The Man with the Anchor: A Story Carved in Jaén

A dramatic detail from the choir stalls of Jaén Cathedral: Pope Clement I is thrown from a bridge with an anchor around his neck, a reference to his martyrdom in the late 1st century after exile to the Crimea on the Black Sea.

Walk into the choir of Jaén Cathedral and your eye is drawn, sooner or later, to a small but striking scene. A man is being forced from a bridge. Around his neck hangs an anchor. Below him, the water churns. The figures pushing him lean forward with effort; there is no hesitation in their movement.

It is a moment frozen in wood—but it tells a story that began almost two thousand years ago. The man is Pope Clement I.

A Leader in the First Century

Clement lived in the late 1st century (around 35–99 AD), at a time when Christianity was still a small and often mistrusted movement within the Roman Empire. He is traditionally regarded as one of the earliest leaders of the Christian community in Rome—often listed as the fourth bishop of Rome, after Saint Peter.

This was not yet a powerful institution. On the contrary, Christians were viewed with suspicion because they refused to participate in Roman religious rituals tied to loyalty to the state. For someone in a visible leadership role, that made life dangerous.

Exile to the Edge of the Empire

According to early Christian tradition, Clement’s influence led to his arrest during the reign of the Roman emperor Trajan (98–117 AD). Instead of being executed in Rome, he was banished to the distant region of the Crimea, on the northern shores of the Black Sea—then a harsh and remote frontier of the empire.

There, he was put to work among prisoners, many of them condemned to forced labour in quarries. Yet exile did not silence him. Clement continued to preach and support those around him, and his presence reportedly strengthened a growing Christian community even in these difficult conditions.

The Anchor and the Sea

For the Roman authorities, this was the opposite of what exile was meant to achieve. Rather than disappearing, Clement had become a source of influence far from Rome.

The response was final. He was condemned to death in a way that would leave no trace. An anchor was tied around his neck, and he was thrown into the sea to drown—most likely sometime toward the end of the 1st century, around 99 AD.

This detail—the anchor—is what fixed his story in memory. It became his unmistakable symbol, allowing people to recognize him in art across Europe, even centuries later.

A Story That Reached Jaén

The carving in Jaén is part of that long journey. By the time these choir stalls were created, likely in the early modern period, the story of Clement had become part of a shared visual language across Catholic Europe. Artists did not need to explain it. A man, an anchor, and water were enough.

Even today, without knowing the name, the scene remains powerful. It shows a moment of force and finality—but also something else: the attempt to silence a voice by removing it completely.

Yet the story endured. From Rome to the Crimea, and from there across Europe to places like Jaén, it survived not just in texts, but in images—quietly carved, waiting to be understood.

Where Families Camp in the Middle Ages: Easter at Graefenthal

Just across the Dutch–German border, near Goch, something remarkable happens every Easter weekend. The quiet grounds of Kloster Graefenthal — a monastery founded in 1248 — transform into a living medieval world.

From April 4 to 6, 2026, the site once again hosts its well-known Easter market, one of the largest medieval-themed events in the region.

But this is not just a market. It is something far more immersive.

A Market That Feels Like a Village

At first glance, you will see the familiar elements: wooden stalls, craftsmen, food, music. But then something shifts. Behind the market, beyond the crowds, entire medieval encampments appear — tents, campfires, cooking pots, banners moving in the wind.

Here, history is not displayed. It is lived.

Groups of reenactors recreate daily life in the Middle Ages: cooking over open fire, practicing archery, forging metal, or preparing for mock battles. Visitors can walk straight into these camps, talk to the participants, and even try activities themselves.

And most striking of all: many participants do not come alone. They come as families.

Families Who Live the Past

What makes Graefenthal special is not only the setting, but the people. Entire families — parents, children, sometimes even grandparents — dress in historically inspired clothing and spend the weekend together in their camp.

For them, this is not a performance. It is a shared passion.

Children grow up learning how to bake bread over fire, how to sew garments, how to handle simple tools. Evenings are spent around flickering flames, with music, storytelling, and a quiet sense of stepping outside modern time.

It is easy to forget, standing there, that you are only a few kilometres from the present.

A Wider Culture Across Borders

Graefenthal is part of a much larger European culture of medieval reenactment — a network of groups who travel from event to event throughout the year.

In Germany, similar events can be found at places like Manderscheid Castle, Waltrop (Gaudium festival), and Bad Rothenfelde.

In the Netherlands, you can encounter this world at the monastery site of Klooster Ter Apel or during events at Kasteel Teylingen, where reenactment groups set up similar encampments.

Belgium has its own tradition, with festivals in cities like Bouillon and Bruges, often linked to historical pageants and processions.

Across all these places, the pattern is the same: people gathering not just to watch history, but to inhabit it — if only for a few days.

Why It Matters

In a world of screens and speed, these events offer something rare: slowness, craft, and shared experience across generations.

The medieval market at Graefenthal is, on the surface, a festive outing — a day of music, food, and spectacle. But beneath that lies something deeper: a quiet movement of people who choose, again and again, to step into the past together.

Not because they have to. But because, for a moment, it feels more real.

Trier's Dom and the Liebfrauenkirche

Trier’s Dom (left) and the Liebfrauenkirche (right).

Stand on the Domfreihof, squarely before the west front of Trier’s cathedral. The stones give off that old, cool breath. Bells roll somewhere above the roofs. In this one view—Dom St. Peter straight ahead, Liebfrauenkirche just to the right—the city’s whole timeline seems to unspool.

