In the summer of 2025, during our holidays in Italy, we visited the Casa Museo Luciano Pavarotti, near Modena, the house where the great tenor spent the last years of his life. One of greatest names in the history of opera. In this post I share some of the pictures we took during the visit and a bit about the Maestro’s extraordinary life.
Casa Museo Luciano Pavarotti, near Modena.My family at the entrance of the museum.
From Modena to the world
Luciano Pavarotti was born in Modena on 12 October 1935. His father Fernando was a baker and an amateur tenor, and his mother Adele worked in a tobacco factory. He grew up listening to his father’s records of the great tenors of the time and sang with him in Modena’s Corale Rossini choir.
Becoming a professional singer was not his first plan. He trained as a teacher and even worked in an elementary school for a couple of years before, encouraged by his mother, he committed to singing, studying with Arrigo Pola and later with Ettore Campogalliani.
In 1961 he won the Achille Peri singing competition, and on 29 April of that year he made his operatic debut in Reggio Emilia as Rodolfo in Puccini’s La Bohème. From there his career took off: the Royal Opera House in London in 1963; La Scala in 1965, in a La Bohème conducted by Herbert von Karajan and soon every major opera house in the world.
The Three Tenors and a new audience for opera
Pavarotti took the opera out of opera theatres. On 7 July 1990, on the eve of the football World Cup final, he sang with Plácido Domingo and José Carreras at the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, conducted by Zubin Mehta. That first Three Tenors concert became a global phenomenon and brought opera to millions of people who had never set foot in a theatre. The large photo mural above the hall celebrates that concert.
The Three Tenors mural above the hall.Grammy for the Three Tenors concert in 1990.
Pavarotti & Friends
Between 1992 and 2003 he organised ten editions of Pavarotti & Friends, charity concerts held in Modena in which he shared the stage with pop and rock stars, from Bono, Sting or Eric Clapton to the Spice Girls, Queen or Deep Purple, raising money for humanitarian causes such as the children of Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan or Angola. A panel in the museum lists them all.
The ten Pavarotti & Friends concerts (1992-2003) and their causes.
Visiting the house
The museum is not just a collection of memorabilia: it is his actual home, built in the early 2000s, where he lived his last years with his wife Nicoletta and their daughter Alice, and which has been kept as it was. The main living room holds his Steinway piano, where he received friends and gave free lessons to young singers, his concert tailcoat and his famous white handkerchief.
The living room: the tailcoat, the pianos and the music stand.
He also painted. His colourful paintings, sometimes signed with the pseudonym LUPA, hang all over the house. Next to this view of Portofino there is a photo of him working on that very painting, and his accordion.
One of his paintings, with a photo of him painting it and his accordion.
Another curiosity are his working agendas, filled with tour dates that he marked “OK” as each concert got confirmed: L.A., Nashville, Indianapolis, Vienna, Hannover, Helsinki…
The performance notebooks.
A nice surprise for a Spaniard: among the letters from world personalities on display, one from King Juan Carlos I, dated January 1998, thanking Luciano for an “extraordinary” concert at the Teatro Real and for his “generous and selfless collaboration”.
Letter from King Juan Carlos I (January 1998).
That concert was held on January 5th, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of King Juan Carlos. It was another concert with the Three Tenors and part series of concerts on the eve of January 6th (the Epiphany, celebrated in Spain as the day of the (three) Kings) organized by Plácido Domingo since 1991. An article from the paper El Mundo described the programme as follows: “Candide” by Leonard Berstein, main arias from operas such as “Tosca”, “Samson and Delilah” and “Cavalleria Rusticana”, as well as popular songs like “Granada”, “Caminito” and “Moon River”.
The trophy cabinet is impressive: his five Grammys (including the 1979 one for ‘O sole mio and the 1990 one for the first Three Tenors concert), two Emmys, the Billboard award for Classical Artist of the Decade 1980-1989 and many other honours.
Five Grammys, two Emmys and a Billboard award.
Costumes, roles and caricatures
A couple of rooms display costumes from some of the 29 roles he performed between 1961 and 1996. The one below is one from Turandot (Puccini) which includes the famous aria “Nessun Dorma”, displayed in front of a photo of a performance at the Arena di Verona in 1977.
The Turandot costume, with the Arena di Verona behind.The roles he debuted, year by year, from Rodolfo (1961) to Andrea Chénier (1996).
And since the museum is in Modena, land of Ferrari: a caricature of the family as “I fanciulli del west” (a reference to one of Puccini’s opera), with the horse wearing a Ferrari blanket.
“I fanciulli del west”, with a Ferrari horse.
