Getting anywhere early on a Sunday morning takes a lot of work. A 10-minute wait for a tram, another 10-minute wait for a metro, paying way too much for a coffee and a croissant cause that overpriced cafe is the only place open at such an antisocial hour, then sprinting for another tram cause the next one is in 20 mins. I made the tram, which rattled down Népszínház utca. Eventually, it turned onto a track wedged between a brick wall to one side and an overgrown fence leading to some abandoned-looking industrial land to the other. Right beside the empty stop stood the castle gate leading into the old Jewish cemetery.

In its heyday, this Jewish cemetery was the place to be buried if you were a Jew. Although the Kozma Street Cemetery in Kőbánya is much larger (and later), the one on Salgótarjáni Street is more densely packed and closer to the centre, as it was the only active Jewish cemetery until 1892. Graves and mausoleums jostle together as trees shed their leaves onto the paths, and ivy tries its best to consume the stone. This cemetery was once in demand. It opened adjacent to the main cemetery on Fiumei Street in 1874, housing a who’s who of Budapest’s industrial elite. However, its newest graves date to 1945; slabs of stone unceremoniously paved the ground commemorating the mass grave of 2,300 buried here, primarily those who were shot in the Shoah on Népszínház street and were brought here via the same tram line I arrived on.

Since 1950, the cemetery has been abandoned. In the 1970s, people with an addiction and the unhoused squatted among the tombs. It was only recently started to get cared for again and is now under the care of the National Heritage Foundation, which also oversees the main Kerepesi Cemetery next door. Even ten years ago, you couldn’t just come here as many of the graves were targeted for antisemitic vandalism, but today, the cemetery is peaceful, and some of the graves have been restored. While restoration is underway, you’ll still spot a few caves in tombs and mausoleums propped up with wood scaffolding.

I joined up on a tour with Hosszúlépés of the old cemetery. We were a small group, and it just turned nine on the Sunday. The heat didn’t burn yet, but the mosquitoes treated my ankles like an all-you-can-eat buffet as we stood outside the cemetery gates, where the trams coming the other way didn’t stop, and the platform stood empty.

The gate was designed by architect Béla Lajta, one of Budapest’s leading art nouveau and deco architects. He also held significant prominence in Budapest’s Jewish cemeteries, as one of my favourite mausoleums by him can be found in the Kozma Street Cemetery in Kőbánya. This turquoise art nouveau grave is now surrounded by foliage. Inside this cemetery, there were a few of his graves, some with art nouveau accents like the swerves of pomegranate on the first grave in the row of Rabbis and a couple of other tombs on the other side of the cemetery designed in a more art deco style. However, most of the mausoleums were designed by Sándor Fellner and Zsigmond Quittner, with some tombs and graves being designed by Alfréd Hajós, Ignác Alpár, and Emil Viador.

Stepping through the gate, the roofless ceremonial building by Béla Lajta, dating back to 1908, stands in place, once the spot where the bodies would come for the last service for deceased members. A dome roof once covered this building clad in Zsolnay tiles, but it collapsed in the 1980s, and today, it’s open to the sky. On the other side, the ivy curls around Hebraic text above the gate.

The cemetery is not large, measuring 4.8 hectares, but its graves are densely packed, with some 12,000 buried here. The oldest part–which not much is known about, but some sources say was brought here from an older cemetery close to Lehel Market in the XIII District as the plot where the old cemetery was located and demolished to make way for development– is more modest, with oval headstones lined up to signify we’re all the same after death. Next to this plot lie the placards commemorating those who were brought here in 1945 during the Holocaust when Jews were shot en masse in Budapest.

Nearby, the humble grave of Ede Horn from 1875 was perhaps the first Jewish person of note to be buried here; he was the first state secretary of Jewish origin and was buried here a year after the cemetery opened.

However, the cemetery’s perimeter is fringed with collonaded mausoleums and neo-classical or Egyptian columns. Although the most striking are the marble structures that evoke something from Ancient Rome, belong to Manfréd Weiss’s family—who founded the Csepel Works and had a food conserve factory—-and the Hatvany-Deutsch family (a sugar and conserve tycoon), some of the more prominent industrial names have more modest graves. The Herz family, famed for their not-so-kosher business of producing Italian-style salamis and hams, have a simple grave; the same can be said of Joseph Zwack, the founder of the iconic Unicum bitter liqueur you’ll find in every Hungarian bar or restaurant, who has a simple black headstone with his name and details inscribed with gothic-German script. A couple of graves down, the Goldberger family, famed for their textile factory in Óbuda, also have a simple grave marker.

But on the path between the Hatvany-Deutsch mausoleum, which rises more like a Greek temple to the Weiss tomb, are several striking necropolises, many in a dilapidated state. Some cave in, while others have broken iron gates or wooden beams propping up the caving stone. The names didn’t come with a story here, but these monuments are the most moving to me. The former grandeur of families that appear has now been forgotten.

The one that’s most beautiful to me is at the entrance, but the last one we passed is an art nouveau mausoleum with the name “Ehrenfeld” inscribed in secessionist lettering above the door and a stained glass Star of David. Inside are signs of old mosaics that once burst with colour, most notably a chipped-away mosaic of Moses’s tablets with the numbers of the commandments in Roman numerals. It reminds me of the vandalised graves in Kozma Street that had the Zsolnay tiles plucked from them and taken home (I hate that I have to say this, but please don’t steal or vandalise from cemeteries).

Although no one is buried here now, there are still some 30 families who come here to pay respects to their loved ones. You’ll spot stones left on the graves, a few left for famous names, but others for names most of us won’t recognise. Jews don’t bring flowers to remember their dead, which die and wither, but instead, they use stones to honour the deceased as stones endure and are a symbol of everlasting memory.

You can visit the cemetery Monday to Thursday, Sunday from 9 am to 4 pm (until 3 pm in the winter), and Friday from 9 am to 2 pm. Men must cover their heads and women their shoulders, and you must stay strictly within the cordoned areas or go in the company of a guide. You can access the cemetery via the 37 and 37A tram (Salgótarjáni utcai temető stop).

It was a viciously hot summer day when we visited this network of cellars in Kőbánya, the suburbs of Budapest, where you're only likely to cross on the airport bus. We stood outside the enormous gates that led into the ground, and a cold air blew out, inviting us into the much-desired cold. These cellars are often called "the city below the city," as the limestone was carved out of the ground to build the Hungarian capital's most iconic buildings, like the Hungarian Parliament Building and the Chain Bridge, leaving a warren of tunnels with cathedral-like proportions behind that span approximately 35 kilometres. In fact, the name of the neighbourhood, Kőbánya, literally means "stone quarry" or "stone mine" in Hungarian. The disused mines, which have a year-round temperature of around 10C, were used as cellars when Kőbánya flourished with vineyards, but that golden age ended with the Phylloxera infestation. Kőbánya switched from grape to grain, becoming the city's hub for beer-making (and still is today).

As we explored the cellars, we found remnants of their more recent past, as they were also used as bunkers in World War II, where damp chambers with rusty ventilation systems in cramped rooms still linger and hint at the endurance needed for survival. Today, the cellars are divided up between the Dreher Brewery and other private companies, but you can visit the part owned by the local council, which is probably the largest section. This part of the cellars is often rented to Hollywood for movies, but running and cycling races are also held in these labyrinthine passages. The lower levels are also flooded with groundwater, making them ideal for divers to explore the submerged mine. We caught a peek of the stairs plunging into the crystal clear water that led to the drowned layers you wouldn't be able to visit without an advanced diving licence and equipment. If you want to stay on dry land, you can see them with Budapest Scenes, but note that the tours are in Hungarian.