The Dom: Rome Repurposed, Empire Remembered

Beneath the Romanesque towers runs a core of 4th-century masonry: a Constantinian church complex raised after Christianity’s legalization. Trier—Augusta Treverorum, founded as a Roman city around 16 BCE—became an imperial residence in the early 300s; Constantine and his court were here c. 306–316. Around c. 326–330, palace ground and Roman brick were folded into a monumental double church. You’re looking at that antique skeleton wrapped in later skin.

The rebuilds came in waves. 10th–12th centuries: Ottonian and Romanesque campaigns thickened the westwork and towers, giving the façade its fortress calm. 13th century: Gothic openings at the east drew more light into the choir. Late 17th–18th centuries: Baroque furnishings softened the interior. 1944 air raids cracked vaults; post-1945 restorations pared the space back to clarity.

The cathedral also reads like a ledger of power. By 1356, the Archbishop of Trier stood among the empire’s seven prince-electors under the Golden Bull, choosing kings of the Romans. From chancery to mint, from market tolls to monasteries, the cathedral chapter worked within government as much as alongside it. And devotion ran on its own clock: pilgrim surges for the Heiliger Rock (Holy Tunic) mark dates across the centuries—1512, 1844, 1891, 1933, 1959, 1996, 2012—each season swelling the square you’re standing in.

The interior of Trier’s Dom.

The Liebfrauenkirche: A Rose of Early Gothic

Glance right and the mood changes. Where the Dom plants its feet, Liebfrauen rises on tiptoe. Built c. 1227–1243 (with finishing work into the 1260s), it is among the earliest pure Gothic churches in Germany. Its plan—an interlaced cross inscribed in a circle—unfurls like a stone flower. Twelve main supports ring the center: apostles, months, tribes, the ordered cosmos in geometry. Tracery and pointed arches turn stone into lace; the portal frames shadow rather than mass. If the Dom is Rome baptized, Liebfrauen is France translated—Gothic ideas traveling the Moselle in the early 1200s and settling into local craft.

The interior of the Liebfrauenkirche.

One Square, Many Ages

From this spot you can pace the centuries with your eyes. The Dom’s antique core (c. 330) meets its medieval armor (1000s–1200s); Liebfrauen’s airy leap (1230s) stands almost shoulder-to-shoulder. Behind the façades lies a city that has practiced continuity: the Aula Palatina (Constantine’s throne hall, c. 310), the Imperial Baths (4th century), the Porta Nigra (c. 180–200). Power shifted—from emperors to bishops to electors to citizens—but the thread held.

War shook both churches; scaffolds grew like forests. When the dust of the 1940s settled, careful restorations returned them to the rhythm of daily use. The square filled again with processions and choirs; tourists folded into pews; a baptismal font caught candlelight as it had six hundred years earlier.

Reading the Façades from Left to Right

Let your gaze travel across the Dom’s west front: layered portals, blind arcades, the disciplined stacking of volumes—architecture meant to hold a crowd’s attention on a feast day. Slide to the right and the rhythm quickens. Liebfrauen’s tracery reads like script on vellum; its buttresses pull the eye upward; its plan—circle, cross, petals—seems to turn even while it stands still. Two voices, one conversation: memory and ascent, weight and light.

The Present Tense of Old Stones

In 1986, UNESCO folded these churches into the World Heritage listing “Roman Monuments, Cathedral of St. Peter and Church of Our Lady in Trier.” That inscription didn’t freeze them in amber; it simply named what you feel on the square. The Dom’s Roman bones and medieval muscle, Liebfrauen’s early Gothic inventiveness, the Roman city still breathing all around—each has taken its turn leading. They still do. Stand here long enough, and the bell that calls the hour will sound like a page turning.

From Iron Age Tribes to Digital Europe

The Turning Points That Changed Everything

Image created with AI.

When we travel across Europe today, history often feels calm and continuous. Roman roads become medieval streets. Castles turn into hotels. Old kingdoms slowly transform into modern nations. Yet this impression is deceptive. Europe did not grow in a straight line. Again and again, long periods of tension built quietly beneath the surface. Then a relatively small event pushed societies over the edge.

If we want to understand Europe, we must look at these turning points.

The Iron Age and the Birth of European Diversity (around 800 BC)

Around 800 BC, Europe was not a unified civilisation but a mosaic of peoples and cultures. Celts, Iberians, Greeks, Etruscans and many others lived in networks of trade and rivalry. Iron technology spread, making tools and weapons more accessible. Trade routes connected the Mediterranean to the Atlantic and deep into the European interior. Wealth accumulated in new hands. Power became more concentrated.

This slow transformation was itself a tipping point. Europe moved from small, local communities to larger and more complex societies. Warfare became more organised. Long-distance exchange intensified. Cultural interaction increased. By the first millennium BC, Europe was already a connected world, restless and dynamic. The stage was set for a power capable of linking these regions into a single system.

Rome: Crisis as the Trigger for Empire

Rome was not destined to dominate Europe. For centuries it was simply one city among many in central Italy. Its rise was not inevitable. What changed was a series of existential crises that forced Rome to innovate. Surrounded by rivals, it developed flexible political institutions and a remarkable capacity to form alliances.

The decisive trigger came with the wars against Carthage in the third and second centuries BC. These conflicts pushed Rome beyond its limits. To survive, it mobilised unprecedented resources, built large fleets, and organised armies on a scale never seen before in the western Mediterranean. Victory over Carthage removed its greatest rival and gave Rome control over key trade routes and territories.

