down steep terrain causes rivulets to form, creating a distinctive undulating pattern as they wear their way through the landscape.

I stood on the lip of this gully and sat down, absolutely exhausted. I had been walking for several hours by then, up and down hills, with no shade from the punishing June sun. Now it was past noon, and the temperature was climbing. I ate my packed lunch (a tuna empanada and a small bottle of gazpacho) as I observed a column of ants make their way through the dusty earth, and amused myself by tossing them little bits of fish. Then, after getting my fill of this alien world, I drained my water bottle and got wearily to my feet.

Water, I have discovered, is a powerful thing. It can move landscapes and determine the destiny of cities. And I found now that I hadn’t brought enough of it. I had well over an hour before I could make my way to civilization, all of it under the merciless Spanish sun. And I was already thirsty. The only choice was to press on. Attempting to distract myself with an audiobook, I walked down the hill, past the dam, and onto a local road.

At just the point when I was risking heat stroke, I arrived in Patones de Abajo and stumbled into the nearest bar. There, I ordered the biggest “clara” they had (beer mixed with lemon soda), and then ordered another one. Then, after another long bus ride back to Madrid, I enjoyed glass after glass of the city’s fine tap water—water that had itself been on a journey from the sierra—which, I found, tasted especially good that day.

Modern Art in Old Castille

When I first came to Europe I was, like any good American, in search of the very old. We have skyscrapers and Jackson Pollocks in my country, but we don’t have cathedrals, castles, or El Greco. Yet to see Europe as merely a repository of its history is to forget that its residents are just as keen as anyone to advance into the future. And so I recommend any visiting Americans to make time to experience a bit of the more modern side of Spain.

Segovia, for example, is justly famous for its Roman aqueduct and its elegant cathedral. But tucked away in its winding streets is the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Esteban Vicente. This small museum would be worth your time even if it weren’t free to visit. It is named after an important but lesser-known artist from the 20th century, a member of the famous Generation of 1927 (which also included Lorca and Dalí), who spent time in Paris alongside Picasso, and finally moved to New York City in the wake of the Spanish Civil War. There, he became one of the main representatives of abstract expressionism.

The museum is housed in what used to be a hospital; and the large rooms and austere architecture contrast starkly with the art. Though he began as a figurative painter, Vicente quickly moved into the kind of abstract art that many people turn up their noses at—atmospheric blobs and swirls of color on canvas. I must admit that it isn’t usually my cup of tea, either. Nevertheless, in the context of Segovia, a city of narrow streets, hard angles, and gray stone, his art was wonderfully refreshing—light and playful, almost ethereal in its vagueness.

When I visited, there was a temporary exhibit by the contemporary artist Hugo Fontela—another Spaniard working in the abstract vein, living in New York. He worked in a very restrained color pallet, just green on a white canvas. Yet with the rhythm and intensity of his brush strokes, he managed to evoke clouds, waves, wind, and whole landscapes. It was an impressive performance.

Even deeper into Old Castile is the city of Valladolid. Though often overlooked by tourists, it is a city well worth visiting, especially as it is easily accessible by fast train from Madrid. Among the curiosities of the city is its huge and rather ugly cathedral—a massive pile of stone that looks oddly unfinished. This is because, when it was conceived, Valladolid was serving as the capital of Spain, and so its church was meant to be the biggest in the world. When the capital was moved to Madrid, however, the construction stopped, and now the building trails off into nothingness.

The most famous museum in the city is the Museo Nacional de Escultura, a collection of sculptures from the middle ages onward (mostly religious), housed in an old monastery. However, during my brief time in Valladolid, I found my visit to another museum far more enjoyable: the Museo Patio Herreriano.

The museum is located in the remains of the former monastery of San Benito el Real. Though its name pays homage to the great Spanish architect Juan de Herrera, it was really designed by one of his followers, Juan de Ribero Rada. However, the building was in such disrepair by the time it was decided to create a museum that substantial renovations were necessary. The building now is thus a strange Frankenstein mixture of old and new sections.

The museum’s collection is huge and extensive, containing works by Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí, and even our friend Esteban Vicente, as well as contemporary artists such as Azucena Vieites. I wandered around rather aimlessly, having neglected even to pick up a map, doing my best despite being sleep-deprived and dehydrated to appreciate the art. I would be insincere if I pretended that I liked everything. Indeed, contemporary art often leaves me scratching my head and even vaguely bored.

But any kind of art is largely hit and miss; and contemporary art even more so. Going to a modern art museum, therefore, requires a certain suspension of judgment, a certain amount of patience, until you discover something that pulls you in.

For me, this was an exhibit on Delhy Tejero, a Spanish artist I had never heard of before. What immediately struck me about her work was how varied it was, in both style and content. She could do realistic, figurative drawings or highly abstract paintings; her work can be cartoonish, dreamy, or serious; she can focus on folklore or lose herself in the purity of geometric shapes. Perhaps none of the works on display was a surpassing masterpiece, but taken as a whole her work exemplified such a degree of curiosity, open-mindedness, and fine sensibility that it left me deeply impressed.

These are just two examples of the fine, lesser-known modern art museums to be found all over Spain. And I think that, especially for the weary traveller, traversing the scorched soil of the central Castilian plains, besieged by castles, cathedrals, and ruins of bygone civilizations, a bit of absurdity, playfulness, and abstraction can do much to clear the palette.

Padua and the Cosmic Chapel

Venice certainly does not lack for sights. The entire city is virtually an open-air museum; there are architectural masterpieces on every other corner. And even if you get tired of the historical center of Venice, there are plenty of islands in the Venetian lagoon that are worth visiting. But I think that it is worth going even further afield during your trip. The famous city of Verona is not far off, and the Prosecco wine region is also within reach. But if you are interested in art, then the place to go is Padua.