I've always been fascinated with Epreskert, as I stumbled across this fenced garden with haunting statues as I wandered around the side streets jutting off Andrássy Avenue and Kodály Körönd. Epreskert means "Strawberry" or "Mulberry Garden" in Hungarian, as it used to house numerous mulberry trees planted in the 17th century to support a local silk factory as its silk worms only consumed mulberry leaves. When the factory closed, the abandoned tree-covered property was bought by the wealthy and eccentric sculptor Alajos Stóbel in the 19th century, who established a commune of artists. They constructed the buildings, workshops, and studios on the site and even transported a medieval church gate and a baroque calvary brick by brick to the site. Today, it belongs to the Hungarian University of Fine Arts and is home to students studying sculpture or fresco restoration. If you access this normally closed garden (although you can also catch a glimpse of the statues through the fence bars) and look closer at the statues, you'll notice hints of their modernity in the details, like a nude taking a selfie or the uncanny likeness of a recent Hungarian President, János Áder.

One part that's hidden away in one of the buildings was a transcendent experience for me. There is a room covered from head to toe in frescoes, where those studying art restoration are training to copy historic frescoes in different styles on the walls as part of their training. From recreations of Pompeiian murals to Biblical scenes inspired by Byzantine and Renaissance art, the walls are clad in replicas of old masters removed every six months, and the process begins again. I visited Epreskert twice with Imagine Budapest, who did a theatrical tour of the garden as well as another tour focusing on hidden sacred spaces and chapels (both tours in Hungarian).

There are 80 geothermal springs in Budapest and several thermal baths, with the Gellért Bath being one of Budapest's most famous spots for a soak. But did you know there's an underground world running from one thermal bath to another? As I wandered alongside Gellért Hill, I spotted doors on the side of the rockface and wondered where they led. I discovered that tunnels connecting these thermal baths to the thermal water sources under Gellért Hill between the Gellért Bath and the Rudas Baths. You could theoretically go from one bath to another via this underground tunnel.

I wrote a piece years ago on the Molnár János Cave, a thermal water cave under Rózsadomb (Rose Hill), and interviewed a cave diver who was part of the exploration. As we talked about caves, he told me about the Ősforrás. The Ősforrás, the "Ancient Spring," which resides 9 meters below the fountain at the front of the Gellért Hotel, is where the Gellért Baths used to source their minerally dense water much closer to home. In fact, before the baths were built, it was just a muddy lake that had been praised for its healing properties since the Middle Ages. But approaching this spring today feels like descending into Dante's Inferno, as unlike most subterranean spaces, the air is hot and humid here. As you go down the brick-clad steps heading towards the Ősforrás, the air is hot and clammy, rather like a sauna, and if you have glasses, expect them to get fogged up. At the base, you'll see the mineral water covered with a film of crystals as the cavernous room shakes every time a tram rattles above. Imagine Budapest running regular tours to both the tunnels and the spring.

I got lucky when I first moved to Budapest, and now appreciate that this is a bit of a lottery to get into, as the tours that run here are rare. This is why so many urbexers try to find a way in when security is not looking to visit the beautiful places control room at the heart of this power station in the XI District. The power station dates back to 1913, but the iconic control room is Art Deco, with a glass ceiling resembling a steampunk fantasy. The rest of the power stations still supply the district with electricity, so it's understandable why security is tight here and is usually closed to visitors. However, you can spot it in a few movies or music videos occasionally (the most recent being Jungkook’s “Standing Next to You”. I got in when the power station did tours back in 2014, but sometimes there are open days with the Erőművek Éjszakája (The Night of the Power Stations) in October (but spots go quickly), and Hosszúlépés has done tours recently.

Csepel is the largest island in the Danube, running 48 kilometres in length, but the northern part of the island falls within the boundaries of Budapest, making up the XXI District. In part enclosed by Budapest, you'll find an extensive industrial landscape characterised by the remnants of the Csepel Művek (Csepel Works). This gigantic factory had the ecosystem of a small town, with 28,000 employees in World War I and 15,000 employees in 1930. Although the brothers Manfréd and Berthold Weiss began business canning food in the 19th century, their industrial empire specialised in ammunition. Csepel became a hub for the production of military equipment and household devices—the former putting a target in its back during the wars. Although the infrastructure was at risk of destruction, it could be rebuilt, which is why the factory owners during World War II built several bunkers to protect its numerous employees from bomb and gas attacks. You can visit some of the former bunkers, like one preserved as a museum showing how people were set up for survival with air and water purification in sturdy concrete structures ready to take in workers during a raid. You can visit with Budapest Scenes, who do tours in Hungarian of the old bunker (sometimes multiple bunkers). I found it interesting to see how people lived in these crowded conditions, but since their tours often run in the evening, I also had fun trying to get out of the Csepel Művek late at night, which was an experience.

Just across the river from the Csepel Művek lies the quaint neighbourhood of Budafok, a village till the mid-20th century when it joined the city of Budapest. Like Kőbánya, Budafok also has a network of cellars winding beneath the district (some sources say more than 100km if you add them up). However, most cellars are stand-alone and not interconnected like their Pest counterpart, which is why Kőbánya gets the title of the largest cellar network in the country. While Kőbánya focuses on beer, Budafok, being closer to the Etyek wine region, dedicates itself to wine and sparkling wine. There are several cellars, but the most striking is the Zaborszky Cellars, with chambers filled with 100-year-old carved oak barrels or an underground ethnographic museum with a row of reconstructed cellar facades representing the architectural diversity of Hungary's wine regions and cellar styles.

I got to don a wine cape and sip a few glasses as we went deep underground into this curious labyrinth, which adds to the fun. I'd also recommend the nearby Törley and Sauska sparkling wine cellars for a visit as well. On the first Saturday of the month, you can visit these cellars during the Budafok Wine Days, but tours are usually in Hungarian.

It's worth taking the hour-long ride with the 28 tram from Blaha Lujza ter to this cemetery close to the airport. This semi-abandoned Jewish Cemetery is an architectural wonder, with art nouveau mausoleums peeking from behind crawling ivy and the forest that creeps in year by year (we spotted a deer on our visit). One of the highlights is the turquoise Schmidl family grave, designed by art nouveau architect Béla Lajta. Other mausoleums show hints of mosaic work inside or Zsolnay tiling but may have been tragically damaged by lack of care, vandalism, or theft.

Although both spots have made it onto their list with their underground tunnels, their subterranean water reservoirs also merit a mention. The Kőbánya water reservoir dates back to the 19th century, with an aesthetically beautiful brick interior and dramatic columns and arches. This reservoir opens once a year in September to the public, and you can stroll through the drained reservoir. The first time they opened, I gave up trying to get in as the queue went on for miles, but now it's easier--just follow the Fővárosi Vízművek (the capital waterworks) on Facebook. You'll get to register for a slot (no queuing), and they usually run visits in September.

