It’s typical that the best cafes and bars are hidden in courtyards between several apartment blocks, a friend explained as we went for drinks to a trendy bar, complete with trees and a touch of South American fusion in its menu. With many outdoor cafes and bars outside of the tourist area thus hidden, Bucharest’s eclectic facades look somewhat grim. …
Prague, second attempt
“…And if you′re planning a stag party, have a nice stag party,” a flight attendant said on my Amsterdam-Prague flight. To me, putting the words ′nice′ and ′stag night′ in one sentence is a sign of out-of-the-box thinking taken to the extremes, but I smiled to myself. This sounds very Dutch. After all, Amsterdam ran an information campaign for purchasers …
Visiting the Workers Museum in Copenhagen
Social history is a ‘thing’ in History studies for quite a few years, but we′re still to see more museums that deal with it in Europe. Social history interests much broader audiences – no wonder why the new generation of historians swaps wars and heroes for history of diseases, relationships, food or fashion. If social history papers were media articles, …
The town of closed doors, or how to have a better trip to Cartagena than I did
Nearly everyone I met in Spain praised the beauty of Cartagena. They said it was one of the most beautiful Spanish towns, with ancient history and freshness of a sea breeze. As I was planning my vacations in Murcia region, many travel websites directed me there. So Cartagena was certainly on my map. Perhaps only because of these high expectations …
Egypt diaries: Cairo
I went to Egypt in April 2011, but I was so busy that I hardly wrote anything about it. One exception is this article for Cafe Babel. I spent hours showing photos and telling stories to family and friends, but all of them were still waiting to be ′immortalized′ in the blog. I found an old notebook that I used …
Dali & Magritte visit a small town near Kaunas
On Sunday I used the last opportunity to visit an exhibition of various minor works by Dali and Magritte at Raudondvaris manor, not far from Kaunas. Thanks to my friend R., who was willing to drive there in this suddenly freezing weather, we reached the recently redeveloped suburban area, which used to be a famous noble clan’s estate (you can …