Trains leave regularly from Venice to Padua. They cost less than 10 euros, and the trip takes substantially less than an hour. In no time I was stepping off the train and walking towards my destination: the Arena Chapel. Also called the Scrovegni chapel, this is the small church where Giotto—known as the father of the Italian Renaissance—did his finest work. Not wishing to leave anything to chance, I booked my ticket online in advance. The chapel is small, and the artwork is delicate; so only 25 people are allowed in during any visit; and a visit lasts about 15 minutes. I certainly did not want to go all the way to Padua to be told that there were no more tours that day.

Indeed, I was so worried about making the tour in time that I arrived substantially early, leaving me an hour to kill. Luckily, the Musei Civici di Padova—the municipal museum—is right next door. This was free to visit and actually quite beautiful. The collection is housed in a former monastery, filling the old cloisters within and without; and this former monastery itself sits in the bucolic monastery gardens (now a public park). The collection was far more impressive than I expected. There are bits of Roman ruins, fine works of ancient pottery, original manuscripts, and prints and drawings.

*The old cloisters, which now house the Municipal Museum*

But of course, this being Italy, the main attraction were the many sculptures and paintings on display. Both the quality and variety of these works astounded me. In Europe, art is truly endless; every city has its own collection of minor masterpieces. Padua has some fairly major masterpieces in its collection. There were some wonderful examples of religious wood carvings, with faces distorted in grief at the dead Christ. The paintings were quite wonderful as well. There are works by Tiepolo, Bellini, and Tintoretto, and dozens of works by lesser-known masters. By the time that I had to leave for the chapel, I was rather disappointed that I could not spend more time enjoying this charming collection.

Now it was time to visit the chapel. This is a separate building off to the side of the former monastery. We gathered in front of the entrance, just as the previous tour group was exiting through a separate doorway. Soon enough we were being herded inside—all twenty-five of us—to watch a short informative film while the climate adjusted around us. It is a very good system, I think. The film gives us a bit of background, while the air conditioning gradually cools down the temperature and reduces the humidity, so that when we enter we do no harm to the artwork. I must admit, though, that I was a bit cold by the end of the film.

Before we go inside, allow me to give you some background. The chapel was never part of a public church, but was rather built at the behest of a wealthy banker, Enrico Scrovegni (thus the name), who owned a large mansion—now demolished—right next door. The chapel was built over a Roman arena which once occupied the spot (thus the other name), whose ruins can still be seen nearby. Scrovegni must have been quite a wealthy man, since he was able to recruit the great Giotto from Florence, the preeminent painter of his day. Giotto came, and spent about two years on the project. The result was one of the great masterpieces in the history of European art. For his time, Giotto was an extremely innovative figure, pioneering techniques for adding realism, dimension, and form to his paintings. There is a lifelike drama to his work that makes him a forerunner of the entire Italian Renaissance.

Finally it was time to enter. I walked through just one doorway and—I was there. Everyone who entered was reduced to the hushed silence that accompanies any great work of art—the feeling of awe that forces us to speak in reverential whispers. Though composed of dozens of individual works, the Arena chapel is a unified work, with a single aesthetic sensibility and philosophical vision pervading the space. The dominant color is blue—a shade between the bright blue of the sky and the dark violet of the late evening. It helps to give the chapel the lush, cool ambience of a cloudless summer night.

This comparison is quite obvious, when you look up to see the ceiling painted as the night sky. In two panels, Giotto represents Christ and Mary as the center of the universe (earth, in Giotto’s day), with the prophets as planets, against a starry background. Then, in four distinct levels, panels tell the story of Mary and Christ, and then represent the virtues and vices. At the far end is the centerpiece of the program: a magnificent portrayal of the Last Judgment. The entire work has been aptly compared with Dante’s Divine Comedy. Indeed, Giotto, who was a near-contemporary of Dante, may have been directly influenced by that great poem in its images of heaven and hell. In any case, the Scrovegni chapel is a work of comparable ambition and skill: a grand cosmic vision, attempting to encompass the human experience.

The main entrance of the chapel (which is not where the modern visitor enters) is right below the Last Judgment. On the opposite side is a triumphal arch, underneath which the priest would have stood. The grand program of decoration begins right at the top of this triumphal arch and then works its way down tier by tier. The cosmic cycle is set in motion by God the Father, who calls the archangel Gabriel to his side, and instructs the angel to deliver the annunciation to Mary. This is done immediately below, on either sides of the arch—Gabriel on the left and Mary on the right—who form a beautiful pair. Already, we can see some of Giotto’s innovation here. The two figures occupy a convincing architectural space, with balconies that sing to hang into the air. This was something quite new in the history of art. Though still not true perspective (since the lines to not converge on a vanishing point), even this little background is a more convincing three-dimensional representation of space than anything in gothic painting.

The story on the upper tier begins even before the annunciation to Mary, with the story of Mary’s parents, Joachin and St. Anne. Mary herself was the subject of an annunciation, as an angel informed her mother that Mary would be born without original sin (immaculately, in other words). The story of Mary’s birth and marriage takes us back around to the triumphal arch, where Gabriel’s annunciation has its proper chronological setting. This sets in motion the story of Christ, which begins with the birth, the adoration of the Magi, the flight into Egypt, and the rest of the typical scenes of Christ’s childhood. This sequence takes us to the first half of the second tier. Now, Christ’s adulthood begins, with its many scenes: the baptism, the miracles, the betrayal, crucifixion, and resurrection. This takes us all the way to the Last Judgment, the logical end of the series (and, indeed, of the world).