Up on Gellért Hill below the Philosopher's Garden, the 1970s water reservoir looks like a set left behind from a sci-fi film, with its forests of columns standing in fresh drinking water that refracts the light into a shade of blue. Getting in here is like winning the golden ticket when it opens to the public in the spring (again through the Fővárosi Vízművek site, but spots are more limited and often go in under 2 minutes), and while you can only enjoy it from a viewing window, it's still one of the city's hidden beauties.

Towering over the Roman ruins of Aquincum, the turreted water towers of the Óbuda Gasworks evoke a scene from a fairy tale. Surrounding the water towers, you'll find abandoned industrial buildings from the former gas factory, with the nearby Graphisoft park occupying the rest with gentrified office buildings housing tech companies (kind of Budapest's mini Silicon Valley). There is also an interesting housing estate built for the employees of the gas works with art nouveau-style houses with shutters and flowers on the window sills. You can visit with a tour with Városművek. 

There's a reason why large buses are not permitted up at Buda Castle—the entire hill is made up of a porous network of caves once carved out by thermal water, and the weight of the buses could make things foundationally unstable. Today, you can visit these caves in different parts. You can go to the Labyrinth, which is a bit tacky, with a panoptikum of wax figures dressed in opera costumes and a smoke machine puffing into a dungeon where Vlad the Impaler was allegedly imprisoned. I prefer the part cared for by the Duna-Ipoly National Park, where you can see the parts of the caves used as a shelter during the war, bones found during the Ottoman occupation and natural formations in the rock. The castle complex is curious, with deep cellars going down multiple layers and then dipping into the caves. In medieval times, merchants hid goods in the caves to avoid paying taxes. Imagine Budapest running tours here.

If you're looking for some more inspiration of interesting things to do in Budapest, from street art to hunting tiny statues, check out this article from BudapestFlow on more alternative things to do in Budapest. 

Originally published on The Huffington Post

As the bus drove through Plovdiv's suburbs, after a two-hour journey from the capital Sofia, I felt like I was visiting an old friend.

I have had an inner obsession with Plovdiv for years. My fixation with the myth of Orpheus led me to the lands of ancient Thrace, right to this historic city situated between the Rhodope Mountains (the legendary homeland of Orpheus), the Thracian Plains and the Balkan Mountain Range.  

The sun already burned in May, amplifying the car fumes in the Hristo Botev Boulevard as we made our way from the bus station, and even finding our hostel became an adventure. The street signs sprawled in Cyrillic script fortified the impression of being on the "other side of Europe". The road curved past the tall chestnut trees shading the street, under the flaking houses that paved the way to our guest house. On first impression, Plovdiv was slightly dilapidated with a sense of fading grandeur, a quality I love in old cities. I adored Plovdiv instantly, but the best thing was that I knew there was more to discover in the hot and dusty streets of Bulgaria's second city.

Hills peeked up above flaking façades adorned with elaborate plasterwork. The city had seven hills once, like Rome, but they were used as quarries over the centuries, leaving the city with only five, maybe six hills that can be classed as such, where the three hills of the old town are the most prominent.

Plovdiv's history dates as far back as 4000BC, when it began life a Neolithic settlement. It is one of the World's most ancient cities and Europe's oldest inhabited city -- even beating Athens. The settlement was originally Thracian, but it became a major Greek and then a Roman city known as Philippopolis, named after the King of Philip II of Macedon, Alexander the Great's father, who conquered the city in 342BC. Plovdiv became a city in tune with the ever-changing evolution of history.

Echoes of Plovdiv's past still wink behind fenced off excavation areas in the center, hinting at Roman columns and overgrown Thracian ruins on the hillside. The narrow streets of the city's Revival era old town coiled up the hill, taking us up, across the large stone clad pavements radiating the heat as we sweated up the hill searching for the city's history. Our base instincts took us down the most shaded roads, leading us into Plovdiv's Roman Theater.

The Theater overlooks the city, with views all the way over to the Rhodope Mountains that span the southern fringe of Bulgaria and all the way into Greece. There were no crowds here, just a couple of people scattered about the marble stones and the towering colonnade of the reconstructed stage. Encased with a fence of metal bars, a rope cord stretched across a gap, marking the entrance to the Theater. The ticket collector sat under the shaded veranda enlaced with flowers and vines only meters away.

I handed over 5 Lev (2.50€) to the ticket collector as a cat brushed my leg. I caught sight of another tabby ducking under a bush by the ring of worn down marble seats.

"Too many cats," he said to me, "I look after all of them. I have five at home and about twelve here. But, someone has to take care of them."  

He pointed to a sack of dry cat food, but I didn't catch sight of any of Plovdiv's "Roman Cats" for the rest of the afternoon.  

I could only make out a hum of distant traffic as I walked through Plovdiv Old Town's deserted streets. I found it surreal, and refreshing, to stroll through a city as beautiful and as historically significant as Plovdiv, without encountering endless shops selling tat for tourists or restaurants where determined waiters try to drag you in. I caught the scent of lilacs and the subtle background noise of crockery behind opened wooden shutters.  

Most of Plovdiv's touristic life takes place on Saborna Street, but even here the gift shops retain a sense of authenticity, like the artisanal gallery, whose painted antique carts and ploughs filled its courtyard. Further down, just before we reached the gold and black sinuous waves of Plovdiv's Ethnographic Museum, a live chicken clucked at us from the top of a postcard stand, just outside a souvenir shop in the square.

Ancient Plovdiv is subtle, especially when the elaborately painted houses decked with wooden beams from the Bulgarian Revival hog the limelight, albeit deservedly. Roman ruins are always in the undergrowth; some are excavated and beautifully presented, like the Theater or the Stadium in Plovdiv's busy downtown. Plovdiv's Thracian heritage shies away up on Nebet Hill, where its overgrown ruined walls overlook the Old Town and the Mosque.

I didn't expect to find the Orpheus connection in this Thracian city, I had plans to pursue that obsession in the Rhodope Mountains the next day. Yet, as I descended the steps from the Old Town, I caught sight of a mural towering above the creeping ivy, shrubbery and graffiti covered wall. With a lyre in hand, etched into the side of an old house - I found Orpheus.

In 2012, I lived in Tbilisi. In fact, I almost moved there permanently, but my job at the newspaper didn’t work out, plus I was homesick for my friends back in Madrid. However, it wouldn’t be honest of me to say the city is perfect: it isn’t. My electricity cut out for 12 hours a day at least once a week, my kitchen flooded twice, on occasion I didn’t have working water and I even got poisoned by drinking the tap water during my first two days in Georgia. And, don’t get me started about being a pedestrian in the city, that’ll just branch out into another rant. Yet, in spite of the above, Tbilisi will always hold a special place for me. Here are some reasons why Tbilisi should not be on CNN’s worst cities list.

1. The Architecture

I love Tbilisi’s architecture, I could write pages and pages about it. It is a city with a long and complex history, and this shows in the eclectic mix of buildings that draw from European and Asian elements. I adore the contrast of the lapis lazuli coloured tiles of the Orbeliani baths, which sweep me away into ancient Samarkand and Persia, against the galleried houses taken straight out of New Orleans’ French Quarter (or is it the other way round?). Tbilisi also has its own brand of art nouveau architecture.