The connection with Puccini
Puccini (born in 1858) created some of the greatest characters in opera; Pavarotti gave many of them their most famous voice. His debut was Rodolfo in La Bohème, and “Nessun dorma”, from Turandot, became his signature aria: his last major public appearance was singing it at the opening ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin.
Nessun Dorma by Pavarotti in New York.
A few years earlier, in 2019, during a trip to Tuscany we visited the birthplace of Giacomo Puccini in Lucca. Two generations, two houses less than two hours apart, one same musical language.
Giacomo Puccini.Sketch of La Bohème.
This sketch was rediscovered and presented at the museum in 2012. At the top right is the heading “La Bohème atto I°” with “all’ moderato” (or similar), the date “Lucca 19.6.93,” and Puccini’s signature. Visible text includes the opening of Act I (“questo mar rosso mi ammollisce…” — Marcello’s lines about painting the Red Sea), plus other melodic and harmonic sketches, crossings-out, and annotations such as “leitmotif di Rodolfo. Oppure di Mimì. Buono ma credo vecchio.” There are also tempo indications, waltz-like ideas, and notes that later fed into Act III (Mimi’s illness). The small display card below identifies it as by Giacomo Puccini and references the marking “Vigorosamente impetuoso” (vigorously impetuous).
Pavarotti died in Modena on 6 September 2007. Visiting his house you feel closer to the person than to the myth: the teacher who almost did not become a singer, the painter, the perfectionist. One of the walls carries his quote: “People think I’m disciplined. It is not discipline. It is devotion. There is a great difference.“
“The discovery of America, and that of the passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, are the two greatest and most important events recorded in the history of mankind.”
“What benefits or what misfortunes to mankind may hereafter result from those great events, no human wisdom can foresee.”
Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book IV, Chapter VII
I come back very often to this quote, typically around Columbus day (October 12th) or when discussing the discovery of America. In this post I wanted to focus on the passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, who opened it, how it happened, and what the route looks like today, with some data on trade and ships.
Portuguese exploration along the African coast accelerated under Prince Henry the Navigator in the early 15th century. The goals were practical and ambitious: find a sea route to the spice markets of India, reduce dependence on Muslim-controlled land routes, and expand trade and Christian influence.
Bartolomeu Dias, the man who opened the route
Very little is known about his early years. Bartolomeu Dias was born around 1450 in Portugal, probably into a family with a maritime tradition. He served at the court of King John II (João II) as a cavalier of the royal household and superintendent of the royal warehouses, and in 1481 he is believed to have taken part in Diogo de Azambuja’s expedition to the Gold Coast (modern Ghana) to establish the fortress and trading post of São Jorge da Mina (Elmina). In October 1486 he received an annuity from the king for “services to come”.
In 1487 the king commissioned him to continue the exploration of the African coast beyond the points reached by Diogo Cão, and to seek a sea route to Asia. He left Lisbon in July or August 1487 with three ships: two caravels of about 50 tons each (São Cristóvão, captained by himself, and São Pantaleão) plus a supply ship commanded by his brother Diogo. Some key points of the voyage:
He sailed down the West African coast past Cão’s markers, reaching Walvis Bay (Namibia) around 8 December 1487.
Driven southwest by storms (or deliberately sailing) into the open South Atlantic, he traced a wide arc well west of the African coast.
First landfall east of the cape: around 3-4 February 1488, at what is today Mossel Bay (South Africa). Without knowing it, he had already rounded the southern tip of Africa.
He continued east to Kwaaihoek, near the mouth of the Bushman’s River, where on 12 March 1488 the crew planted a padrão (stone pillar) dedicated to St. Gregory.
There the exhausted crew forced the return. On the way back they finally sighted the cape itself (May 1488). Dias reportedly named it Cabo das Tormentas (“Cape of Storms”); King John II later renamed it Cabo da Boa Esperança, “Cape of Good Hope”, because it promised a route to the East.
He arrived back in Lisbon in December 1488, some 16 months later, having charted hundreds of miles of previously unknown coast.
A caravel of the kind Dias sailed in 1487-88, lateen sails bearing the Cross of the Order of Christ (AI image by Grok)
After his return he received limited recognition, but he helped design and outfit the ships (São Gabriel and São Rafael) for Vasco da Gama‘s 1497-1499 expedition to India. In 1500 he commanded a ship in Pedro Álvares Cabral’s fleet bound for India and died on 29 May 1500, when a storm sank four ships near the very cape he had first rounded twelve years earlier. Contemporary records of his voyage are scarce (many were lost in the 1755 Lisbon earthquake); much of what we know comes from later chroniclers such as João de Barros.
