I walk alone through the narrow arteries of the old town, the Caruggi. They say this historic center is the largest in Europe, and after a few minutes inside it, I stop thinking of it as a city and start thinking of it as a living organism.

Plenty of places brag about having maze-like streets. Genoa actually delivers. The alleys twist and knot together like the headphone cords I used to keep in my pocket, back when people still carried wired headphones and accepted chaos as part of life. This is a dark labyrinth of shady alleys, where strange individuals sit scattered in corners, watching my every step. A faint smell of weed mixed with fresh Focaccia fills the air. There is a certain level of beautiful decay here, the kind that reminds me of Le Panier in Marseille. I feel like I should keep my wallet close and my curiosity even closer.

Yet another deserted alley.

Then suddenly, as if someone opened a curtain, light spills in again.I pass beneath the towers of Porta Soprana, the old gate that has somehow survived the centuries while kingdoms, rulers and ambitions came and went around it. I leave the medieval quarters behind, and the city changes almost instantly. The air feels lighter and the streets breathe differently.

I stand in front of what is called the House of Christopher Columbus. The explorer was born in Genua 1451 and supposedly lived here between ages 4-14. The building itself is largely a reconstruction, rebuilt on the original site after wars and centuries had their say. But details like that rarely matter to travelers. Standing there, it is easy enough to imagine a restless kid staring toward the harbor, toward ships disappearing into horizons that at the time still felt infinite.

House of Christopher Columbus.

continue down toward the old port, Porto Antico, and stand in front of another legendary building. Palazzo San Giorgio is covered with faded murals, and according to the stories, this was once the prison that held Marco Polo in 1296-99. Legend says he passed the time telling stories of distant lands to a fellow prisoner, who wrote them down and eventually turned them into one of history’s great travel accounts.

Palazzo San Giorgio.

But Genoa has a habit of playing tricks on you. Not everything that looks ancient actually is. Further along the harbor I suddenly come face to face with “Il Galeone Neptune”, a large pirate ship that looks like it sailed straight out of the fever dreams of Jack Sparrow after too much rum. But it was actually built in 1985 for Roman Polanski’s film “Pirates”, and later reappeared as Captain Hook’s ship in the 2011 TV series “Neverland”. It may not fit the mold to be an ancient artifact, but it certainly looks the part.

I inevitably drift back into the dark alleys and sit down with a plate of pesto, Liguria’s most famous gift to the world. Time moves strangely in cities like this. Centuries collapse into each other. Empires rise and disappear. But some truths remain constant. There is always time for a good meal.

There’s nothing wrong with any of it, of course. We all want our beautiful moments. But instead of chasing an Instagram déjà vu, I find myself more interested in what hides beneath the glossy surface, in the forgotten corners where the vloggers rarely go because the lighting is terrible and the food isn’t photogenic enough.

I walk through the damp dark tunnel near the railway in Riomaggiore. I’ve been here before. The dirty stone walls and flickering lights seem almost designed to discourage selfie sticks and romantic expectations. But anyone willing to navigate questionable toilets, unmarked passages and general confusion is rewarded in the end. Suddenly the tunnel releases its grip and there it is again. Colorful houses stacked on the cliffs like someone built them after a few glasses too many of local wine.

The water’s edge in Riomaggiore.

After a swift walk I arrive in the neighboring town of Manarola. I make my way uphill, where a line of young girls outside Nessun Dorma patiently take turns photographing each other. Entire production teams consisting of one boyfriend holding a phone and another person saying “no, from this angle” over and over. So I keep walking. I continue along the northern path, where I quickly discover why nobody else is there as my options become wonderfully simple: hug the cliff wall or get hit by cold seawater crashing against the rocks. Yes, the path is empty for a good reason, but for a few glorious minutes I’m free from the selfie hordes and can hear something increasingly rare in Cinque Terre: almost nothing at all.

Close to nature in Manarola.

The peace lasts until I reach the village of Vernazza. For some reason it’s called mini-Portofino, though I struggle to understand why. Instead of expensive designer stores there is a tired focaccia vendor in every nook and cranny. While everyone else queues for sun-drenched tables by the harbor, I quickly grab a gelato at Gelateria Stalin (yes, actual name) and once again once again head in the opposite direction.

Worn steep stairs lead the way towards Corniglia, and soon I am rewarded with a magnificent view of the ruin of Castello Doria, towering high above the busy port. The entire village appears to balance delicately on the cliffs, like somebody placed it there and hoped gravity would simply cooperate. Everything in Cinque Terre is all about the water’s edge.

“And all you young lovers where do you hide
Down by the water, and the restless tide”
— Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Water’s Edge (2013)

The ruin of Castello Doria above Vernazza.

The fifth and final village Monterosso is the largest of them all. Suddenly I can walk freely without the constant threat of losing an eye to an aggressively deployed selfie stick. To celebrate this rare freedom, I sit down for a focaccia overloaded with pesto. Because after all the cliffs, crowds, tunnels and postcard views, some things are still wonderfully simple. Bread, olive oil and basil have solved more problems than we give them credit for.

Yes, the Guggenheim is still there, like a stranded whale of titan on the shores of Nervión river. Still guarded by flower power Puppy art installation and the bare-bone spider sculpture.

Morning walk across Nervión river in Bilbao.

But stray a bit from the tourist hordes and the real Bilbao is soon discovered. The “Las Siete Calles”, the original seven streets from the 14th century, are just as seedy as I remember them. I walk past teenagers sitting right in the street, heavily drinking and rolling joints.

Easy vibes at Kubrick Bar in Bilbao.

A bit north of Bilbao lies Guernica, a name forever associated with the bombings in 1937. Ever since I saw the large eponymous anti-war painting by Picasso in a museum in Madrid decades ago, I’ve wanted to go there and see the city with my own eyes.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the bombing. Exactly 99 years ago, Guernica was aerially bombed during the Spanish Civil War. Franco with allies aimed to hit the Republican forces hard, as the town was a vital communications center. The attack claimed hundreds of lives and sent a chilling echo through history.

The old tree of Guernica.

I walk through a green park up to the Assembly Hall to see the Gernikako Arbola, the Tree of Guernica. Back in the Middle Ages, representatives of the villages around the Biscay area would hold assemblies under local big trees, symbolizing freedom for the Biscayan people.

For centuries there has been an oak tree at this location in Guernica. A sapling from the previous tree keeps a firm line through time and memory, outvoting the echo of devastation.

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

Even last time I was in Florence, the city was totally overrun. The most popular places, such as Ponte Vecchio, were unbearable to pass. I felt like I was trampling upon the vertically challenged tourists while getting my eyes poked out by their vicious selfie sticks.

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.