Even in the dilapidated backstreets of the Sololaki neighbourhood, each building, especially those being consumed by hungry vines, has its own story to tell. Up in Mtatsminda, the paint flakes from formerly decadent apartment blocks, whose dusty hallways invite me in to explore.

I still have dreams about khinkhali, slippery boiled dumplings stuffed with a spicy meat filling and its juices. I used to pay 2.50€ for five pieces at a hole-in-the-wall near my house, which satisfied both my taste buds and my hunger. Khachapuri, a Georgian cheese bread filled with a local tangy cheese, it’s rich, it’s delicious and it’s a heart attack on a plate, especially the Adjaran Khachapuri – which comes topped with a whole egg and slivers of butter. It’s a symphony in the mouth, but you can feel your arteries clogging up as you eat it, and it’s best left for the days you plan to climb a mountain or two. You can also find a bean stew known as lobio, which is perfumed with coriander and fenugreek, and shashlik, a marinated Georgian kebab. Each meal is a feast in itself and must be washed down with a healthy portion of Georgian wine, which brings me to…

3. The Wine

Georgia is the birthplace of wine, with a history of vini and viti-culture going back to at least 6000 years, if not more. Wine is an integral part of Georgian culture, and it’s still produced to this day using the ancient method of fermenting grapes in Qvevri, amphora-type terracotta pots that are buried in the ground for 6 months. White wines are made by using white grapes, but without removing their skin the way Western wine making practices do, giving them a tannic quality and a full body. Georgian wine is unique, and I sorely miss it now I’m back in the land of Rioja and Ribera.

4. The People

Georgians are some of the kindest people I’ve met in my travels and they’re willing to go without if it means helping a guest. My landlady came to the airport at 5 a.m. when I flew in from Spain to take me to the apartment, and when I left Georgia, an art historian, whom I interviewed for an article, paid for my taxi to the airport. In Georgia, people are always there to help you, they smile at you and say “gamarjobat,” hello, when you pass them in the street. My friends broke down in their rental car in the Caucasus Mountains and within minutes they were helped out by passing locals.

5.  Culture

I’m an art columnist based in Madrid, Spain, so you can imagine I have high standards when it comes to cultural expectations. After researching Tbilisi’s art history, my fascination with the country grew. In the early 20th century, Tbilisi was the “third city of culture” after Paris and Moscow. Artistic circles sprung up around the city with a collective of artists, poets, writers and actors. Artists from Georgia’s avant-garde went to Paris and hung out with the likes of Picasso and Duchamp. You can see paintings by Pirosmani and Kakabadze, or visit the golden treasures from ancient Colchis at the archaeological museum. Tbilisi has a brilliant classical music scene, along with jazz, and not to mention the film, theatre, music and folk festivals.

6. Safety

As a single Western woman, before I went to Georgia I was concerned about getting harassed and hassled. Plus the fact Georgia was only at war with Russia a few years back had also unnerved me. During my stay though, not once did I feel unsafe, even when I was out alone at night. In Tbilisi, people leave their doors unlocked, trusting that people won’t rob them. Tbilisi’s crime rate is very low, and while the risk of getting run over by a car or a marshrutka, a local minibus, is high, in general the city is incredibly safe.

7. Public Transport

Tbilisi has an efficient, modern and clean metro line, which is more than I can say about Rome. While there are only a couple of lines, it’s fairly easy to negotiate about the city with the metro network, and there is a wide range of buses too.

Tbilisi might have its flaws, but I definitely would not lump it in with the likes of Khartoum and the other Sub-Saharan cities on the list. The article on CNN is misleading and gravely wrong in many ways. Tbilisi is NOT one of the worst cities in the world, and it definitely has more redeeming features than its Abanotubani, bath, district.

*I'm undertaking a course in travel writing with MatadorU, and this was one of the assignments we had to do on travel narratives - where you have to immerse yourself in the story.*

My heels click down the abandoned Calle Echegaray, only a few blocks from Madrid’s chaotic Puerta del Sol. Houses line the narrow street with flaking façades illuminated by hanging streetlamps. The road curves in at the centre, channelling the rainwater into a thin stream between the tiles.

The panelled wooden doors of La Venencia are open and I catch a whiff of musty, damp barrels and cold cuts of meat.

The walls are yellowed from the decades of cigarette smoke, even though today’s smokers are forced outside into the rain. Stripped bits of white plaster show through the brown ceiling, and dogged-eared vintage posters advertising sherry are pinned up around the walls.

It seems to me that La Venencia has hardly changed since the Spanish Civil War, with the mahogany bar, tables and chairs fading into uneven patches of brown. It’s cold inside and minutes after opening time on a Sunday night, we’re only five: three locals, the bartender and me.

I’ve been coming here for years, but I’m still self-conscious about my “guiri,” the Castilian word for foreigner, status, with my pale skin, blue eyes and hybrid British-Eastern European accent. Even with my correct use of the Spanish subjunctive it’s obvious I’m not local.

“One palo cortado, please,” I ask.

The bartender places a glass of “palo cortado,” a caramel coloured sherry on the wooden counter. I sip from the tulip shaped glass, the heavy legs trickle down the sides and the sticky fluid leaves my mouth with the sharp taste of dried fruits. Lubricated with alcohol, I attempt conversation, resorting to the icebreaker us Brits always fall back on.

“Que hace frío, no?” I say, “It’s cold.”

“Sí, the problem is the damp,” he replies with a deep, gruff voice and scribbles down the price of my sherry in chalk on the wooden counter. He avoids making eye contact with me and turns towards to a local and I’m thinking about how to get in on the conversation.

Voices echo around the bar, highlighted by the emptiness of a place which is usually packed full.

“It’s very quiet tonight,” I say. My eyes stare up behind the bar to the endless rows of sherry bottles of varying brands, shapes and sizes. They’re all covered in dust, fitting in with the flaking décor of the bar itself.

“Sí,” grunts the bartender and raises his shoulders. He taps chalk dust on his dark green apron that he’s wearing over red and white checked shirt that suits his leathery complexion. “It’s Sunday and Spain is in a crisis, what do you expect?”

The first time I came into the bar he yelled “no photos,” at me; returned my change, and gesticulated to the piece of paper stuck on the wall that says “no tips.”

La Venencia hasn’t shaken off its habits from the Civil War and its memory of Franco. When Hemingway hung out in this bar gathering information as a war correspondent, anonymity and proletarian solidarity were matters of survival.

A woman taps me on the shoulder and says, “Your scarf is on the floor”.

She sides up to the bar and brushes her dripping black hair from her face.

“Antonio, give me an amontillado,” she says, “It’s raining ‘cats and dogs’ out there.”

I glance up to the tables in the upper part of the bar as they fill up. A mangy, longhaired black cat struts down the tiled steps. On my first visit, I mistook her for someone’s fluffy handbag until the golden eyes flashed back at me. Tonight, she comes to my table and jumps onto my lap.

“She likes you,” says the woman, “she’s normally not that friendly, she only sits on the laps of a couple of locals.”

She’s clean, however her fur is slightly matted. She’s curled on my lap with no sign of budging.

“What’s her name?” I ask and cautiously stroke the cat.

“Lola,” says the woman, “She’s quite old, she’s been living here at the bar for years.”

A young man walks in and shakes his umbrella, the water droplets land on my notebook and me. Lola the cat jumps up and scuttles off to the other side of the bar, and curls up next to an empty sherry bottle.