Of course, this is a story often told. You can see it, or part of it, in any church in Europe. Giotto’s excellence is revealed in the execution of this standard program. He was an artist of many talents. One is his sense of dramatic narrative. Rather than a series of disconnected scenes, as is often found in gothic art, the scenes in Giotto’s work all lead very naturally to the next. This is done through simple but effective visual cues, such as having Christ constantly facing in the direction of the next panel, or having the ground seem to continue from one scene to the next. This gives Giotto’s rendition of these classic stories an organic continuity and unity, easy and pleasant to follow.

Giotto was a dramatist in other ways. Whereas emotion is rather abstract or generalized in medieval art, Giotto renders emotion more palpable. This is apparent in many scenes: the tender kiss shared between St. Anne and Joachim at the golden gate of Israel, or the way that the Virgin gently cradles her newborn son, or the passionate grief apparent in those mourning Christ. The emotion in these scenes is shockingly direct; and this is a measure of Giotto’s realism. His figures are not generic or unreal, but solid and substantial. Their emotions are expressed through their very physicality—an embrace, a kiss, a gesture.

Giotto’s realism and his dramatic sensibility are tied together through his gift for composition. Several of the panels are masterpieces of formal study, guiding the viewer’s eye to the central drama, and expressing that drama through shape and line.

The best example of this—and perhaps the best painting in the entire chapel—is the arrest of Christ (or the kiss of Judah). It is a traditional scene, but its execution is far from traditional. Judas is normally shown coming and kissing Christ on the cheek, as Christ looks forward. But in this work, Christ and Judas directly face each other; Judas actually embraces Christ, covering him with the fold of his gown, and appears to kiss him directly on the mouth. The contrast between the stoic, tall Christ and the lowly, cowardly Judas—who looks both timorous and ridiculous, as he puckers—is extreme. And yet the pair, locked together, stand as a kind of anchor for the chaos raging around them. The torches, clubs, and lances of the mob are positioned so that they seem to emerge from the pair, splitting the night sky. On the left St. Peter is cutting off the ear of one of the assailants, while a hooded figure grabs somebody off to the side. On the other side, an official (painted with impressive volume and foreshortening) points menacingly to Jesus, signaling the others to apprehend him.

As impressive as this is, my personal favorite from the chapel is the Last Judgment. Like any typical representation of this awesome event, the scene is divided horizontally and vertically. On the top Christ sits among the saints in heaven, while below him the world is split between the saved and the damned, the former to his right and the latter to his left. Right at the bottom, we can see Scrovegni himself offering his chapel to the angels (presumably to secure his salvation). And we can see that the chapel, as it was when this was painted, is not as it is today. Concretely, the chapel today is smaller and less ornate that this drawing, which has led scholars to conclude that parts of the original chapel were demolished because the local church complained of competition.

Right at the bottom, below Scrovegni, there are a collection of naked, impish figures emerging from coffins. Presumably these are the dead, arising to be judged. Like many great painters, Giotto let his imagination run wild in his depiction of hell. Jets of flame shoot down into the abyss, carrying the damned into the inferno, where Satan and his minions are waiting. Demons pull and push the frightened sinners. Some unfortunates are hanging, while many others are being stuffed into pits at the bottom. In the center, Satan himself chews on a sinner, while others grasped in his hands await the same fate. Serpents emerge from his ears and he sits on a bed of dragons, which also gnaw hungrily on corrupt flesh. If Giotto was not inspired directly by Dante, he was responding to similar cultural currents. Or perhaps both imaginative men just enjoyed picturing the suffering of their enemies.

This more or less brings us to the end of the religious scenes. But I still have not mentioned the exquisite decorative painting that occupies the spaces between these scenes. They are beautiful works of abstract art, with geometrical and floral patterns perfectly imitating the appearance of marble inlays. Individual portraits of Old Testament figures occupy the spaces between the New Testament panels; and the knowledgeable viewer will notice that these, too, are carefully selected, in order to draw connections between the stories of the prophets and the story of Christ. For example, the story of Jonah and the Whale is placed before the resurrection, since Jesus’s death and rebirth were mirrored in Jonah’s being swallowed and then spit out again. (Many theologians spilled a lot of ink trying to prove that the New Testament was prefigured by the Old.)

We come finally to the representations of virtues and vices in the bottom tier. Though not explicitly religious, these only reinforce the message of the chapel: for the virtues lead directly to salvation and the vices to damnation. They are, thus, the abstract lessons to be learned from this great cosmic story, or if you prefer a moral philosophy expressed through personification. The execution of these vices and virtues in monochrome (thus imitating sculpture), only heightens their abstractness.

There are seven virtues, all mirrored by their corresponding vice on the opposite wall: hope with desperation, prudence with folly, justice with injustice, and so on. They are all wonderful, my personal favorite being the portrayal of Envy: standing in flames, clutching a bag of money, with a serpent emerging his mouth and turning around to bite him in the face. There can be no more graphic illustration of the torture and self-destruction inherent in envy. The representation of hope is also justly famous, as winged woman reaching up towards a crown; while her counterpart, desperation, has hung herself.

After fifteen wonderful minutes, we were led out of the chapel. I was exhausted. I had spent the morning rushing to the train, rushing to the museum, and then absorbed in artwork. It was time for lunch. For this, I headed to one of Padua’s better-known cheap eats, Dalla Zita, a small sandwich shop in the center. Dozens of color-coded sticky notes cover one of the walls, informing the visitor of the many sandwich options available, each one with a cute name. Somehow, the staff of the shop have memorized all of these sandwich names, and so you need only say “Steve” or “Babu” to get the sandwich you want. I do not remember what I ordered, but I am sure it involved roast beef and was delicious.

