There are lots of castles in southern Germany. They all look like they could take a punch from the Hulk and laugh at it. Neuschwanstein is something completely different. Instead of any kind of defense function, it was build as a whimsy feeling. An escape from the real world.

The postcard perfection of Neuschwanstein.

A fairy tale of turrets, towers and bridges forms the castle grounds of the world’s most photogenic mental breakdown. Ludwig II of Bavaria is sometimes called the mad king. Not in a “off with their heads” kind of mad, but the dreamy recluse who preferred fantasy towers instead of war councils. Like a girl with a doll’s house, he tried to create a parallel universe in the forests above Füssen.

Once I get out of the woods, the castle appears like the gods sneezed out a Gothic hallucination dangling on a cliff. It’s a postcard-perfect view, appearing on jigsaw puzzles and lunch boxes around the world. It looks medieval, but it’s actually a 19th-century illusion. It was built for one man’s melancholy fantasy of what medieval Europe should have been in his mind. On the inside, it’s all about murals of swans, golden halls with baby blue drapings and even a faux grotto. Romanticism turned up to eleven.

Adequate view from the castle balcony.

Before the castle was even finished, the king himself was found drowned in a lake under mysterious circumstances. Was it the final act of a reclusive mind, or the burning rage of concerned citizens? Regardless of the motives, Neuschwanstein still stands. A world where a king could dream, build and vanish into his own myth.

The summit of Zugspitze.

I stand near the top, which is barely visible through the mist. Some sort of golden cross is bolted into the summit like some Catholic antenna reaching toward the gods. Two brave climbers are going up the vertical wall, climbing a ladder looking like it may collapse any minute.

At Schneeferner Glacier.

Even though the summit is awe-inspiring, there is something further down on the other side that really gets under my skin. The Schneeferner Glacier may not look like much at first, which is actually the real cause of concern. It used to be the largest glacier in Germany, but it has been reduced to a ghost of its former self. Scientists and locals claim that it will be gone within a generation.

Mariä Heimsuchung church at Schneeferner Glacier.

It’s a strange feeling. The wind cuts through my jacket and the temperature is below zero, while the Zugspitze towers above me like an immortal god. I should feel like a small and tiny creature crawling on the Bavarian Alps, but instead I feel compassion and guilt for the glacier.

The global warning set in motion by us humans is hard to reverse. This fragile ancient ice will likely be gone before me, on a mountain that will stand until the end of time. A little apocalypse in slow motion.

One might think I’m here for the famous Printen, the gingerbread cookies baked in the city since the Middle Ages as sustenance to the pilgrims visiting Aachen cathedral. Even though I have munched too many of those, there is another reason for my visit.

Gothic splendor.

So let’s talk about the dead guy in the room: Charlemagne. This Frankish king cobbled together an empire and became the first Holy Roman Emperor. A guy referred to as the “father of Europe” is not easily forgotten, and his ghost is all over Aachen.

Charlemagne made Aachen his seat of power about 786 AD. It served as the coronation site where 31 Holy Roman Emperors were crowned Kings of the Germans from 936 to 1531, being the spiritual control room of medieval Europe.

“I thought I’d rule like Charlemagne
But I’ve become corrupt
Now I crawl the promenade
To fill my empty cup”
— Mark Lanegan, Phantasmagoria Blues (2012)

I make my way into the cathedral, where I see the golden “Karlsschrein” containing the bones of Charlemagne. Nearby is his plain throne, where 31 German kings were crowed during a period of whopping 600 years.

In this hushed chamber of mosaics and marble, the past is the present. The air feels heavier, soaked in incense, history and the whispers of a thousand dying prayers.

Charlemagne bathed in light.

Alright. Now where’s my gingerbread cookies?

For the black-clad music cult of analogue electronic music, a decrepit courtyard at Mintropstraße 16 in Düsseldorf is among the holiest of holy. The very womb which spawned an entire universe of sound to its acolytes. My pilgrimage journey has taken me to the former location of Kraftwerk’s Kling Klang studio. In this church of electronic music, the hymns contain elements of robots, radio activity and Autobahn.

Walking on holy ground at former location of Kraftwerk’s Kling Klang studio.