From that moment, the balance of power shifted. Expansion followed. Roads, colonies, and law spread across Europe. What had begun as a defensive struggle became an imperial system. For the first time, large parts of Europe shared infrastructure, administration and political frameworks. Cooperation and conquest became two sides of the same process.

The Fall of Rome and the Return of Fragmentation

The collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century is often imagined as a dramatic moment. In reality, decline had been gradual. Economic strain, migration, political instability and internal conflict slowly weakened the system. When a Germanic leader deposed the last Western emperor in 476, the event itself was almost symbolic. The real transformation had already taken place.

Yet the consequences were enormous. Europe fragmented into regional kingdoms. Local identities re-emerged. The central question became how to create order without empire. This challenge shaped the next thousand years.

Clovis and the Fusion of Cultures

Around the year 500, the Frankish king Clovis chose to adopt Catholic Christianity. Many other Germanic rulers followed different forms of the faith. His decision helped bridge the gap between Roman populations and new rulers. It strengthened cooperation between political power and the Church.

This was a small choice with large consequences. It laid foundations for medieval Europe and helped create a shared cultural framework that would endure for centuries.

Charlemagne and the Idea of Europe

In the year 800, Charlemagne was crowned emperor. His empire did not survive long, but the idea did. Europe began to see itself as a civilisation rooted in shared learning, religion and governance. Administration, education and communication were revived. The political geography of modern Europe began to take shape.

This moment shows how ideas can outlive institutions.

The Black Death: Catastrophe and Renewal

In the fourteenth century, plague devastated Europe. Yet it struck a society already under pressure. Population growth had strained resources. Feudal structures were rigid. The sudden loss of labour changed everything. Wages rose. Social mobility increased. Old hierarchies weakened.

Crisis became a catalyst for transformation. Europe emerged more dynamic and more flexible.

The Reformation and the Power of Networks

When Martin Luther challenged the Church in 1517, he did not intend a continental revolution. But printing, urban communication and political rivalry spread his ideas rapidly. Europe divided into competing systems. States gained strength. Individual belief became central.

Once again, long-term tensions combined with a triggering event.

Revolution and modern politics

The French Revolution transformed Europe. It introduced citizenship, rights and nationalism. Yet it grew from structural pressures: debt, inequality and social frustration. A political crisis ignited forces that reshaped the continent.

Modern Europe was born in this period of turmoil.

War and the Search for Cooperation

The twentieth century brought destruction on an unprecedented scale. Two world wars devastated Europe. Yet the response was not endless conflict. Instead, European leaders chose cooperation. Institutions replaced rivalry. Law replaced revenge. Integration became a strategy for survival.

This was perhaps Europe’s most surprising turning point.

1989 and the Reopening of the Continent

The fall of the Berlin Wall symbolised the end of division. Communist regimes had weakened for years, but small events accelerated change. Courage, communication and timing reshaped the political landscape. Europe reunited in ways few had predicted.

The Digital Age: a New Tipping Point

Today Europe faces another transformation. Globalisation, migration, climate change and digital technology are reshaping society. Social media amplifies emotions. Trust in institutions fluctuates. New communities emerge beyond borders.

The outcome remains uncertain. But history suggests that change will not be smooth. It will come through moments of crisis and renewal.

What Europe Teaches Us

Europe’s story is not only about conflict. It is about adaptation. Again and again, societies have faced collapse and uncertainty. Again and again, they have developed new forms of cooperation. Stability has never been permanent. Community has always had to be rebuilt.

For travellers, this perspective adds depth to every journey. Roads, villages and cities are not just heritage sites. They are the result of countless turning points. Europe is not a finished civilisation. It is an ongoing experiment.

And we are part of its next chapter.

Further Reading

• Brian Klass, Fluke: Chance, Chaos and Why Everything We Do Matters

• Christopher Dawson, The Making of Europe

• Peter Heather, Empires and Barbarians

• Ian Morris, Why the West Rules – For Now

• Peter Turchin, Ages of Discord

• Niall Ferguson, Civilization

Myth, Memory, and Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer

The two Marys in their boat, symbolizing the legendary arrival of early Christians on this shore.

A Story from the Sea

At the edge of the Camargue, where land fades into marsh and sea, stands a church that looks like a fortress. It is here that local tradition places a striking beginning.

The story does not start here, however, but far to the east, in the lands of Palestine. In the years following the death of Christ, his followers were increasingly under pressure—from both Roman authorities and local opposition. According to tradition, a small group of women and early believers were forced to flee. They were placed in a fragile boat, without sail or rudder, and cast out to sea.

Carried by currents rather than by human control, the boat drifted across the Mediterranean until it reached this remote coastline. On board were Marie Jacobé and Marie Salomé, close relatives of Jesus, and, in many versions, Mary Magdalene. With them was also a woman named Sara, whose story would take on a life of its own in the centuries that followed.

Whether history or legend, the power of the story lies in the journey itself: a passage from persecution to arrival, from uncertainty to landfall—here, at the edge of Europe.

The fortified church of Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer.

A Sanctuary of Stone and Presence

The church reflects both danger and refuge. Built as a defensive structure against attacks from the sea, it offered physical protection in turbulent times. Inside, however, the atmosphere softens. The Romanesque forms, filtered light, and quiet spatial rhythm create a sense of inward movement.