I get up and go to the bar.

“Can I get a manzanilla please, and a tapa of cheese and salchichón.” I ask the bartender.

“Do you want some olives too?” he asks. His tone is softer than before.

I look up and smile, “Yes, please,” I say.

“OK,” he scribbles the amount down on my tab at the bar, the corner of his mouth curls up — do I detect the hint of a smile?

This article was previously published on My Vacation Source.

If there is one thing Madrid doesn’t lack – it’s bars. The neighborhood of Malasaña alone contains one bar per seven people; so going out on a pub-crawl in the Spanish capital requires minimal effort. But what if you want to do something a little different? Like walking in Hemingway’s footsteps, while eating and drinking along the way.

Hemingway described Madrid as “the most Spanish of all cities.” He arrived in the early 1920s and maintained a presence in the city up until the 50s, only leaving Spain during the Axis allied 1940s. Hemingway’s long-term residency in Madrid means that you can pretty much walk into any bar in the centre dating the pre-1950s with some connection to the writer. There is even the urban legend of a displayed placard outside a restaurant that says, “Hemingway never ate here.”

For those who like to fuel up before a night of drinking, why not enjoy a meal at El Sobrino de Botín, just off Plaza Mayor? With claims of being the “oldest restaurant in the world,” El Sobrino de Botín is also featured in the final scenes of the “Sun Also Rises.” This antique dining establishment offers a three-course menu including garlic soup and suckling pig. While this classic set menu may not cater to everyone’s tastes, there is also a la carte menu available.

If the suckling pig offered at El Sobrino de Botín seems a bit on the heavy side, or you’re partial to tapas, Spanish snack food, then you can have a bite to eat at the next port of call – Cervecería Alemana. The American writer’s old haunt can be found at end of the Plaza Santa Ana, and according to Hemingway, supposedly, serves the “best beer in Spain.” Cervecería Alemana can be described as a German beer hall meets a Spanish tapas bar, with its wooden beams and white walls combined with the noise and chaos you can only find in Spain.

They serve a variety of international beers, but the house beer is most excellent. Served in a white mug that matches the head, it echoes the bready wheat beers from Germany, while still maintaining a light taste. This bar is an even mix of tourists and locals, with grumpy waiters rushing around taking forever to note your food order. This manages to work as part of tavern’s charm, though. Hemingway frequented the Cervecería Alemana often, so much so, that he “owned” the small marble table right next to the window. Although the current owners claim that Hemingway was intensely disliked by the proprietors in his time.

The next stop on the agenda is the hidden bar of La Venencia. Only a five-minute walk from the popular Plaza Santa Ana, Calle Echegaray is quiet and can even seem a little abandoned at night. Keep walking down until you come to a pair of wooden shutter-like doors that mark the entrance to the bar. Back in the 30s, Republican soldiers and sympathisers during the Spanish Civil War used to meet here. As a war correspondent, Hemingway would hang out here for news on the front.

If sherry isn’t your thing then La Venencia won’t be for you – because, apart from tap water, that’s all they serve. Good news for sherry lovers though, is that they have five different varieties from the barrel, available full or half bottle sized or even by the glass. If you’re still after something to munch, you can find tapas that perfectly accompanies sherry at very low prices.

La Venencia is covered with vintage posters and the walls are yellowed with cigarette stains. The bottles on the top shelf haven’t been dusted since, well, when Hemingway was last there, most probably – but it’s part of its appeal. Mostly locals crowd the bar, and you can still see the sign from the Civil War that says “Don’t spit on the floor.” Not only that, La Venencia has maintained some of its republican traditions from Hemingway’s time, such as the rule about no photographs – a safety precaution against Fascist spies, and no tipping. The latter might sound strange, but these were socialists and workers.

From the gritty Republican hangout of La Venencia, Hemingway also found himself in the elegant and fashionable Taberna Chicote, now appropriately renamed Museo Chicote. Situated on the Gran Vía, considered the height of modernity back in the early 1930s with its grand, art deco buildings and lively theatres, Taberna Chicote proved to be popular with international journalists at the time. Hemingway wasn’t the only famous face to have passed through this chic bar. Its former customers included Grace Kelly, Orson Wells, Laurence Olivier and even Salvador Dalí. Nowadays, thanks to its legendary reputation, Museo Chicote still offers a variety of classic cocktails at not unreasonable prices. It marks the perfect end to the Hemingway pub-crawl – sitting in its classy, art deco setting almost transports you back to the glittering 30s with a cocktail in the hand.

While three bars hardly constitutes a pub-crawl, the combination of foamy beer, sherry from the barrel and classic cocktails is a lethal mix that Hemingway would be proud of. As long the tapas and tap water keep flowing, there is no reason why not to make the most of this trip down Hemingway’s memory lane. So grab a copy of the “Sun Also Rises” and have a drink with Hemingway!

Information:
El Sobrino de Botin
Calle de los Cuccilleros 17
Tel: 0034-913664217 (Reservation recommended)
Website: www.botin.es

Cerveceria Alemana
Plaza Santa Ana 6
Tel: 0034-914297033

La Venencia
Calle Echegaray 7
Tel: 0034-914297313

Museo Chicote
Gran Via 12
Tel: 0034-915326737
Website: http://www.museo-chicote.com/

Only a few days left to see this stunning exhibition (finishes on the 13th of January 2013). Go while you still can! Originally published on Kunstpedia.

Running away to escape his Parisian demons, Paul Gauguin sought refuge in his very own paradise lost in the exotic surroundings of Martinique, Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands. Through Gauguin’s voyage to primitive lands and an explosion of colour, modern art finally received the revitalising injection it desperately needed under the stagnant European skies.

Coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the Thyssen-Bornemisza museum in Madrid, the exhibition “Gauguin and the Voyage to the Exotic” follows the artist’s journey to Tahiti, exploring his artistic transition into primitive and authentic worlds where his palette experienced an explosion of colour and expression. However, the carefully curated exhibition by Paloma Alarcó at the Thyssen-Bornemisza goes beyond Gauguin’s Tahitian landscapes, but analyses the effect the French artist had on the world of modern art exploring the effect primitivism and colonialism had on movements such as the expressionists, fauvists and on abstract art.

The display at the Thyssen-Bormemisza is split into three themes with eight overall sections. Firstly, Gauguin is studied as a figure in his own right and introduces his seduction by the virginal and unspoiled lands of the tropics. As an artist, Gauguin’s paintings from the South Seas are among some of the most sensual and alluring images that can be found in modern art, not to mention the influence his work exerted on artists like Matisse, Kandinsky and many others. The exhibition also examines Gauguin’s voyage into the exotic as a means to escape civilisation. This is a key turning point, not only in the artistic and personal career of Paul Gauguin, but within the context of avant-garde’s primitivist revival, linking into the final theme: the modern concept and its treatment of the exotic by linking back to ethnography.

The invitation to the exotic didn’t begin with Gauguin, the French artist Eugène Delacroix sought inspiration on the shores of North Africa, where his orientalist depictions of Arab women and scenes from Algerian life were to inspire wanderlust in a young Gauguin. A sensually exotic scene by Delacroix of “Women of Algiers in their Apartment (Femmes d’Alger dans leur intérieur)” painted in 1849 opens the exhibition, with Gauguin’s Tahitian scene “Parau api (What’s New?)”, mirrored besides it. Looking at the paintings side-by-side, we observe the impact Delacroix’s North African paintings had on Gauguin. “Parau api (What’s New?)”, depicts a pair of women reclining on a canary yellow backdrop, whose poses mimic the Algerian women in Delacroix’s scene.