While I sat on the corner, stuffing the assemblage of bread, meat, and sauce into my mouth, I had quite a charming interaction. A woman, who had accidentally cut me in line in the sandwich shop, saw me, realized her mistake, and came over and actually apologized to me. That had never happened to me before. This was only the second act of small kindness that day. When I was in the monastery gardens trying to find the chapel a young man came over and pointed me in the right direction. He did not even want a reward! These things rarely happen in New York.

Now I had a few hours before my return train to Venice. I decided to spend some of it simply walking around the city of Padua. Though not as shockingly beautiful as Venice (no city is), Padua is charming, with an attractive historic center. Its most characteristic feature are the shaded arcades lining the wide, cobblestone streets. The walk along the river Bacchiglione—which runs through the center of the city—is also quite lovely. But the most picturesque spot in the city is, undoubtedly, the massive central square: the Prato della Valle (literally, “meadow of the valley”). At 90,000 square meters, this is the biggest plaza in Italy and among the largest in Europe. But it is not only special for its size. A moat encircles around a grassy central island, with no fewer than 78 neoclassical statues on either side of the canal.

Two of Padua’s most splendid church buildings stand nearby. Within sight of the Prato della Valle is the Abbey of Santa Giustina, a massive brick church building topped with domes. Like so many Italian churches, this church is richly and beautifully decorated. But it is perhaps most notable for holding the remains of St. Luke the Evangelist. Well, at least most of the remains: the evangelist’s body is entombed here, but his head is in Prague, and one of his ribs is in Thebes. In any case, I unfortunately did not have the chance to visit this church, since I was more interested in visiting another one nearby: the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua.

This basilica is the largest and, undoubtedly, the most glorious church building in Padua, though it is not the city’s cathedral. (This distinction is held by a far more modest structure, which has a famous fresco cycle by Guisto de’ Menabuoi.) Its profile is difficult to miss. Though the building has few external sculptures or friezes—being mainly composed of red brick—the roof is forest of domes and spires, which gives the building a vaguely Russian appearance.

Before going inside, it is worth pausing to examine an equestrian statue located right next to the building. This is the statue of Gattamelata, by none other than Donatello. Gattamelata is the nickname of Erasmo da Narni—it means “honeyed cat”—a famous condottiero (basically a general for hire). Though this statue lacks the ferocious strength of Andrea del Verrochio’s statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni in Venice, it is perhaps more historically significant in the history of art, if only because it was made earlier. The statue has many of the hallmarks of the early Renaissance: humanism, realism, secularism, classicism. After all, the subject of the sculpture is neither a saint nor a king, but a person famous for his own exploits—an individual. And Donatello obviously paid close attention to the anatomy of horses, as we can see from the careful modeling of the muscles and even the veins in the horse’s head.

The statue’s classicism is not only apparent in its realistic style, but also in the technique used: a bronze sculpture made using the lost-wax technique. Such a large-scale equestrian statue had been beyond the technical abilities of Europeans since the fall of Rome. It was the rediscovery of the statue of Marcus Aurelius (misidentified as Constantine) which showed Renaissance artists the possibilities of bronze sculpture. Donatello was both a pioneer and a master of this technique. It is also worth comparing this statue to one of the masterpieces of medieval sculpture, the Bamberg Horseman. The two works—both beautiful and realistic—reveal a difference in worldview. The Bamberg Horseman is graceful, handsome, and above all royal: a man of elevated status. Gattamelata is a much more imposing presence: self-contained, intelligent, determined, he seems to be a heroic man riding out of history.

Now, let us enter the basilica itself (where Gattamelata is buried, incidentally). Like so many Italian churches, the Basilica of Saint Anthony is lushly decorated. When not covered with fresco, every surface shimmers with gold, silver, or marble, in sharp contrast with the fairly plain walls outside the building. Because one cannot take pictures, my ability to talk about any aspect of the church in detail is limited. What most sticks out in my memory is the palatial shrine of St. Anthony of Padua. When I visited, pilgrims were lined up to receive a blessing and to kneel by the saint’s relics. Indeed, this basilica is an important site of pilgrimage, and is one of the eight international shrines designated by the Catholic Church (two of the three are in Italy, and three are in Poland).

With my visit concluded, I retreated outside to take a final look at the basilica. I had spent far less than a day in Padua, and almost every minute of it was enjoyable. Indeed, I found the city so charming that I wished I could spend far more time there. At the very least, the streets of Padua are more lively than those of Venice. But I had scheduled my train back and I could not stay any longer. One major site I missed was the Palazzo della Ragione, an enormous medieval town hall, decorated with dozens of paintings. I also wish I had visited the University of Padua, one of the oldest universities in Europe, where Galileo himself once taught. I suppose that the next time I return to Venice, I will have to return to Padua as well.

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Letters from Spain #18: Spanish Cities

Here is the next episode of my Spanish podcast. This one is about the joy of Spanish cities (when there isn’t a pandemic, of course).

Click below for the apple podcast:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/letters-from-spain-18-spanish-cities/id1469809686?i=1000468584456

Here is the video:

See the transcript below:

Hello,

It seems that I suddenly have an awful lot of time to work with. Because of the surge of coronavirus cases in Madrid, all schools have been closed, and I’ve been sent home for at least two weeks. On Friday they ordered all the shops and restaurants to be closed. And today was the first day of a nation-wide lockdown. Nobody is allowed on the streets, except to go to work, buy medicine or groceries. I think the Spanish people are mostly taking this well. True, there’s no toilet paper left in any of the shops. But people are keeping their spirits up during this difficult time. Every day, at eight o’clock, people have been gathering on their balconies to cheer the hardworking medical personnel.

It’s a pretty surreal feeling. A few weeks ago, coronavirus was just a thing happening in China. Two weeks ago, it was an Italian problem. Now it’s totally global.