Above the altar, the two Marys are shown in a boat, a simple image that captures the essence of the story. Below, in the crypt, stands Sara—known as Sara la Noire—covered in layers of cloaks, jewelry, and offerings brought by pilgrims. These gifts are acts of gratitude or hope, not decoration.

The statue of Sara la Noire, covered in offerings from pilgrims—an enduring symbol of listening, protection, and devotion.

Sara’s origins are uncertain, but her meaning today is clear. She is especially revered by Roma and travelling communities, who see in her a figure of recognition and protection. She has been described as one who listens—a presence for those who feel unheard.

Ritual, Memory, and Mystery

Each year, especially in May, the town fills with pilgrims. Statues of the saints are carried from the church to the sea, and often into the water itself, recalling their legendary arrival. These processions are not simply reenactments; they are lived experiences, marked by strong emotion and a sense of shared participation.

Throughout the church, ex-votos—small offerings left behind—tell personal stories of illness, survival, and gratitude. Together, they form a quiet testimony to the human need for meaning, connection, and hope.

Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer resists simple explanation. It is a place where legend, history, and personal experience merge, and where the mystery itself becomes part of its power. People arrive out of curiosity or belief, but many leave with the sense that something has shifted—however slightly—within them.

The Giant Clay Jars of Valdepeñas (Spain)

Rows of traditional clay tinajas in an underground cellar in Valdepeñas.

If you descend into one of the old wine cellars of Valdepeñas, you may find yourself walking through a silent forest of giant clay vessels. These monumental jars, called tinajas, once formed the heart of the region’s winemaking tradition. Some are taller than a person and can hold thousands of litres of wine.

Wine has been produced in this part of La Mancha for a very long time. Archaeological evidence suggests that vines were already cultivated here by Iberian peoples and later by the Romans. The written history of the town itself begins in 1243, when several small settlements in the “Valley of Stones” were united under the name Valdepeñas—a place already known for its wine culture.

By the early modern period, the region had become one of the major wine suppliers of central Spain. When Madrid became the royal capital in the 16th century, demand for wine increased dramatically, and the vineyards around Valdepeñas expanded to meet the needs of the growing city.

In those centuries, the wine was not stored in small oak barrels as we often imagine today. Instead, it was kept in enormous earthenware vats like the tinajas seen in the photo. Some traditional vessels held more than a thousand litres and were sometimes partly buried in the ground to keep the temperature stable during fermentation and storage.

The cellars themselves were often carved into the soft limestone beneath the town. In the cool darkness, rows of these giant jars stored the harvest of the surrounding vineyards. Wine could ferment slowly, settle naturally, and remain stable for long periods before being transported to other cities.

In the 19th century Valdepeñas entered a new phase. Railways connected the town to the rest of Spain, and large quantities of wine were shipped across the country and even overseas. The town became one of Spain’s best-known wine centres, a reputation that continues today with its protected designation of origin (D.O. Valdepeñas).

Modern wineries now rely mostly on stainless-steel tanks and smaller oak barrels. Yet many historic bodegas still preserve their old tinajas. Walking between them is like stepping back into an earlier chapter of European wine history—when wine was produced and stored on a monumental scale beneath the streets of Valdepeñas.

The Cathedral of Bourges: Gothic Architecture and its Messages Carved in Stone

The façade of the Cathedral of Bourges rising above the narrow streets of the old town.

In the quiet center of France stands one of the most remarkable Gothic churches in Europe: Saint-Étienne Cathedral in Bourges.

At first sight it looks like many other medieval cathedrals—towers, flying buttresses, and stained glass rising above the rooftops of the old town. But Bourges reveals its uniqueness the moment you begin to explore it, both inside and outside.

The cathedral tells its story not only through space and light, but also through sculpture.

A Bold Vision of the Gothic Age

Construction of the cathedral began in 1195, under Archbishop Henri de Sully. The eastern end was built first, followed during the thirteenth century by the nave and façade. The church was finally consecrated in 1324.

What makes Bourges exceptional is its plan. Unlike most Gothic cathedrals, it has no transept. Instead of forming a cross shape, the building stretches forward in a continuous space composed of five parallel aisles running the full length of the church.

The central nave rises high above two layers of side aisles, creating a powerful sense of depth and perspective that draws the eye toward the choir.

Geometry in Stone

Medieval builders believed that geometry reflected the divine order of the world. At Bourges this idea becomes visible in the architecture itself.

The cathedral appears to follow a carefully structured system of proportions. The plan and the vertical structure are closely related, giving the building an extraordinary sense of unity. Even today, Bourges feels less like a collection of separate parts than like a single architectural idea carried consistently through the entire structure.

The Sculptures Above the Doors

Before you even enter the cathedral, however, one of its most striking features awaits you above the great portals of the west façade.

These sculpted scenes—known as tympana—form a vast stone narrative carved above the entrance doors. In the Middle Ages they functioned almost like a public book, telling biblical stories to a largely illiterate population.

The Last Judgment carved above the central portal of Bourges Cathedral.

The central portal presents a dramatic vision of the Last Judgment. Christ sits in majesty at the center while angels, saints, and resurrected souls fill the scene. Below, the dead rise from their graves while demons drag the damned toward hell. The imagery is both vivid and deeply human: fear, hope, redemption, and justice all appear in the carved figures.

The portals on either side depict other episodes from Christian tradition, creating a sculptural introduction to the sacred space inside.

For medieval visitors arriving in Bourges, the message would have been unmistakable: this building was not just a church, but a gateway between the earthly world and the divine.