Düsseldorf is second largest city of the Rhineland, often associated with steel industry and altbier. For some reason it has also been a veritable Petri dish of artificial sounds. After the early contributions from composers such as Brahms and Mendelssohn, there were Krautrock pioneers such as NEU!, Neue Deutsche Welle sounds from DAF (Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft) and industrial noise from Die Krupps.

Kraftwerk in Denmark 2009.

And then there was Kraftwerk. There have been several constellations during the decades, but the most classic setup consisted of Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider, Karl Bartos and Wolfgang Flür. The fantastic four created a unique sound which inspired pretty much everyone in the music business.

Peaceful afternoon at Berger Allee 9.

More bands appeared in Düsseldorf, such as Der Plan, Propaganda, Rheingold and Liaisons Dangereuses. The sound of disaffected youth punching holes through the West German conservatism. Music for road trips with no destination but total psychic escape. The Düsseldorf scene wasn’t about sex, drugs and rock&roll. It was about the machine. Cold, relentless, hypnotic. And somehow, beautiful.

If you look carefully, ghosts of that synth-punk spirit still linger. I walk past Berger Allee 9, where Wolfgang Flür, Karl Bartos and Emil Schult lived for a few years. I sit alone sipping on a dark Altbier in a dirty brauhaus where the wallpaper hasn’t changed since 1967, next to Ratinger Straße 10 where artists such as Jürgen Engler (Die Krupps), Gabi Delgado (DAF) and Claudia Brücken (Propaganda/OMD) used to party half a century ago.

Speaking with ghosts at Ratinger Straße 10.

I arrive at Hauptbahnhof, the large train station where once Kraftwerk recorded sound to their album Trans-Europe Express, released in 1977. The inner sleeve of the vinyl edition contains a photo where the fab four posed inside the station, which feels appropriate since the songs include celebrations of the European railway service.

As I leave Düsseldorf by train going westbound, I have Trans-Europe Express currently playing in my earpods, while reading a Kraftwerk biography. Cultist behavior indeed.

Half a decade may have passed since the four men composed the album, but the concept is timeless. Europe endless.

Each town in this region clings to its signature dish like a badge of honor. Parma boasts prosciutto with a legendarily slow cure. Modena’s balsamic vinegar is thick enough to anoint a king. The pumpkin-filled cappellacci are more than pride in Ferrara. Mess with any of it and you’ll be chased out of town. And then there’s Parmigiano Reggiano in every corner, arguably the world’s greatest and most versatile cheese (at least if you ask me).

We stopped earlier for lunch in Marradi, a tiny mountain village nestled in the Apennine. The restaurant owner introduced us to her mother in the kitchen who created magic on the plates and wouldn’t let us leave before surrendering to her dessert speciality. Resistance was futile.

Piazza Maggiore is the beating heart of Bologna.

But today I am in Bologna, the undisputed food capital of Italy. It’s a youthful city thanks to the university, claimed to be the oldest of its kind in the world. The hearts of the locals vote with a color as red as the bricks holding the city together.

Bologna is the city where every street smells like dinner. As expected, it is proud to be the home of several tasty delicacies, such as mortadella, tortellini and of course Ragu alla Bolognese. To be on the safe side, I order all of it. Beyond delicious. The Italians even have a word for wiping up the last remnants of sauce with bread. Scarpetta, like poetry for my taste buds.

To top it all off, I have a divine espresso sitting under the azure sky, accompanied by a gelato which make me grin like Jack Nicolson. Italy takes food and dining experience to the next level.

Wonderful dinner in the hills south of Bologna.

The Italian obsession with food is charmingly absurd. It’s of course tasty and beautiful with a focus on amazing ingredients in season, but there is another side to it. Food in Italy is also infamously conservative. There can be a bitter feud between neighboring villages whether a certain recipe should include pancetta or not.

Abundance of produce in the alleys of Bologna.

But here’s the irony: Italian cuisine is arguably not as traditional as the Italians would have it. One of the most vital Italian ingredients is the tomato, but it was not actually introduced until the 15th century, when it was brought back from the Americas and quickly became a permanent fixture.

Love on a plate in Marradi.

Even something so synonymous to Italian food as spaghetti was supposedly brought to Sicily by the Arabs in the 12th century, and it didn’t spread to northern Italy until a hundred years ago. Just don’t mention it to the nonna or she might add gorgonzola to your cacio e pepe.