 Before Gauguin’s iconic Tahiti, there was Martinique. While Gauguin’s time in the Caribbean was brief, its effect on his artistic development was intense. Martinique was the first time the artist used the tropics as his muse, where the landscape and the local people would forever modify his pictorial language.

In Gauguin’s Martinique paintings, his form is still underdeveloped when compared with his later Tahitian works. The composition of the artist’s paintings from his Caribbean period drew from Cézanne, with their long and oblique brushstrokes, bestowing his paintings not with the clear brilliance of his later works, but with a vibrant, if not rough, texture in his canvases.

His painting, “Coming and Going, Martinique” from 1887 is a good example of this style. We see the effect the exotic had on the artist’s work, yet his palette is dulled and less daring than his later paintings, but it marks the beginning of a new era for Gauguin. When he travelled to Martinique, Gauguin was accompanied by his friend Charles Laval, whose work is displayed side-by-side in the exhibition. We can see in Laval’s Martinique landscapes that he shared Gauguin’s decorative brushstroke application.

 Gauguin’s time in Tahiti was the creative peak of the artist’s life. His time on the South Pacific island allowed him to focus on the rich local culture and the brilliant nature that surrounded him, bringing out a synthesist style that was based on large areas of brilliant colour. In Gauguin’s Tahitian paintings, colour conveys meaning, as Gauguin begins to treat his palette as form of emotional expression. It’s not only his thoughts and feelings that are communicated on canvas through the bright colours, but they are also rich in symbolic content.

The display showcases some striking examples of Gauguin’s Tahitian paintings, most notably, “Mata Mua (In Olden Times),” “Two Tahitian Women,” “Matamoe, Death. Landscape with Peacocks.” His paintings are nostalgic, depicting a “Paradise Lost” of an innocent and ancient world dying in the advent of colonialism.

However, it’s not just the outside world that darkened Gauguin’s own tropical paradise. Gauguin was suffering from late stage syphilis, which caused deterioration in both his mental and physical health, transforming his paintings into darker and more sinister compositions – blurring the boundaries between his Tahitian paradise and personal hell.

Up until now, the exhibition mostly focussed on Gauguin’s own travels and creative development. “Beneath the Palm Trees,” commences an examination of the artists who found inspiration in Gauguin’s exotic journeys. The theme of the jungle became a new source for the avant-garde artists to tap into, giving modern art the desperate injection of new ideas it needed after a crisis that wasn’t just aesthetic, but a moral and political one also.

Gauguin played a crucial role in the transformation of modern art. If we examine Gauguin’s own interpretation of symbolism, whose analogy married art to the dream world, Gauguin manages to transport that into a self-contained fantasy. By combining the primitive and savage worlds of the South Pacific with his own symbolist ideals, Gauguin grew creatively as an artist through his relationship with untamed nature, and whether their inspirations were real or imaginary, many artists followed suit.

The wild and the savage offered a path to innocence that appealed to the artists of the early 20th century, where childish regression became mirrored in contemporary art. Gauguin’s exotic resonated to an obvious extent with artists like Rousseau and Matisse, among others, but Picasso found artistic companionship with the exotic and childish primitivism. Picasso might have found inspiration through African art or the primitivist paintings of the Georgian painter Niko Pirosmani, but he still searched for this child like innocence from outside of his own cultural sphere in the same manner as Gauguin.

Artists whose work clearly show direct influence from Gauguin are seen in the exhibition, Henri Rousseau’s “Tropical Landscape: An American Indian struggling with a gorilla,” echoes the symbolist landscapes from Gauguin’s Tahitian scenes, Emil Nolde’s palette is a tribute to the bold colours of the French emigré artist, and Ernest Ludwig Kirchner and Otto Müller’s nudes evoke the exotic sensuality of Gauguin’s paintings of Tahitian women.

Ethnography became a popularised trend in the early 20th century, as more artists discovered a new way of viewing the world thanks to Gauguin’s contribution to modern art. The French fauves and the German expressionists grew from Gauguin’s artistic gaze to seek out the different and the “Other.”

To fauvism, expressionism and Russian primitivism, Gauguin will remain the artist who set out into the wild in search of a new vision, who became a canon to a whole new generation of artists, whether they took to the exotic in ethnographic museums or went on their own voyages. We can see his influence in displayed works by Mikhail Larionov’s “Blue Nude,” Henri Manguin’s “The Prints” or Kirchner’s nudes.

Many avant-gardes explored countries closer to home, such as North Africa, in search of a new pictorial language of light and colour. Kandinsky’s oil paintings are early works that are uncharacteristic of the abstract artist, but show a growing interest in space, colour and form  inspired by Tunisian scenes, although we begin to see the brilliant use abstract forms combined with colour that take shape in his later works. The same is seen in the paintings by Paul Klee and August Macke, whose abstract forms a far from Gauguin’s symbolist paintings, but attribute their palette and exotic themes to the artist.

The exhibition concludes with Matisse and F.W. Murnau’s journey to Tahiti. Matisse’s bright, brilliant colours and primitive lines stem from Gauguin’s influence, but in 1930, Matisse also sought inspiration in Polynesia, coinciding with the production of the film by the German expressionist director F.W. Murnau, “Taboo: A story of the South Seas.” Matisse’s journey to Tahiti was for pleasure, and while he painted and drew landscapes and portraits of the actors from Murnau’s film, Tahiti moved his work into an alternative view of the island. Matisse’s perspective is different, and his Tahitian paintings lack that same raw creativity Gauguin found in his lost piece of paradise.

Gauguin escaped civilisation, throwing himself into the Tahitian world that impacted art in a way that was no longer sophisticated or decadent. It consumed him, inside and out, and left a huge mark on the art that secured his succession and artistic legacy.

Eastbourne is one of the iconic British seaside resorts you'll find scattered along the East Sussex coastline. For a long time, I never really understood the appeal of my hometown* as a holiday destination. Eastbourne is Brighton's frumpy sister and is dubbed by many as "God's Waiting Room" due to the large number of old peoples' homes.

While going home to Eastbourne doesn't fill me with excitement after having lived in Budapest, Frankfurt, Madrid and Tbilisi, slowly I'm beginning to see the quirky appeal of this little seaside resort.

The town is undoubtedly picturesque, with its Edwardian architecture and sea views. This is classic "Sussex by the Sea" territory: it's antique, and it's not the fashionable, up-dated version you'll find in Brighton. People flock to the shingled beaches at the first ray of sunlight with a box of takeaway fish and chips, while predatory seagulls shriek in the air plotting their culinary burglary.

My personal impression of Eastbourne is its grittier, chav laden side of inebriated girls tottering around in miniskirts or the drug dealers who sit on the street corners in the residential areas behind the seafront. However, after taking a stroll along the seafront on a very sunny New Years Day allowed me to gain new appreciation for the town. Away from the derelict back streets you'll find a town that's full of old fashioned charm.