Beneath the Cathedral

Below the choir lies another fascinating space: the vast crypt. Because the cathedral was partly built over an old ditch near the Roman city walls, medieval builders constructed a massive substructure to support the new church.

Today the crypt holds sculptures, fragments of earlier decorations, and the tomb of Jean, Duke of Berry, the great patron famous for the illuminated manuscript Les Très Riches Heures.

A Quiet Masterpiece

Bourges Cathedral is now recognized as one of the great achievements of Gothic architecture and has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Yet compared with more famous cathedrals such as Chartres or Notre-Dame in Paris, Bourges often feels surprisingly calm.

Perhaps that makes it easier to notice what medieval builders understood so well: that architecture, sculpture, geometry, and light can all work together to tell a story.

At Bourges, that story is still written in stone.

St. Dominic at the Convento de San Esteban

St. Dominic, Convento de San Esteban, Salamanca. With cherubs at his side and a church in his hand, the saint recalls the Dominican Order’s role in guiding Columbus and shaping Spain’s Golden Age of faith and discovery.

In Salamanca’s Convento de San Esteban, a radiant statue of St. Dominic commands attention. Clad in the white and black habit of his Order, he lifts one hand in a sweeping gesture while the other holds a model of a church — the house of faith and learning he founded. Two cherubs cling to his cloak, playfully bound by a cord, a tender reminder of the ties between heaven and earth.

This image captures more than devotion: it anchors the story of a convent that shaped history. Within these walls, Dominican friars once guided Christopher Columbus as he sought support for his daring voyage west. San Esteban became a hub of preaching, study, and counsel, its influence stretching far beyond Salamanca.

Seen today, the statue embodies that same spirit. St. Dominic appears alive, luminous, and close at hand — a founder whose mission to spread truth reached all the way to the New World.

Cartagena — A City That Doesn’t Reveal Itself at First Glance

Cartagena (Spain).

Cartagena is not a city that flatters you on arrival. You don’t walk into a polished museum town. You arrive in a working port — with container ships, naval docks, faded façades and whole neighbourhoods that seem forgotten by time. Peeling paint, shuttered balconies and crumbling walls sit next to grand buildings that hint at former wealth. The history is everywhere, but it hides behind neglect, dust and industry.

And yet, few cities in Spain carry a deeper past.

Founded by the Carthaginians as Qart Hadasht and later reborn as Roman Carthago Nova, Cartagena became one of the great cities of Hispania, enriched by silver mines and protected by a perfect natural harbour. Romans built theatres, temples and forums — much of which still lies beneath today’s streets.

After Rome came Byzantines, Visigoths and Moors. In the 18th century, the city rose again as Spain’s main Mediterranean naval base. Warships, fortresses and arsenals reshaped the harbour. Cartagena became a military city — and remains one.

Mining brought another boom in the 19th century, followed by decline. When industry faded, whole districts slipped into decay. Only recently has restoration begun, slowly uncovering the buried layers.

Cartagena does not hand you its story. You have to walk its hills, descend into its Roman ruins, explore its civil-war shelters and stand on its harbour quays to understand its power.

It is not pretty in a postcard way. It is raw, complex and monumental.

A city that doesn’t seduce — but rewards.

Sailboats captured against the backlight of the sun, by Pedro Jimenez Vicario. Seen at the Roman Theatre Museum of Cartagena.

El Cenachero — The Man Who Carried the Sea into Málaga (Spain)

El Cenachero (Malaga, Spain).

At the edge of Málaga’s harbour, where cruise ships now glide in and out and tourists sip cocktails in the sun, stands a bronze figure with bare chest, strong shoulders and two baskets of fish hanging from a wooden yoke. His name is El Cenachero — and he is one of the most recognisable symbols of the city.

Long before Málaga became a destination of beach clubs and boutique hotels, it was a working port. Every morning, fishing boats landed their catch on the sand. From there, men known as cenacheros carried the fish into the city, balancing two wicker baskets (cenachos) on their shoulders and walking from street to street selling the day’s harvest.

They were not merchants in shops. They were moving markets.

With loud voices they announced their arrival:
“Boquerones frescos!”
“Sardinas vivas!”

The cenachero walked barefoot or in worn sandals through the heat, his skin darkened by the sun and the sea. His work was hard, his pay modest, but his role essential. Without him, Málaga did not eat.

The statue near the port is not a monument to a general or a king. It is a tribute to labour. To the men who turned the sea into daily bread. To a city that once lived by nets and boats, not by hotels and terraces.

In the 1960s, when tourism began to transform Málaga forever, El Cenachero became a reminder of the old city — a link to the fishermen, the beaches where boats were pulled ashore, and the voices that once echoed through the narrow streets.

Today, visitors photograph him before boarding cruise ships or strolling along Muelle Uno. Few realise they are standing next to a worker who once fed an entire city.

El Cenachero is Málaga in bronze: salt, sun, sweat — and dignity.

La Brocante du Vézelien

La Brocante du Vézelien.

In shadows cast by time’s old hand,
La Brocante waits, a ghost in sand.
Her windows cracked, her paint a sigh,
Yet treasures sleep where dust runs dry.

The door creaks tales of years gone past,
Of once-loved things that couldn’t last.
But step inside, the past will hum,
In faded light, where dreams become.

Beneath the wear, a quiet charm,
Where memory rests in gentle harm.
La Brocante calls, in whispers frail—
A forgotten shop with stories pale.