“When somebody’s offering you food, they’re telling you a story. They’re telling you what they like, who they are. Presumably, it’s a proud reflection of their culture, their history, often a very tough history. You turn your nose up at that important moment, the whole relationship changes, and it will never be the same.”
— Anthony Bourdain

Over-tourism has long been an issue in Italy, but lately its grip has spread beyond Venice, choking cities like Florence. What were once charming, narrow alleyways now resemble gauntlets where the tourists feels like a chaotic horde of badgers.

Ponte Vecchio is the crowded delimiter between north and south.

While platforms like Airbnb offer flexibility for travelers, it also diminishes the number of apartments available for locals and students while dramatically increasing the prices. Locals start to feel evicted from their own cities and chose to take action.

New short-term licenses have been completely banned in Florence in the center to help free up housing for locals. Some locals take it even a bit further, such as the “Robin Hood” organization which have used glue to sabotage Airbnb key boxes (luckily, ours was unscathed).

The Duomo is beautiful from every angle.

Even smaller culinary gems are overwhelmed. The viral schiacciata sandwich at All’Antico Vinaio draws large crowds, but alongside came litter and the local media is full of horror stories about tourists damaging the ancient buildings near the shop. The rising popularity of so-called wine windows has similarly disrupted local life by disturbing residents.

To escape the tourist frenzy on the large piazzas near the main sights, I recharge by settling into Piazza Santo Spirito in the Oltrarno district, south of the Arno river. I sip a glass of Chianti Nipozzano and watch the locals drift by. Thanks to Sarah Winman’s novel Still Life, this piazza has seen a boost in fame, but so far, not a surge of selfie-wielding tourists. All is well under the Tuscan sun.

One day I was walking across the city of Bergen and happened to end up at a black metal bar. The shady place turned out to have an altar of worship dedicated to Dimmu Borgir, as well as a cabinet of curiosities featuring a shrine to the murdered Euronymous (Øystein Aarseth), founder of Norwegian black metal band Mayhem.

Mayhem is one of the most controversial black metal bands in history. As pioneers in the genre, they have had a large influence, but their dark legacy unfortunately consists of much more than music. Their Swedish vocalist Dead (Pelle Yngve Ohlin), an early adopter of corpse paint, committed suicide and his corpse morbidly ended up on the cover of a bootleg album, photographed by Euronymous.

Euronymous himself was murdered in his Oslo apartment 1993 by the former band member Count Grishnackh (Varg Vikernes), adding to the misguided myth surrounding the band. Vikernes was arguably the worst of the lot. In a sick turn of nihilistic poetry carved into flame, he burned down several churches, such as the Fantoft Stave Church in his home town Bergen, close to the former home of composer Edvard Grieg. For the Hollywood version of the events, I recommend the 2018 movie Lords of Chaos.

When I later arrived in Oslo, I knew exactly where to go.

The chaos at Neseblod Records.

The very epicenter of early Norwegian black metal scene was a small record store in Oslo with the appropriate name Helvete, now called Neseblod Records. It was opened by Euronymous in 1991 and soon became a focal point for the emerging black metal scene.

Into the cellar.

I went down the narrow spiral staircase into the damp cellar. After passing through small rooms and half-closed doors into the basement labyrinth I finally found what I was looking for.

Into the cellar.

The air turned stale I as I entered the innermost room of the cellar. This is where the inner circle of Mayhem used to meet, to plan church burning and other sick deeds. The room is easily recognized by the text that scrawls “BLACK METAL” across the basement wall, which can be seen in early video recordings with the band. If walls could talk, these would whisper decades worth of raw music and savage ideas. People come here because what they will find isn’t taught in guidebooks, it’s something they will feel in their bones.

The inner chamber.

Today, much has changed since those times, but the story doesn’t stop there. Norway’s black metal scene erupted in the early 1990s and mutated into something resembling a cult. It wasn’t just about music, it was a rebellion, a rite, an ideology. The basement gatherings, the corpse paint and the pseudonyms sounds more like a secret society than a guitar-heavy band from Norway.

Black metal acolytes visiting Norway these days are known as “blackpackers”. People coming to Neseblod Records will however find a different kind of black, since the store suffered a devastating fire in the basement last year. The inferno reduced vinyl and folklore to ashes, but if there’s one truth about black metal, it knows how to emerge from destruction. I’m sure that black metal will survive and rise again. Darker, harsher and even more beautiful than before.