A nau like da Gama’s São Gabriel (1497); Dias superintended the building of da Gama’s ships (AI image by Grok)The Cape of Good Hope and the neighbouring capes (Cape Agulhas is the true southern tip of Africa). Map: Johantheghost, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.Cape of Good Hope, Cape Town, South Africa
A school project (and a family trip)
This is a subject we know well at home, as earlier this year when my daughter Andrea (then 12 years old and studying in grade 7) had to do a school project for History class, she chose to do it about Bartolomeu Dias, as they had been studying trade routes, the Silk road, etc.
My daughter’s school project on Bartolomeu Dias.
Her poster covers who sent him south (King John II), who accompanied him on the journey, the effect of the expedition on the world, and the four places where, according to her research, he left his crosses: Cape Negro, Cabo Voltas (both on the way south), the Cape of Good Hope, and Kwaaihoek / Algoa Bay on the way back. And she proudly notes: “I have actually visited one of Bartolomeu Dias’s Crosses (Padrão’s) in Namibia“.
Indeed. On a family road trip around Namibia in 2024, we stopped at Dias Point, near Lüderitz, where a replica of that padrão still stands:
At the Dias cross, Dias Point (Namibia).The kids at Dias Point. The wind helps understand why Dias first named it Cape of Storms.
The information board at the site tells the story well: on 25 July 1488, on his way back to Lisbon, Dias was forced by strong headwinds to anchor in a bay he named Angra Pequena (26°38′ S, 15° E, today’s Lüderitz), where he raised a padrão dedicated to São Tiago (St. James). The original cross eroded away; in 1953 the historian Eric Axelson found fragments of it at Dias Point, and in 1988, for the 500th anniversary of the voyage, a replica sculpted from Namib dolerite was unveiled there.
Information board at Dias Cross, Dias Point, Lüderitz (Namibia).The padrão replica (1988) at Dias Point.
Was Smith right? The Cape route in today’s trade
Let’s look at some data. Over 80% of world trade by volume moves by sea, according to UNCTAD. World merchandise exports were worth about $24.4 trillion in 2024 (WTO), against a world GDP of roughly $112 trillion in 2024 and some $118 trillion estimated for 2025 (IMF / World Bank). Air freight is marginal in volume, though significant in value.
And how much of that trade goes around the Cape of Good Hope?
Between 2015 and 2023, some 12.9%-14.8% of global dry bulk cargo (iron ore, coal, grains) rounded the Cape each year, according to URSA Shipbrokers data. The Suez Canal, the northern alternative, carries about 12% of global trade and some 30% of container traffic: over $1 trillion of goods a year on around 50 ships a day.
Since the Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping started in late 2023, traffic diverted massively to the Cape: dry bulk cargo via the Cape rose to 19.1% of the global total in 2024 and 20.4% in the first half of 2026 (583.5 million tonnes out of about 2.86 billion).
Oil flows around the Cape rose nearly 50% with the diversions: from an average of 5.9 million barrels per day in 2023 to 8.7 million barrels per day in January-May 2024 (EIA) (that is 6 to 8% of world oil production, see this previous post I wrote on 2025 world oil picture).
Daily transits around the Cape averaged 42-56 ships per day in 2023 and 80-98 per day through 2025 and 2026 (86 in September 2026, the latest month available), on IMF PortWatch data: close to double the pre-crisis level.
For a typical Asia-Europe voyage, going around the Cape adds some 3,000-3,500 nautical miles and 7-10 days (World Bank); for a tanker from the Arabian Sea to Europe, the EIA puts the extra time at about 15 days.
Over 80% of world merchandise trade by volume moves by sea (UNCTAD); the Cape shares refer to seaborne dry bulk cargo only (URSA Shipbrokers via World Ports Organization).
In dollar terms: it is hard to give a precise bake for the Cape specifically. Pre-crisis Suez traffic was often estimated at over $1 trillion in goods value per year. The diverted portion of that, plus structural Cape bulk, represents a large absolute value, though bulk commodities have lower value density than containers. Extra costs from diversions (fuel, time, higher freight rates, insurance) have been substantial—tens of billions in aggregate higher logistics costs in the peak disruption years—but the underlying cargo value itself is in the hundreds of billions to low trillions annually depending on the exact mix and period. Even $1 trillion is only around 1% of a $112 trillion world economy. The comparison is just an order of magnitude: GDP measures value added produced in a year, while trade figures count gross cross-border sales, partly double-counted along supply chains. But the key point stands: the route Dias opened 538 years ago remains the flexible open-sea alternative (no locks, no canal tolls) that keeps world trade moving when the northern chokepoints fail.