The Monks Who Collected the World — Steyl’s Holy Zoo

Stuffed animals at the Missiemuseum in Steyl — a 19th-century vision of faith, science, and the irresistible urge to collect the world.

In the late 19th century, the quiet monastery of Steyl on the river Maas became the unlikely center of a global enterprise. The Missionaries of the Divine Word sent brothers and priests to every corner of the world — to preach, to teach, and, as it turned out, to collect. From the tropics and the savannas, from jungles and islands, they shipped back not only souls saved but animals stuffed.

What began as a pious wish — to show the richness of God’s creation — soon grew into something much larger. Crates arrived from China, Indonesia, New Guinea, and Africa, filled with birds in brilliant plumage, coiled snakes, monkeys, and even big cats. In Steyl’s Missiemuseum, they were arranged behind glass: lions beside antelope, parrots beside penguins, all labeled with elegant handwriting and missionary pride.

Over time, the collection grew into a menagerie of wonder and contradiction — part natural history, part sermon, part obsession. The monks called it education; visitors might have called it awe. Looking at it today, with rows upon rows of creatures staring out through dusty glass eyes, one senses how missionary zeal and Victorian collecting fever merged into a single act of devotion — and domination.

The result is astonishing and a little unsettling: a frozen ark, a world gathered in faith and fervor. In Steyl, the brothers tried to bring God’s creation home — and ended up capturing the wildness of an entire world inside the stillness of glass.

The Tree of Jesse in the Wormser Dom

The Tree of Jesse in the Wormser Dom.

The relief of the Tree of Jesse in the Cathedral of St. Peter (Wormser Dom) presents the genealogy of the Holy Family with remarkable depth and grace.

At the base lies Jesse of Bethlehem, father of King David, from whose side a small tree trunk emerges. From this trunk rises a tangled yet elegant vine, filling the pointed Gothic arch with twisting branches and leaf-like crockets.

Along these branches sit or stand a succession of royal and prophetic ancestors of Christ, each set within the foliage:

• King David, often depicted with a harp

• King Solomon, wearing a crown and holding a scepter or book

• Other kings of Judah such as Hezekiah, Josiah, or Zedekiah, marked by regal insignia

• The prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, holding scrolls with messianic prophecies

• Figures sometimes identified as the Virgin’s parents, Joachim and Anne, or other key ancestors named in the Gospel genealogies

High above them all, at the tree’s flowering crown, sits the Virgin Mary enthroned with the Christ Child, the final and perfect bloom of Jesse’s lineage.

Flanking the arch are additional full-length figures:

• Evangelists or apostles, recognizable by their books or scrolls

• A bishop or abbot in mitre and vestments, possibly representing a donor or the ecclesiastical authority who commissioned the work

This exuberant Gothic carving is far more than decoration. It transforms Isaiah 11:1—“A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse”—into a vivid three-dimensional family tree. Its carefully portrayed kings, prophets, and evangelists link the Old Testament to the New, proclaiming Christ as both heir of David and fulfillment of ancient prophecy.

A City Woven Around a Theatre: Roman Cartagena Revealed

The Roman Theatre of Cartagena (Spain).

At first glance, Cartagena doesn’t give much away. Traffic, shops, everyday life — and then a doorway draws you inside a modern building that quietly functions as a museum. What begins as an exhibition visit slowly turns into something else.

You move upward first, not down. On the upper floor, a long, enclosed passage opens — a tunnel that leads you forward in time as much as in space. And then, almost without warning, the Roman theatre appears.

You emerge halfway into the structure, suspended between the highest rows of seats and the orchestra below. It is an unusual entrance, and a deliberate one. Rather than discovering the theatre under the city, you enter it within the city — inserted into its surviving geometry.

A Stage for a Rising Empire

The theatre was built at the very beginning of the Roman Empire, during the age of Augustus. Its scale alone tells a clear story. This was not a peripheral town. Carthago Nova was prosperous, strategically located, and confident enough to claim a monumental public building at its core.

Roman theatres were never just places for entertainment. They were instruments of civic identity. To build one was to declare that this city belonged to the Roman world — culturally, politically and socially.

Politics Carved into Space

In antiquity, visitors passed beneath inscriptions honouring the imperial family before taking their seats. The message was subtle but constant: Rome was present here, watching, legitimising, ordering the city’s public life.

Inside, society was arranged in stone. The best seats lay closest to the orchestra, reserved for those whose status mattered. Architecture reinforced hierarchy long before a word was spoken on stage. Even today, standing among the tiers, that logic remains visible and instinctively readable.

Architecture that Directs Attention

Roman theatres are machines for focus. The rising cavea pulls your gaze downward, towards the orchestra and the stage. Movement, sightlines and sound were carefully controlled. Cartagena’s theatre still demonstrates this with remarkable clarity.

Behind the stage once stood a richly decorated architectural façade, filled with columns and statues. Performances unfolded within a setting designed to communicate order, authority and permanence — values Rome was eager to project.

Rediscovered, not Reconstructed

For centuries, the theatre disappeared beneath later construction. Houses, streets and churches reused its stone and obscured its form. It was not dramatically destroyed, but slowly absorbed by the city that grew on top of it.

Its rediscovery in the late twentieth century returned a missing chapter to Cartagena’s story. Today, the museum route does not try to recreate the illusion of a buried ruin. Instead, it guides you carefully into the structure itself, allowing the theatre to reveal its scale and logic gradually.