You may also be interested in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8 and Part 9.

No Time To Die (2021)

No Time To Die: Convento di Sant’Agostino, Matera

The last James Bond film featuring Daniel Craig starts with relaxed scenes in the Italian city Matera, region of Basilicata. He arrives in the classic Aston Martin on the hill next to Convento di Sant’Agostino with a great view of the city (except there is no tunnel there, that part was added).

No Time To Die: Vio Bruno Buozzi, Matera

The entrance to their hotel is actually a restaurant on Vio Bruno Buozzi.

No Time To Die: Via Muro, Matera

Bond and Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux) walk arm in arm up the slopes of Via Muro to their hotel….

No Time To Die: Piazzetta Pascoli, Matera

…but the hotel room was actually an elaborate set build across the gorge, next to the viewpoint at Piazzetta Pascoli.

No Time To Die: Piazza San Giovanni, Matera

The dramatic shootout takes place on Piazza San Giovanni, but the church bells were added as a prop.

No Time To Die: Whitehall, London

Bond heads back to MI6 in London, after parking on a street opposite the Ministry of Defense.

No Time To Die: Hammersmith, London

Bond and M (Ralph Fiennes) have a chat at Lower Mall in Hammersmith, with a classic Bond tune in the background.

Sherlock (2012)

Sherlock: North Gower Street, London

North Gower Street was used as stand-in for the famous 221 Baker St, making the neighbour Speedy’s Sandwich Bar & Café into a tourist hotspot shortly after Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Watson (Martin Freeman) were seen there.

Sherlock: St. Bartholomew Hospital, London

During a pivotal scene, Sherlock stands on top of the roof at St. Bartholomew Hospital.

Day of the Jackal (2024)

Day of the Jackal: Heroes’ Square, Budapest

In this contemporary remake series of the original film from 1973, based on the book by Frederick Forsyth, we follow the skilled but estranged lone wolf assassin The Jackal. This time he is played by Eddie Redmayne who travels all over Europe while hunting his targets. One of the destinations is Budapest.

Day of the Jackal: South Bank, London

The Jackal is in turn hunted by MI6 agent Bianca (Lashana Lynch) based in London. Here she meets up with colleague Osita (Chukwudi Iwuji) at the National Covid Memorial Wall, along the Thames.

The Sandman (2022)

The Sandman: Hammersmith, London

Dream (Tom Sturridge) is having a sunny walk with his sister Death (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) along Lower Mall in Hammersmith.

The Sandman: Hammersmith, London

They walk down to the house on the corner of Digby Mansions, next to Hammersmith Bridge.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)

The Crimes of Grindelwald: Highgate Cemetery, London

The dramatic finale at Lestrange Mausoleum allegedly takes place at Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, but it’s actually the Circle of Lebanon in Highgate Cemetery, northern London.

Scott Pilgrim vs the World (2010)

Scott Pilgrim: Baldwin Steps, Toronto

This quirky movie features a lot of locations from Toronto. Scott (Michael Cera) and Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) goes for a climb up the Baldwin Steps…

Scott Pilgrim: Casa Loma, Toronto

…and arrive in front of Casa Loma, called “Totally Awesome Castle”.

Spring (2014)

Spring: Grotta Piana, Polignano a Mare

Spring is a low-budget vampire movie, set in beautiful Polignano a Mare, Puglia. The American youngster Evan Russell (Lou Taylor Pucci) travels to Italy and arrives in the town where the houses cling to the cliff on the Adriatic Sea.

Death and Other Details (2024)

Death and Other Details: St. John’s Co-Cathedral, Valletta

Even though this crime series mostly take place on a cruise ship, they still manage to find time for shoreleave. In the city of Valletta on the island Malta, Imogene (Violett Beane) visit the impressive St. John’s Co-Cathedral and have a conversation in front of the altar.

Vikings Valhalla (2024)

Vikings Valhalla: Dubrovnik, Croatia

Vikings Valhalla takes place over a century after the events of the original Vikings series. Later in the series they go to Constantinople, where Harald (Leo Suter) is talking to his longtime friend Leif (Sam Corlett) at the docks. But the pier is actually located outside the city walls of Dubrovnik. The same pier can also be seen several times in Game of Thrones.