Anyways, so far I am safe and sound. Meanwhile, the city of Madrid looks very, very different. It’s a complete ghost-town now. The precautions necessary to slow the spread of coronavirus go totally against the grain of Spanish culture. As I’ve talked about before, Spanish people love to be outside, to be in public, and to congregate. They greet each other with kisses and have no issues with physical contact. These qualities are—under normal circumstances—what make Spanish cities so great. In fact, I’d say that this is one of the most charming things about visiting Spain: that the city centers are always bustling with life.

A big part of this, I think, has to do with the layout of the cities itself. Every major Spanish city predates the invention of the car by centuries, and so the historical parts of these cities are always easily walkable. Really, the invention of the car was bad for city life. You can see the evidence of this almost anywhere in America, as well as in the parts of cities in Europe that have been built to accommodate car travel. On the outskirts of Madrid you enter into a kind of industrial park, where all the buildings are low-lying and spread out. When you don’t have any motivation to put things closeby, you also don’t have motivation to build up in any one place. The result is very ugly—endless asphalt, shabby buildings, and nobody on the street.

I think you can clearly see the bad effect that the car has had on city planning if you examine a place where I worked for a long time: Rivas-Vaciamadrid. Now, I don’t want to insult Rivas, because the people who live there are really quite lovely. But I think the town itself embodies everything that I dislike about modern cities. The major problem is the zoning. All the parts of Rivas are split up into discrete zones, which contain only one type of building. There are zones for single-residency houses, zones for apartment buildings, and zones for restaurants. Most of the shopping is concentrated in one giant mall. The result is deadening. There is hardly any variation to relieve your eye, since all the houses and buildings look exactly the same.

Even worse, compared to other Spanish cities, there is very little life on the street. I often had to walk from private class to private class, and I wouldn’t see more than three people during the whole time. It’s a place built for cars. There aren’t any good places to gather. True, Rivas has some big parks, but in my experience these were often empty, too. Personally I found it a bit depressing. (Again, this isn’t a reflection on the people of Rivas, who are very nice!) Going from the endlessly similar neighborhoods of the new part of Rivas to the tiny older center was always a relief. There, at least, there are some bars and cafes, and a central square with some benches.

The problem was diagnosed by Jane Jacobs. Cities are vibrant when they are mixed-use. That is, when there are lots of different sorts of things in the same neighborhood, there are that many more reasons for people to be walking on the street. And when people are on the street, the streets become that much more interesting and safe to be in. It naturally reduces the crime rate (at least for violent crime, maybe not pickpocketing), since there are always bystanders, and in general it is one of the chief delights of city life. After all, one of the constant fascinations of living in the city is seeing the human zoo on display.

A high population density can also support a wider variety of businesses, which is another of the great pleasures of city life. First and foremost, there are the cafes, restaurants, and bars. Nowadays they are much emptier than usual, but most of the time they are packed, especially on sunny days like today. I honestly wonder what is the furthest you could go in Spain from an eating establishment. You could be lost in the southern deserts and still be able to order a beer nearby. The omnipresence of restaurants is one of the great joys of Spanish life. If you want a coffee, a glass of wine, or a bite to eat, you can choose from any of the three to six establishments in eyesight. You may think I’m joking, but Spain is the country with the highest density of bars in the world. To give an example, the southern province of the country, Andalucia, has more bars than Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Ireland combined. (And by the way, Andalucia has less than half as many people as these four places.)

Another thing that’s not in short supply in Spain are the supermarkets. My neighborhood is a pretty good example of this. Within a ten minute walk from my front door there are 14 supermarkets. Fourteen! And many of them are quite big. These fourteen supermarkets represent 7 different brands, some of them Spanish, one French (Carrefour), and one German (Lidl). And this is not to mention the many butchers, vegetable shops, and bakery shops nearby. Just the other day I wandered across a very modern-looking butcher shop, which had every kind of meat you could wish for. There, I finally found a type of Spanish sausage I particularly like, called “crioll chorizo” (though the name doesn’t really make sense). My point is that you’re pretty spoiled when it comes to food selection, even if some things that are common in the US are much less common in Spain (like broccoli rabe, which I’ve never seen!).

There are two types of shops common in Spain that are often run by immigrants. One is the humble kebab shop, the most popular fast food option in Europe. I actually live on top of a kebab shop, and the smell of the spiced meats wafts up all day, giving me strange cravings. The other one is called an alimentación, which is sort of a corner shop where you buy snacks, basic amenities, and alcohol. (In Spain you don’t need a liquor license, so everywhere has booze.) Because these sorts of shops are often owned by Chinese people, they are usually called chinos by Spaniards—and I’m kind of unclear whether this is considered, or should be considered, offensive. Chino, by the way, is the standard way to refer to a Chinese person or a Chinese restaurant, of which there are a fair number in Spain.

Speaking of my own neighborhood, what else should I mention? I think by any standard there is an impressive range of businesses. There are several sports stores, for example, and they are not chains. There is a nice little one up the street that has good deals on sweatpants and sweatshirts, and a big one around the corner that has everything from fishing rods to weight lifting machines. Speaking of lifting weights, there’s also a gym—again, not a chain—a few blocks away, where my brother likes to go. And Retiro park is just five minutes up the street, where I like to go running.

Really, the longer I’ve lived in this neighborhood—which is called Pacifico—the more I have come to appreciate it. Though it isn’t a big place to go out at night, it’s a historical neighborhood that is right next to the central train station, Atocha. And I think it embodies a lot of what is good in Spanish cities. The streets are not too big and not too long, which allows for a high density of shops within easy walking distance. As a result, while usually not crowded, there’s hardly a moment when the streets are empty. A few years ago Pacifico was a sleepy part of the city, with lots of older folks. Nowadays the neighborhood seems to be gentrifying (and, no doubt, I am myself contributing to this process). There is an axe-throwing business, where you can take turns hurling a hatchet at a wooden target; there is a fancy dried-goods store, with all these different types of pastas, flours, and exotic spices; and there are lots of bio shops with organic produce and different medicinal herbs. There’s even a big technology store, and a cool book store that also serves coffee, carrot cake, and craft beer. (A specialized craft beer store just moved out of the neighborhood.)