A City that Faces the Sea

Carthago Nova is a Mediterranean harbour city, outward-looking and well connected. Trade, administration and wealth passes through its port. The theatre belongs to that identity: public, ambitious, confident.

What makes the visit especially powerful is the contrast. Modern buildings press close around the ancient structure. The theatre is not isolated; it coexists with the present. You do not step back into a distant past — you step into a layer of the city that still shapes it.

Rome here is not a postcard ruin. It is architecture that still commands space, attention and meaning.

The Oppidum Saint-Vincent in Gaujac (France)

Plan of Oppidum Saint-Vincent at Gaujac, showing Iron Age ramparts, Roman monuments, and later medieval occupation layers. After J. Charmasson, published plan.

The ruins of the Roman baths at Oppidum Saint-Vincent, their low stone walls still tracing heated rooms and pools, set against the wooded hills that once framed daily life on the oppidum.

From down in the valley near Gaujac, the forested crest of Oppidum Saint-Vincent gives little hint of its past. Only when you climb it does the hill begin to speak. Saint-Vincent is not a single archaeological site, but a hillside shaped and reshaped by human lives for more than a thousand years.

The story begins around 425 BCE, when Gallic communities took possession of the summit and enclosed some twelve hectares with a defensive wall. This was an oppidum: a fortified hilltop settlement typical of Celtic Gaul. Oppida were not refuges in panic, but centres of authority, combining defense, habitation, ritual and trade. From Saint-Vincent, the Rhône corridor could be watched and controlled, and contacts reached as far as the Greek port of Massalia, modern Marseille. Archaeology reveals houses, storage areas and a striking ritual feature known as the “altar of ashes,” hinting at ceremonies that bound community, land and belief together.

By the early fourth century BCE the site was largely abandoned, its walls left to weather. But the hill was not forgotten. Around 120 BCE, as Roman power advanced into southern Gaul, Saint-Vincent was deliberately reoccupied. Its defenses were reinforced, transforming the old oppidum into a stronghold once more, now facing a new political horizon.

That horizon became Roman around 40 BCE, when Lepidus granted Saint-Vincent the status of oppidum latinum. The hilltop was reshaped into a Romanised town structured by terraces. Public life concentrated around a forum with porticoes, baths were built, and a monumental sanctuary—traditionally called the “Temple of Apollo”—dominated the sacred space. At this moment, Saint-Vincent was not merely inhabited; it was important. Its religious role drew pilgrims from across Narbonensis during major festivals, reinforcing both its political and spiritual status in the region.

The prosperity did not last. In the later third century CE, a series of earthquakes struck the region. The urban fabric of the hilltop suffered badly, and the Roman town gradually emptied. Yet even abandonment did not end the site’s usefulness.

Remains of the medieval village at Oppidum Saint-Vincent: dry-stone houses and enclosure walls built by quarrymen and stonecutters between the 10th and 12th centuries, reusing the fabric of the ancient city.

During Late Antiquity, in the fifth and sixth centuries, Saint-Vincent entered a quieter but crucial phase. Parts of the old ramparts were repaired or rebuilt using simpler masonry and reused Roman stone. These walls are often referred to as “Visigothic,” and while the term survives, it deserves nuance. Saint-Vincent did not become a Visigothic city. Instead, it functioned as a hilltop refuge, a place of temporary safety for populations from the surrounding plain in an unstable world. The walls of this period speak not of empire, but of pragmatism: repair what already exists, defend what can still be defended.

In the Middle Ages, the hill found yet another role. Around a small church dedicated to Saint Vincent, families of stonecutters and quarrymen settled on the summit. The abandoned monuments of Roman antiquity became quarries; blocks once shaped for temples and baths were repurposed for houses, walls and paths. Stone moved again, but with new meanings and new hands.

What makes Saint-Vincent compelling today is precisely this continuity through change. It was never erased and rebuilt from scratch. Instead, each generation worked with what was already there—walls reused, terraces adapted, ruins transformed into resources.

Some members of SECABR (Société d’Étude des Civilisations Antiques Bas-Rhodaniennes) enjoying lunch at the site of the Oppidum Saint-Vincent.

That layered history is why the presence of SECABR (Société d’Étude des Civilisations Antiques Bas-Rhodaniennes) matters so much. Their quiet stewardship—walking the site, monitoring erosion, sharing knowledge—continues a tradition that is as old as the oppidum itself: caring for a place because it matters. Where once councils met and pilgrims gathered, people still come together, not to defend or to rule, but to remember.

At Saint-Vincent, the walls no longer protect against enemies. They protect against forgetting.

More Information:

• SECABR (Société d’Étude des Civilisations Antiques Bas-Rhodaniennes)

Somewhere between the gondola and the next glass of wine

Somewhere between the gondola and the next glass of wine.

The Legionary, the Dog, and the Healing Mud of Dax (France)

A Roman legionary and his loyal dog — a statue recalling the founding legend of Dax as a city of healing springs.

On the Place de la Cathédrale in Dax, in the shade of old olive trees, stands a quietly touching statue: a Roman legionary and his dog. At first glance it looks like just another piece of classical decoration. But behind it hides the founding legend of one of France’s oldest spa towns.

Long before Dax became a destination for bathrobes, wellness programmes and medical cure packages, it was already famous in Roman times as Aquae Tarbellicae — the waters of the Tarbelli tribe. Soldiers, officials and travellers came here to soak in warm mineral springs and coat their aching joints with therapeutic mud from the river Adour.