Hitman (2007)

Hitman: Gardens by the Bay, Singapore

The Gardens feature several points of interest, but few are more spectacular than the Supertree Grove, seen with the futuristic Marina Bay Sands in the background. But when it comes to having a secret meeting with an assassin, they could have picked a better spot.

London is a city forever on the move, while anchored in the past. Even though much has changed since my last visit, I noticed that my bench in Jubilee Gardens is still there.

Sometimes the underworld is more colorful than the surface.

I also noticed that London has been hit hard by the tourist hordes. It’s quite understandable, since London is one of the great cities on the planet. But unfortunately it feels like many visitors are satisfied with looking up at an old clock tower by the river, queuing to see stiff postmortem-looking wax dolls or stumbling drunk through Soho’s neon gutters. Whatever floats their boat, but that is only scratching the surface (literally) of this giant metropolis.

The lemmings are eager to get under the ground.

In fact, a lot of London is mirrored under the surface. The tube stretches all across the city, with a vast network of tunnels, stairs and access shafts. London used to have several small rivers and creeks, but today they are all stashed away under the streets.

In order to survive rush hour on the tube, efficiency is essential. Citizens are obeying the escalator’s unspoken rule: keep right if you don’t want to get physically assaulted.

While I appreciate the fast translocation offered by the dirty tube trains, I certainly don’t enjoy the deafening screech as the metal cages grind their way through the tunnels. In his seminal book “London: The Biography”, Peter Ackroyd writes about “the sound from the monster”, as if London is one large organism. In the darkness below, there could be a cousin of Cthulhu snoring loudly.

It takes a bit of wiring to power the beast.

There are also forgotten tunnels and abandoned stations. Ever been to the British Museum station? It exists in reality, not just in the Neil Gaiman novel “Neverwhere”.

In his 2004 book “In search of the pleasure palace”, Marc Almond described London as “a place clouded in blue smoke and bright lights”, which may certainly still ring true on several locations.

Egyptian Avenue in Highgate Cemetery.

While London is making a lot of noise 24-7, there are some areas that may seem tranquil on the surface, but still are highly dependent of forces below the ground. Highgate Cemetery is a splendid treasure of Victorian beauty, but the steady stream of visitors are likely attracted also because of its famous graves, such as Karl Marx, Michael Faraday, Douglas Adams and George Michael. A veritable garden of death where about 170 000 people are buried.

If you look closely, there are silent places to be found even in London. As I’m walking alone on the peaceful Lower Mall in Hammersmith, I’m carefully making sure to stay away from the mayhem in Chinatown and not setting my feet anywhere near Leicester Square.

There are so many layers of London and I enjoy exploring them one by one.

In 1994, the Allied occupation of Berlin formally ended. Kurt Cobain was found dead. The Channel Tunnel opened between England and France. Premiere of Tarantino’s second movie Pulp Fiction. Jeff Bezos founded a company called Amazon. Nelson Mandela was inaugurated. Nine Inch Nails released a second album called The Downward Spiral. The first PlayStation by Sony was released.

When it comes to the internet side of things, 1994 saw the initial release of graphical browser Netscape Navigator, one year before the first version of Internet Explorer was released. This was a whole decade before Zeldman released his highly influential book Designing with web standards, which would ignite the rebellion in the web war.

Among all these events, this site happened to be created, exactly 30 years ago. I sat down one evening and wrote a bunch of HTML markup in Emacs editor on a Solaris computer, oblivious to the consequences.

Writing on my book surrounded by Basque pintxos.

In 1994, there were just a few thousand websites on the internet, an age of scarce resources for developers. This was 4 years before Google was started, 9 years before Git was invented, 9 years before YouTube was founded and 12 years before Spotify was founded. There was of course no Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Stack Overflow and all of those things that modern developers and creators take for granted.

There were no flat screens, smartphones or wifi. A normal internet connection with 14.4 kbps modem meant that a single image could take a minute to download.

Writing a blog post somewhere in Hiroshima, Japan.

Somehow, we ended up where we are today. A gloriously tangled mess of streamed content, proprietary gardens and infinite layers of module dependencies in an abundance of frameworks.

But there is still some fun left in the world, so I guess I will be lurking around for a while longer. Thanks to everyone tuning in at any time during these three decades!