Well, anyway, I think you get my point. There’s a lot of stuff in my neighborhood, and I think this is typical of many neighborhoods in Spain: they are mixed-use, walkable, and well connected with public transportation. In a way they are the antithesis of places that are built around cars. And I think that the result speaks for itself: it is more attractive, more interesting, and all around more livable. There’s another added bonus to living in a Spanish city: the history. Even in my quiet neighborhood, there are some important historical buildings to visit. Quite closeby is the Engine Hall, which is a kind of power station with three massive diesel generators, built for the first generation of the Madrid metro. Nowadays it is a free museum.

Not very far is the Royal Tapestry Factory. This is just one of many royal factories, which were established in the 1700s by the Bourbon monarchs in an effort to emulate the French mercantile model. These are basically state-run organizations that made luxury goods for the royal family. The glass factory, for example, is in the town of La Granja, near one of Spain’s great palaces. The tapestry factory is a brick building with a big smokestack, where some of the finest neoclassical tapestries were made for the Spanish court. No less an artist than Goya made designs for these tapestries, and his original paintings are hanging on the top floor of the Prado. Nowadays, the factory is run by a non-profit, I believe.

Quite close are two more historical landmarks: the Royal Basilica of Our Lady of Atocha, and the Pantheon of Illustrious Men. The first is an important church that is home to one of the many venerated images of the Virgin. The basilica has long been a center of religious and royal life in the city. Bartolomé de las Casas is even buried here—the monk who was one of the first Spaniards to raise awareness about the cruelty of colonization in the Americas. Nextdoor is the Pantheon, which used to be a convent. In the 1800s it was seized from the church and turned into a kind of celebration of civic Spaniards, with elaborate funerary monuments distributed around the old cloister. It’s actually quite a beautiful place, even though I’ve never heard of any of the people buried there.

Hmmm, it seems that I started a podcast about Spanish city planning, and ended up just talking about how much I like my neighborhood. But I do think that my neighborhood illustrates the ways that a city can be a joyous place. And personally I think that it is a much healthier and saner way to live than having everything spread out, like they’re on little islands, making a car necessary. Cars are convenient things, but you can’t have a car community. I think modern city planners should take a look at these historical neighborhoods and do their best to recreate them. Otherwise, we’ll be condemned to a life of seclusion and isolation, cooped up in our homes, driving from place to place—like we all have coronavirus all the time! It’s not a good way to live.

Unfortunately, even the good neighborhoods that exist are in constant risk of being rendered unlivable by rising rents. And this is a consequence of real estate investing and gentrification. Perhaps it is significant that Vienna, which is often considered the most livable city in the world, has extensive public housing projects—for almost half of its population. At the moment, Madrid’s own housing market is pretty unregulated, and I think this can easily lead to a situation of average, everyday people being pushed out of the center into the outskirts. This is a hollowing out that has already affected places like London and New York, since it basically kills the liveliness that makes these places so attractive to begin with—making them neighborhoods of empty homes owned by wealthy people, or else Airbnbs, with small businesses being bought out by big chains. Whatever the government can do to prevent this kind of situation, I’d welcome it.

Thank you.

Letters from Spain #17: European Travel

My new podcast is out, this one on European Travel. (Yes, a little silly during the coronavirus crisis, but I didn’t plan it this way.) For the apple podcast, click here:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/letters-from-spain-17-european-travel/id1469809686?i=1000467987733

Here is the YouTube video:

For the (loose) transcript, see below:

Hello,

Well, my podcast this week has been delayed because of a trip. It was my first international trip of the school year, and it was great. My brother and I went to Kraków, Poland—a lovely city, with a well-preserved historical center. Relatively nearby are two major tourist attractions: Auschwitz (very depressing) and the Wieliczka salt mines (very impressive). But maybe the best part of the trip was the food. Every dish was heavy, plentiful, and delicious. Even the coffee and the beer was good. And I was reminded how generally pleasant European travel can be. Arguably, it’s the best part of living here.

Admittedly, it seems like an awkward time to be writing a podcast about traveling, because of the coronavirus outbreak. Just last week, I had a brief layover in Milan, and now Milan is under quarantine, with the rest of Northern Italy. And I just received notice that Madrid will be shutting down schools for the next two weeks. Two weeks! What will I do with myself? Next thing I know, we’ll be under quarantine, too. So I guess it’s not the best time to talk about European travel, now that everyone is cancelling their vacations. However, this crisis will pass, and Europe will once again open its doors to travelers. So here I go!

The major difference between traveling in Europe and in the United States is that Europe is packed with variety. Traveling to another country is like traveling to another state—cheap, easy, and quick. You can get on a plane and, in an hour or two, get out in a place where the people speak an entirely different language, eat different food, where the architecture, music, art, and even the landscape itself is totally different. The whole continent of Europe isn’t bigger than the US. And when you consider that most people travel to Western Europe, you’re talking about an area of land about the size of one American coast.

The main reason why so much cultural variety is packed into such a comparatively small space is, simply, the amount of history that has gone by. America is one big country, and a young country, too; so a lot of the country can seem extremely homogeneous, since it is the result of rapid expansion. And a lot of this expansion happens when means of transport and communication were relatively rapid. Meanwhile, Europe grew out of ancient populations, and virtually every little town and city was relatively isolated for long periods of time. Cultural differences grow and accumulate during all this time; and this is why, in Europe, every region has its own traditional dishes, traditional dances, traditional music, and so on. This is true both within countries and between countries: there is an awful lot of regional variation packed into a relatively small space.