And according to local legend, it all began with a dog.

The story goes that a Roman legionary stationed in the area owned a loyal dog suffering badly from rheumatism. The animal could barely walk. Believing its suffering could not be eased, the soldier abandoned it on the banks of the Adour. When he later returned from campaign, he was astonished to find his dog alive, playful — and completely cured.

The animal had taken refuge in the warm, mineral-rich mud along the riverbanks. The same mud that is still used today in Dax’s famous thermal treatments.

The miracle dog had done what centuries of medicine would later confirm: Dax’s water and mud truly have healing properties.

Today Dax is France’s leading spa town for rheumatology. Tens of thousands of visitors come every year for three-week medical cures prescribed by doctors. Around the thermal baths grew an entire city economy: hotels, clinics, wellness centres, rehabilitation programmes, and an army of physiotherapists and hydrotherapists.

The statue of the legionary and his dog quietly tells the story of how Dax became a place of healing — where warm springs, river mud and time itself helped wounded bodies walk again.

Sometimes, history begins not with emperors or generals — but with a limping dog and a soldier who loved him.

Benidorm in Winter: The Great Boulevard Parade

In winter, Benidorm turns into Europe’s sunniest retirement campus. While the rest of the continent pulls on scarves and curses the rain, thousands of cheerful seniors migrate south and take over the Levante boulevard like it’s their personal catwalk.

Every morning the parade begins. Trainers on, sunglasses ready, they march up and down the promenade with Olympic dedication. The route is always the same: walk, wave at familiar faces, pause for coffee, walk again — and then surrender to the irresistible pull of a sunny terrace.

A beer becomes a wine. A wine becomes lunch. Preferably something that tastes like home: fish and chips, schnitzel, Sunday roast, or a heroic full English Breakfast that would make any cardiologist nervous.

The terraces become open-air living rooms. Conversations float between football results, grandchildren, and the weather back home (“Still raining, of course”). The Mediterranean sun does the rest.

In Benidorm, winter isn’t a season. It’s a lifestyle — best enjoyed one boulevard lap and one glass of wine at a time.

The Quiet Wonder of the Église Saint-Marcel in the valley of the Creuse

Église Saint-Marcel in Argenton-sur-Creuse (France).

A short walk from the Roman site of Argentomagus stands one of the most evocative rural churches in central France: the Église Saint-Marcel. Modest in size but rich in history, it brings together twelve centuries of architecture, devotion, and local craftsmanship — all in a peaceful village setting.

A Brief History

The church once belonged to a Benedictine priory linked to the Abbey of Saint-Gildas. Its oldest parts date from the 12th century, especially the Romanesque chevet with its thick stone walls and sturdy tower. Later additions — chapels, vaulting, and interior decoration — were carried out in the 16th century, giving the building its layered, time-worn character.

Highlights Inside

What makes Saint-Marcel stand out is the concentration of medieval and early-Renaissance artistry:

• Romanesque architecture: A simple nave, a transept with three small apses, and a striking square tower that may once have had a defensive role.

• The crypt: A rare survival beneath one of the chapels — atmospheric, intimate, and tied to early Christian worship in the region.

• Carved choir stalls: Early-16th-century woodwork with delicate misericords showing the imagination of local artisans.

• A 16th-century fresco of the Notre-Dame de Pitié above a side doorway, one of the few remaining wall paintings in the area.

• Relics and liturgical treasures, including bust reliquaries associated with Saint Marcel and Saint Anastase, reminders of the church’s long devotional history.

Why It’s Worth a Visit

Saint-Marcel is the kind of place where different eras quietly overlap: Roman presence, medieval monastic life, and village spirituality. The church is never crowded, making it ideal for slow travel — a contemplative stop surrounded by old stone houses and the wooded slopes of the Creuse valley.

Just a few minutes away lies Argentomagus, one of France’s major Gallo-Roman archaeological sites. Visiting both in one day gives you a rare double insight: the world of antiquity and the world that replaced it.

The interior of Église Saint-Marcel in Argenton-sur-Creuse (France).

Rotterdam my City — The Heart Torn Out — Zadkine’s Monument in Rotterdam

Ossip Zadkine’s “The Destroyed City” (1953): the figure cries to the sky, its heart torn away, mourning the loss that once defined Rotterdam.

When the bombs fell on Rotterdam on May 14, 1940, the medieval heart of the city vanished in a single afternoon. The aerial photograph taken shortly after the war shows the shocking emptiness — blocks of rubble replaced by a grid of bare streets, with only fragments of buildings standing like teeth in a broken jaw.

A few years later, Ossip Zadkine gave this loss a body and a voice. His bronze sculpture De Verwoeste Stad (The Destroyed City, 1953) stands near the city’s current center, close to where that lost heart once beat. The figure’s body torn open and twisted, with its arms reaching out to the sky — crying out in anguish, its chest ripped apart, its heart gone. Zadkine, a Russian-born sculptor who lived in Paris, said he was inspired after passing through Rotterdam and feeling the pain of a “city without a heart.”

The monument does not celebrate triumph; it embodies grief. Yet within its contorted form lives a strange vitality — the cry that turns upward, transforming pain into defiance. Around it, a new city has risen: modern, vertical, and full of life. The statue remains as its conscience, reminding Rotterdam not only of what was destroyed, but of the courage to rebuild.

An aerial photo of the city center taken shortly after World War II (1 June 1946, KLM Aerocarto).