Often I've had to bite my tongue from laughing at the signpost "The Sunshine Coast Welcomes You." It's always raining when I pass it, but statistics show that Eastbourne has a track record for the highest levels of sunlight in the UK (although, I think another town has stolen Eastbourne's sunshine crown now). This is a bit depressing when you think about it, especially since it's already dark by 3 p.m. in December.

On the rare occasion when the sun is out, Eastbourne is very pleasant. Walks along the seafront are refreshing. There are plenty of cafés along the beach, which make for a nice spot for a coffee with a sea view or if you're looking for something more traditional, you can enjoy a cream tea on the pier.

For the more adventurous walker, there is a picturesque hike up to Beachy Head. This is famous for being one of the top suicide spots in the world, but the white cliffs around Beachy Head offer some of the most stunning coastal views in the UK.  

Despite Eastbourne's unfashionable image, you'd be surprised at the number of celebrities who've passed through the town. Apparently, John Malkovich even owns a hotel here and has been spotted on the seafront a few times.

Eastbourne has had its fair share of famous visitors and residents. Charles Dickens performed amateur dramatics at the Lamb Theatre in the 1830s, and Communist Manifesto authors Marx and Engles spent a lot of time in the area as well. Engels even had his ashes scattered from nearby Beachy Head. There is even a legend that Debussy found inspiration for "La Mer" here.

Other famous residents have included The Graduate author Charles Webb, sci-fi writer Angela Carter, occultist Alistair Crowley, comedian Eddie Izzard, Tommy Cooper and many more.

Some even say that John Cleese came up Fawlty Towers after a terrible holiday in Eastbourne.

Eastbourne Bandstand is one of the town's iconic postcard features, sporting a turquoise blue dome designed with a fusion of oriental and neoclassical design.

We saw a placard next to the bandstand commemorating one of the musicians who had gone down on the Titanic. He was member of the quartet that continued to play as the ship sank. It sent chills down my spine, since my Hungarian great-grandfather missed his connection in Hamburg to catch the "unsinkable" ship. He sailed to New York on the Carpathian - the ship which picked up the survivors. 

Eastbourne is a curious box of contradictions that has many surprises to give. Parts of it might be run down and even dodgy, but the rest is a picture postcard resort of classic British seaside charm. There must be something in its sea air to continuously attract curious and famous characters.

*The closest I have to a hometown.

This article was previously published on Kunstpedia. The exhibition is running until the 7th of January 2013, so you have a few days to still catch it.

The volatile decade of the 1930s saw the rise of totalitarian regimes and the advent of the Great Depression, while advances in film and photography offered artists the opportunity to explore new art forms and medias of communications. It’s impossible generalise the 1930s, since as an era it’s represented by eclecticism and contradiction, where art became a complex debate between totalitarianism and individualism; realism versus abstraction; and where nationalism took on international collaboration.  

The 1930s inherited the artistic fever for experimentation from the previous decades of the 1910s and 20s, however the 30s can be viewed as a time when avant-garde and modernity went their own separate ways under the imposed political and economic climate.

The Modern was perceived as individualistic and went against the collective identity imposed by the dictatorships in Europe. Yet, the rise of new advances in photography, publishing and poster art gave artists the chance to break away from the status quo, inspiring innovation and continued experimentation in the world of art. Debates rose up on abstraction and realism, while surrealism expanded on an international basis. The “isms” blended together in an international melting pot where artists like Pablo Picasso took a playful approach to combining styles. 

The exhibition on display at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid takes us on a journey back to the 1930s. Like its era, the exhibition is eclectic and extreme, revisiting this fascinating time through the innovation and creativity that gave birth to abstraction, surrealism and new forms of expression through photography and film, while acknowledging the influence the era’s politics. Artists of the 1930s showed the world they had the ability to challenge, aggravate and provoke the conventional order.

We’re introduced to the artistic scope of the 1930s through the channel of realism, a broad artistic movement that encapsulated the “New Vision” through to the rise of social realism.

Realism became an artistic device used to communicate en masse with the public. It expressed a desire to reach out to broad audiences, resulting in increased eclectic depictions of the style from the photographic impressions like Josep de Togores’s “Group around the Guitar. L’Ametlla de Vallés,” to those with a more experimental edge like Antonio Berni’s “New Chicago Athletic Club” or Philip Guston’s “Mother and Child”.  

Realism sought to bring art into a public sphere, and despite its name, it refers to an orientation in art rather than an aesthetic connection to reality. Naturalism, a style used to convey “realistic” forms in art as seen in the 19th century, is not a branch of realism. Whether seen in the canvases of the exhibition or in photographs of realist murals from Mexico or the Soviet Union, we see that realism isn’t an aesthetic concept, but rather an ideological one that expresses “true values” such as a social preoccupation with daily life in the interwar-war period.

Pursuing the experimental spirit of modernity of the prior decades, the perseverance of abstraction in the 1930s as a form of creative research and expression transformed this innovative art form into a conversation on utopian reflection, form and even politics. Abstraction not only challenged perspectives on the use of form and colour in art, but also considered dimensional space by playing with textures and solid objects imposed on canvas.

Laszló Moholy-Nagy’s “AL6 Construction” is a three dimensional composition of oil on aluminium. The forms in Moholy-Nagy’s abstract construction demonstrate interplay of texture and depth; circles of oil paints are contrasted against circular holes, whose depth is emphasised by the aluminium sheet that’s offset from the background.

Abstraction in the 30s also became a play of form and colour, sometimes with a regression to childlike naivety as seen in the canvases of Joan Miró to the carefully crafted compositions of Wassily Kandinsky.

“Succession” by Kandinsky, demonstrates the artist’s fascination with geometry and colour, where his forms display a mathematical progression of pictorial music as the notes explode into colour on the canvas. Paul Klee’s “Halme (Straw)” also imitates a musical language through paint in his own position on abstraction.

While Europe saw the imposition of realism by authoritarian regimes, that considered abstraction as “bourgeois” and “individualistic,” a transatlantic dialogue between European abstract artists, such as Moholy-Nagy and Kandinsky, and artists in the United States was taking place. Across the Atlantic, abstraction was embraced as a visual language not only for private experimentation, but also for public commission, and even though many critics and members of the public favoured realism abstraction grew in popularity, flavouring modern art for decades to come.  

While surrealism met with significant criticism and even disdain from art critics such as Clement Greenberg in the US, the movement exploded at an international level in the 1930s. While it began as an underground movement with left wing politics, thanks to Salvador Dalí surrealism was ushered into the mainstream and would leave a lasting impact on modern art and popular culture.

Through an expanding print and media culture, surrealism embraced modern technology with an ever-growing medium of surrealist photography with artists such as Man Ray. Surrealism was also fused to other movements such as abstraction or even realism, as seen in the works of Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró.

Picasso’s “Le Sauvetage,” whose unique perception propelled the artist beyond the cubist styles of his earlier career into his own individual brand of surrealism, whereas Miró’s “Deux Baigneuses [Two Bathers]” is a marriage between surrealist composition and abstract style.

On display, you’ll find “pure” surrealist works, such as Salvador Dalí’s “Sketch for the work ‘The Invisible Man’,” and “Surrealist Composition, Fraud in the Garden,” by Yves Tanguy, whose distorted forms and elongated shadows on a deserted plane expresses the classical aesthetics of surrealist painting.