This naturally makes traveling in Europe quite endlessly fascinating. Poland, for example, is not too far away from Spain, but it is absolutely unmistakably distinct. And this goes far deeper than surface features like food and architecture. The two countries have been shaped by quite different historical forces, and so even their cultures have notable contrasts, such as their concepts of personal space and their senses of humor. But I don’t want to overstate my case and argue that they have nothing in common, either. Both Poland and Spain have been heavily influenced by capitalism, for example, and they have both gone through periods of totalitarian rule and repression in the twentieth century.

So the really fascinating thing, then, is seeing Europe as a kind of variation on a theme. Every country has churches, basilicas, and cathedrals, but they all build them somewhat differently. Every country has art museums and monuments to historical events, and these are all intimately interconnected. To give just one example, the beautiful gothic altar in Krakow’s St. Mary’s Basilica was sculpted by a German from Nuremberg, another city that was previously a part of the Habsburg Empire. (The Habsburgs controlled Spain for a while, too, to give you another example of their historical parallels.)

So national borders are real markers of difference, but they’re also fluid. Perhaps the most famous Pole in history, Nicholas Copernicus, studied for a time in Italy, and published his book with the help of German Protestants. Frederic Chopin, born in Poland, spent most of his professional life in French, as did the Spaniard Picasso and the Dutchman Van Gogh. The more you travel around Europe, then, the more you see a rich, interconnected story unfolding across this varied landscape. In short, it’s very cool.

Anyways, even if you don’t care much about history or art, there’s another factor that makes European travel so appealing: it’s cheap. Part of the reason for this cheapness are the low-cost flights. Sometimes you can find good deals are more traditional airlines, like Iberia; and that may be the best option. But often travelers looking to save money fly with EasyJet or Ryanair. I have a lot of experience with Ryanair. I used them for my outbound and inbound flights to Poland. They are far from being my favorite airline, but their prices are pretty irresistible. My flight to Poland, for example, cost me less than 20 euros. And that’s for a three-and-a-half hour flight!

Of course, you get what you pay for. There are no amenities on Ryanair. The seats are uncomfortable, there are no screens to watch movies, no plug to charge your phone, and of course food is not included. Besides this, you need to pay extra if you want to choose your seat or even if you want to take a bag for the overhead compartment. Since I bought the cheapest ticket, I had to fit all of my stuff under the seat in front of me. Worst of all may be the advertising. On every Ryanair flight the airstewarts give long, uninspired, rambling advertisements of various products—food, perfume, lottery tickets, and even model planes —over the plane’s crackling PA system. And they do this in two or three languages, so it takes a long time. I’ve never seen anyone buy any of this junk, so in a way it feels like punishment for paying cheap prices.

As much as I like to rag on Ryanair, the truth is that I wouldn’t have been able to travel so much if it weren’t for this infamous company. There are a couple other companies and services that also help in my eternal quest to save money. A basic one is Skyscanner, a website that reliably tells you the cheapest flights. I also have used Blablacar a lot, which is a ride sharing service. Basically, let’s say I’m planning on driving from Seville to Madrid. I can put up an announcement on Blablacar and charge riders to accompany on this trip. The driver can charge whatever they want, but typically the prices are quite a bit lower than, say, paying for a high-speed train. Of course, I felt a little hesitant at first about the prospect of getting into a car with a stranger. But the website is quite well regulated and I haven’t had any truly bad experiences. It’s also a good way to find people to chat with, if you’re trying to improve your language skills.

There is one more service I use that, I admit, makes me feel a bit guilty: Airbnb. The reason that I have some scruples about Airbnb is that it can have a potentially bad effect on the housing market of wherever you’re visiting. It’s often more profitable for landlords to rent their flats short-term to visitors than long-term to locals, and this limits the supply of available residences and drives prices up. In areas with heavy tourism, this can make it almost unliveably expensive. So there is that downside. On the other hand, hotels and even youth hostels can be much, much more expensive than Airbnbs—prohibitively so, for me. In any case, I hope I am reducing the corrosive effect of Airbnbs by normally renting individual rooms (which couldn’t be rented to locals anyway) rather than whole apartments. In Prague, for example, I stayed in a little room in the apartment of a family, far outside the center. This is not only better for the city, but also in my experience more fun, since the idea is to be with locals anyways.

Well, those are my tips. If you do some searching, you can find ways to travel around Europe on an incredibly short budget. And you get a lot for money, since there are so many things to see and do, all over the place. If you’re young—younger than 26, in most cases—then you can get added discounts on museums and monuments. Added to all this, there is also the convenience of the European Union. Now that I’m being paid in Euros, I don’t have to worry about conversion rates if I go to Italy, Germany, or Ireland. There is also something that’s called the Schengen Zone: a zone of countries where no visa or even passport is needed at the border. Flying from Spain to Italy, then, is legally the same as taking a domestic flight. You just walk right into the country.

Europe’s open borders are something that they should be very proud of, I think. It is a level of international trust and cooperation that is unique in history, I believe. And as a result of this, it is quite common for Europeans to have international experience. Though there is at least one case in which all this may backfire: during an pandemic. Now the virus is in every major European country, with over a thousand cases in Spain. And I’ve just heard that all of Italy is on lock-down. I really hope they don’t lock down Spain…

Anyways, I’m getting a bit off topic. My major point is that Europe is great for travel. There is a lot to see and do, it’s easy and cheap to get around, and borders are almost non-existent. And Europeans themselves take advantage of this. Blessed with lots of vacation time (unlike the United States, where vacation is entirely unregulated), Europeans in general take lots of trips: both within their countries and to neighboring lands. Indeed, one of the big reasons that so many people want to learn English is because of the travel industry. In a continent of so many different nations and languages, English is the only Lengua Franca available.

