The Road and I

Muros means Walls , a Spanish public project aimed to turn the external walls of Tabacalera , Madrid former Tabacco factory, into spaces for urban art works . In the first edition of May 2014 the project highlighted the concept of ‘ context ’ as a fundamental element of urban art. 32 street artists were called to perform 27 murals on the walls. Spanish street artists Por Favor and Seven Logos worked together for the mural named ' Sirena Robacorazones '. Based on the issues related to the sound and the silence , their work has progressively evolved into the denunciation of some aspects of our modern society, such as the gender issue. After the success of the first edition, the second edition of Muros took place in June 2016. One of the artists was Barbara Butragueño, a Madrid street artist and poet known as Chincheta. Another artist was Graciela Goncalves , Argentinian street artist known as AnimalitoLand with her mural entitled 'Urban Nature ', where t...

I’m a street art lover . So when I travel, I always try to combine my visit to the place with the search for urban art works. Most of street art is hidden throughout the city, but nowadays it is possible to find it well exposed right in the center of the cities. Back to Madrid for my Christmas vacations in 2019, I discovered that the central neighborhood of Lavapiés has got the largest number of cultural associations and self-managed centers of the capital. The most popular of all is Tabacalera , a former tobacco factory turned into a collective cultural space. Built in 1790 , the factory was one of Madrid’s first examples of industrial architecture . First used to make playing cards and snuff for the Spanish royal court, the 4-storey building started to produce cigarettes only in 1809 , growing throughout the centuries as to become the central processing plant for the state monopoly of tobacco. Tabacalera retains a special place in the history and imagination of the Lavapiés...

" Newspaper taxis appear on the shore Waiting to take you away Climb in the back with your head in the clouds And you're gone " Lucy in the sky with diamonds, Beatles 1967   The principal aim of travelling is getting lost. Beautiful but tiring experience after a while. That's why I need my suitcase every time I’m away. That familiar smell I get every time I open it makes me feel at home when I’m tired of getting lost. So after I’ve chosen where and when to go on holidays, I start immediately to pack. Packing is complicated, I know. Most of us prefer to prepare their suitcases the day before, if not the same day of departure, in a rush, without any organization. This is not my case. When it comes to suitcases, I take my time. I love packing, and I have my method . I imagine the process mentally — first clothes and items I use less to save space on the top for what I need daily such as underwear and t-shirts, then I write a list of priorities. Finally, a week b...

I don't why I've always been attracted by abandoned places — broken windows, rusty walls, old wooden furniture. May be because they hide mysterious stories I'd like to unveil. I call them lost places . In 2013, I took a day trip to visit one of these lost places called Teufelsberg — the former graffiti-sprayed Cold War listening post located on the top of a steep hill in the heart of the Grunewald forest of Western Berlin.Nowadays, the term Teufelsberg (Devil's Mountain) refers both to the hill and to the former spy station atop overlooking the surrounding landscape with its white domed towers. Many layers of history lie beneath this spot that street artists from all over the world have transformed into one of the largest street art galleries in Europe. In 1915 , the German government designed this part of Western Berlin as a nature reserve . In the 1937 , Hitler, ignoring its protected status, chose this site to build the Faculty of Defense Technology , a pres...

The road has always played a key role in the organization of my travels around the planet; nevertheless, nowadays travelling by road is becoming less and less popular . Too many options are offered to travelers who usually end up taking the easiest one: low cost flights . Why bothering organizing long and unpredictable road trips if I can fly directly to my final destination? Nothing could be more true. But let's try for once to change our point of view. Why bothering taking short and boring flights if I can enjoy all the way that separates me from my final destination? Roads can unexpectedly offer us so many surprises . Well, we'd rather not have some but most of them are really fulfilling, exciting and unforgettable. Travelling by road means total freedom , relax, and happiness. Despite all the problems we may have, such as delayed bus, bad weather, or nasty people. Travelling by road learns us how to slow down . We will put aside our extension (= smart phone), and start to...