While print photography and film reeled in the world of the avant-garde in the 1920s, in the 1930s this new and exciting medium became the gateway to the masses for many artists. While the 1930s saw works of experimental photography rise up in the art world, especially in surrealist circles, many photographers such as Man Ray entered the mainstream by working with fashion magazines like Vogue.

Photography served not only as an artistic medium for design and propaganda, but captured the spirit of the decade through themes of applied psychology and the search for non-traditional forms. Many artists turned to the art of the photomontage and photocollage as an alternative form of expression to connect with the public.

The display at the Reina Sofia also discusses the use of public space and exhibitions in the 30s. The dictatorships of the totalitarian regimes that dominated European politics acknowledged the importance of art and culture. The theatrical and monumental dominated the European landscape where buildings and public spaces took on a new symbolic meaning; they became an opportunity to inspire ceremony and nationalism among the people.

The rise of new technologies also changed the way space was used, with the rise of the science and art of projecting light onto a building to creative light shows. But it was not only illumination that gave exhibitions multimedia feel, sound and film also became an important part of the display.

The exhibition spaces of the 1930s saw the rise of world fairs and large-scale exhibition halls, where the exhibitions played to local political and economic climates.

Exhibitions became a marriage between fiction and fantasy, and like the spirit of the 1930s were full of contradictions and extremes. Themes of hand made versus the machine; miniature versus the monumental; industrial versus the primitive; individual versus the collective and democratic versus totalitarianism. Through paintings, murals, tapestries, posters and postcards, we can see through the Reina Sofia “Encounters with the 1930s” how the exhibitions of the decade merged the larger than life with the everyday world.

One factor crucial in a conversation on the 1930s, especially in Spain, is the effect of the Civil War. The exhibition is structured round Picasso’s iconic “Guernica” painting, which celebrates its 75th anniversary. Spanish artists were active participants in the creative world of the 1930s, and with the rise of the Civil War many artists were exiled either by choice or by force.

The Civil War’s influence on art manifested in different ways. Many artists used realism an idiom to document the events and horrors of the war, through realism many artists could include an emotional dimension into their paintings that photography could not, turning these works into historical archives.

Although, the use of art to record horrific acts of war wasn’t limited to realism. Picasso’s “Guernica” conveyed the atrocities of war through stylised form, yet the symbolic and emotional effect the painting has immortalised the tragedy and the horror that took place in the small Basque village of Guernica.

The Civil War turned many artists towards the concept of violence as a narrative, some drew stimulus from the conflict, while others joined ranks to do something about the war, inspiring a huge cultural and creative production in Europe and America, both by Spanish exiles and their supporters.

To summarise the impact the 1930s had on art is futile, it’s a complex decade that spawned some of the most innovative works of the 20th century. Fully understanding art of the 1930s is one that will require a lifetime of study, but the exhibition leaves you with an impression, a feel for a time when the world was on the edge between war, economic depression, new technology and globalisation.

I would like to offer a very special thank you to Milena Ruiz and the staff at  the Reina Sofia Museum for their help in preparing this article.




References: Exhibition Catalogue: Encounter with the 30s, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia and La Fabrica (2012)

Darmstadt is a fascinating city and it has most certainly earned its title as "the City of Art and Science."

With two particle accelerators (GSI and the recently constructed FAIR on the same grounds), the German site for the European Space Agency, the industrial centre of the German pharmaceutical industry (with big companies such as Merck basing their main plants here), it's easy to see why Darmstadt has earned it's scientific wings. Not to mention the city has a chemical element named after it: Darmstadtium (atomic number 110, which was discovered in GSI in 1994).

On the arts side, Darmstadt is also home to the former Artists' Colony, Mathildenhöhe. Artists from the German Jugendstil movement both lived and worked in this community. The artists were financed by patrons while they worked together with other members of the collective. Darmstadt Artists' Colony is not just a movement in the history of German Jugendstil, but it also refers to the modernist buildings left behind. From the exhibition hall to the houses artists houses, Mathildenhöhe's modernist architecture has put Darmstadt on Europe's map of art nouveau cities.

Darmstadt's avant-garde doesn't stop there. Austrian architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser's Waldpirale is also hidden away in this small, industrial city.

Darmstadt might have earned its title as the city of art and culture, so what specifically should you see?

If you're staying in nearby Frankfurt, then Darmstadt is just a short train ride away. If you're looking to get out of the city and away from Mainhatten's high-rises, it makes a nice escape. Or, if you're travelling down towards Heidelberg, Darmstadt is a great place to break the journey.

Visiting the center of Darmstadt will take you to the area surrounding Luisenplatz. This is the largest square in the city, and it's also the central hub for any public transportation. You'll find many shops and restaurants in this pedestrianised area, but it's also easy to navigate the city from here.

Many of the monuments are walking distance from Luisenplatz, such as the ducal palace of Darmstadt. This was once the palatial residence of the counts of Hesse-Darmstadt, and then the Grand Dukes of Hesse.

The palace's look stems from its 18th century refurbishment and additions, but the castle itself actually dates back to the 13th century.

Opposite the square is the historic Marktplatz. Facing the front of the ducal palace is the old town hall, which now houses a tavern. The "Ratzkeller" (link in German) serves its own beer (there is a brewery in the basement) and traditional food from the Hessen region. It sports a cosy atmosphere and bags of character, not to mention the high quality food and delicious selection of wheat beers. 

The Artists' Colony in Mathildenhöhe is a little out of town, but worth a visit. Here you'll find the iconic five fingered "wedding tower" which has become a symbol of the city. In addition, there is a Russian chapel and a number of the artists' houses in the Jugendstil style.

The colony was founded at the end of the 19th century by the Grand Duke of Hesse, Ernest Ludwig. Mathildenhöhe was created by Ludwig to promote the art scene of the Hessen region, helping to combine trade and art so it would act as an economic stimulus for the land. Artists housed in the colony sought to develop the modern and avant-garde into a way of living and construction.

As a result, Ernest Ludwig brought many of Germany's top Jugendstil artists to live in Darmstadt, such as Peter Behrens, Paul Bürck, Hans Christiansen, Rudolf Bosselt, and more.

A short walk from Mathildenhöhe is Hundertwasser's surreal Walspirale. Hidden away between allotments, concrete block apartments and an Aldi supermarket, this is hardly a prime location.

The Hundertwasser House in Vienna is famous, and always full of tourists. When I visited the Austrian capital it was marked on my list of key things I had to do while I was there. The Hundertwasser House was stunning, a modern-day rival to the modernist buildings of Barcelona, yet the Waldspirale in Darmstadt is even more spectacular. It's downfall is that it's hidden away in Darmstadt's uglier outlying neighbourhoods.

Darmstadt is an attractive destination for those looking to immerse themselves in the German countryside. The nearby Bergstrasse (part of the larger Odenwald), a chain of low mountains that run between Darmstadt and Heidelberg, offers stunning hikes. The rolling mountains of the Odenwald are rich in woodlands, vineyards and are dotted with historic, ruined and romantic castles. The most famous, Castle Frankenstein, is located in Darmstadt's suburbs.

Legend has it Mary Shelly drew inspiration for her novel Frankenstein after a trip to the to the region. Whether this is true or not is another matter. 

Looking beneath the surface, Darmstadt has a lot to offer any traveller interested in science, art history or even Gothic literature.

Find more information about Darmstadt here!