Now, does all this traveling help to make Europeans wiser, more tolerant, more cosmopolitan? The answer is not immediately clear to me. It’s certainly possible to travel and not learn anything. Go to any touristy area, and you’ll see what I mean. All the food is junk food (a lot of it from America), and everything for sale is junk, too. Many people travel, take a selfie with a famous landmark, stay in a hotel, and then go home. There’s nothing wrong with that, necessarily. It’s fun. But does it lead to anything more? I think it does, or at least I hope it does. Otherwise, what on earth am I doing? Just having fun?

Thank you.

Review: The Ambassadors

The Ambassadors by Henry James

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

He had spoken in the tone of talk for talks sake, and yet with an obscure truth lurking in the loose folds…

One would think that, of all the people living on this good green earth, I would be especially prone to loving this particular work of literature. After all, it is about a young American who moved to Europe, fell in love, and then resisted his family’s entreaties to come back and make more money. If you know anything about me, you will know that this has a special resonance. I am also, as it happens, a lover of fancy prose and classic novels. Clearly, in my case, the book’s prospects were extremely favorable.

It is with mild surprise, then, that I report that my feelings are mixed. This is not a novel that one can easily love. It is, rather, a product of James’s infamous late style, which divided critics at the time and has continued to do so ever since. There are many ways to characterize this style—dense, laborious, obscure—but I think that the keynote here is vague. Both in his descriptive passages and his dialogue, James maintains a kind of studious vagueness that can be either delightful or infuriating, depending on your mood and taste. In everything from his sentence structure, to his dialogue, to his descriptions, to his plotting—vagueness reigns.

To indulge in highfalutin terminology, I would say that this is an aesthetic triumph at the expense of humanistic value.

First, the triumph. James, at his best, achieves something like that achieved by the impressionist painters. The strokes of his pen are suggestive rather than illustrative. He asks much of the reader; and this means that the reader becomes an active part of the story. Virtually nothing—not the book’s resolution, nor the personality of the major characters, nor even the meaning of some knotty sentences—is unambiguous, which means that each reader can make the book her own. In other words, James’s late style is quite like the Ostomachion of Archimedes: a set of puzzle pieces that can be assembled in a myriad of ways.

I say that this is an aesthetic triumph because James achieves an effect that is unique, distinctive, novel, and demanding. He creates, in other words, his own aesthetic realm. The cageyness, the uncertainty, the self-referential quirks of this book—we can clearly see, in retrospect, that James was paving the way for literary modernism. And like much of modernism, I think that this aesthetic triumph comes at a great cost to humanistic value.

To simplify matter somewhat, you can describe this loss at the emphasis of form over content. The novels of Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Elliot, Tolstoy—say what you will about them, but they have an awful lot of content. Putting aside whatever explicit messages these novels may carry, they introduce us to concrete places, to remarkable individuals, to unforgettable stories. They capture, in other words, a human reality; and in so doing they help us to come to grips with life itself. Now, do not get me wrong: all of these authors also have aesthetic merits. If they did not, they would not be artists at all—merely columnists. My point is that their artistic style was entirely compatible with a definite view of the world, a view that is communicated in their works. This I call their humanistic value.

My main criticism of this book, then, is that James’s remarkable aesthetic sense overpowered whatever message he wished to transmit. Based on a straightforward reading, the intended message is this: American culture is narrow and materialistic, and it leads people to give up enjoyment for superficial, conventional reasons. We are, thus, presented with a cast of characters who embody this difference. Strether and Chad are exquisitely sensitive to the charms of Europe, and improve under its influence; while other Americans, such as Waymarsh, insistently stay within their narrow horizons.

The problem is, again, the vagueness. James is insistently vague on every detail. How exactly is life in Europe more liberating than life in America? And how exactly have Strether or Chad improved? These may seem like superficial questions, but the entire weight of the plot hinges on them. We cannot come to any moral conclusion without knowing the details. Indeed, James is so impressionistic in his portrayal of the main characters that we can hardly come to any conclusions at all. Do we even like these people? Even the ending is veiled in vagueness. Will Chad return to America? And why does Strether decide to return? And is his return a failure, or a success, or what? It is simply impossible to answer these questions.

Perhaps I would have been able to stomach all of these irresolutions if I had absolutely adored James’s style. But I do not. Indeed, I confess to finding James’s prose quite ugly—laborious, convoluted, and dry. There is hardly a passage in this book that one can read aloud without sounding like an alien. The following is entirely typical:

Nothing could have been odder than Strether’s sense of himself as at that moment launched in something of which the sense would be quite disconnected from the sense of his past and which was literally beginning there and then. It has begun in fact already upstairs and before the dressing-glass that struck him as blocking further, so strangely, the dimness of the window of his dull bedroom; begun with a sharper survey of the elements of Appearance than he had for a long time been moved to make.

A few sentences of this may be fine; but pages of it are painful. Granted, James is capable of quite lovely writing. I was enchanted, for example, by his description near the end, of Strether’s venture into the French countryside. Yet, all too often, the book is like this passage: opaque. His dialogue is only slightly better—readable, and yet still plagued by the strained and unnatural cadences of James’s prose. Besides this, James’s characters have the same tendency to vagueness as James himself, and never spell out what they mean.

Obviously this will come down to taste. I like things to be clear and unambiguous. That is my taste. James clearly did not agree. That I liked this book in spite of this divergence is a testament to James’s aesthetic power. He was an artist in the highest sense of the word.

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Tag: Europe