Capesize: the ships named after the cape
The Cape even gave its name to a whole class of ships. Capesize vessels are large dry bulk carriers of about 100,000-200,000+ deadweight tonnes (DWT), typically around 150,000-170,000: some 290 m long, 45 m of beam and 18 m of draft. They carry mostly coal, iron ore and other raw materials, and their size and deep draft mean that only the largest deep-water terminals can handle them. They were named for being too big for the canals: to move between oceans they had to go around the Cape of Good Hope (or Cape Horn). Since the Suez Canal was deepened in 2009, many Capesize ships can transit it, but the name stuck, and the Cape route remains their natural highway.
AI Grok comparison of a caravel as the one used by Bartolomeu Dias, a Nao as the one used by Vasco da Gama and a Capesize shipFrom Dias’s caravel (~25 m) and da Gama’s nau (~30 m) to a modern Capesize (~290 m): lengths drawn to true scale.
How do Capesize ships compare to other common ship classes?
Class
Typical DWT
Main type
Key constraint / route note
Panamax
~60-80k (up to ~120k Neopanamax)
Bulk / tanker
Sized to the Panama Canal locks
Suezmax
~120-200k (typical ~160k)
Tanker
Largest tanker class transiting Suez fully laden
Capesize
~100-200k+ (typical ~150-170k)
Dry bulk
Named for the Cape route; after the 2009 Suez deepening many can use the canal
Newcastlemax
~185-210k
Dry bulk
Upper end of Capesize; sized to the Port of Newcastle (50 m beam)
VLCC
~200-320k
Crude tanker
Very large crude carrier
Valemax / VLOC
~380-400k
Ore carrier
Largest bulk carriers built; deep-water ore terminals only
The main size classes at a common length scale; Suezmax and VLCC are oil tankers, not bulk carriers.Key dimensions of main classes of ships.
Which are the largest shipping companies in the world?
Infographic created by Instinct
The ports that receive them
Capesize ships can only call at the largest deep-water terminals, and they usually carry iron ore, coal and other raw materials, so this trade is highly concentrated between a relatively small number of specialized ports. A few characteristic examples:
On the loading (export) side:
Port Hedland (iron ore, Australia): one of the largest iron ore loading ports in the world and the largest in Australia. Newcastle (coal, Australia): the world’s largest coal export port, which gives its name to the Newcastlemax subclass.
On the discharge (import) side:
The deep-water iron ore terminals of China, which takes over 70% of world seaborne iron ore imports.
Back to Adam Smith
In the quote I shortened Smith’s sentence to “No human wisdom can foresee the benefits”. In the book, the full sentence reads: “What benefits or what misfortunes to mankind may hereafter result from those great events, no human wisdom can foresee”, and Smith himself stressed that for the natives of the East and West Indies the commercial benefits had been “sunk and lost in the dreadful misfortunes” those events occasioned.
Ten years after Dias, Vasco da Gama reached India using his route and his know-how. More than five centuries later, around ninety ships a day round the Cape of Good Hope keeping the world economy supplied, and whole classes of ships and port networks exist because of that passage. Dias received little recognition in his lifetime and died at sea next to the cape he had opened. Not a bad legacy for a “Cape of Storms”.
Infrastructure Australia (Port Hedland and Newcastle: world’s largest iron ore and coal export hubs) and Reuters (China buys over 70% of seaborne iron ore).
En el verano de 2025 hicimos un viaje de tres semanas en coche por Italia. Estando en Roma, tras visitar el Museo Vaticano fuimos a visitar la Basílica de San Pedro y en ella empezamos a aprender sobre las Puertas Santas.
Las Puertas Santas son accesos especiales en algunas catedrales o basílicas católicas que simbolizan el paso de una vida marcada por el pecado a una renovada en la gracia. Se inspiran en las palabras de Jesús en el Evangelio de Juan: “Yo soy la puerta: quien entre por mí se salvará”. Se abren solo en periodos designados y al cruzarlas y bajo determinadas condiciones habituales (confesión, comunión, oración), se obtiene la indulgencia.
La primera Puerta Santa que cruzamos en aquel viaje en 2025 fue la de San Pedro, pero cronológicamente la primera que existió fue la de la Basílica de Santa María de Collemaggio, en L’Aquila, localidad que también teníamos en nuestra ruta para visitar una semana más tarde. En 1294 el Papa Celestino V, poco después de su coronación en esta basílica, emitió la Bula del Perdón (Inter sanctorum solemnia), concediendo indulgencia plenaria a quienes entraran por una puerta determinada, se confesaran, comulgaran y rezaran. La puerta se abre anualmente desde las vísperas del 28 de agosto hasta las del 29. La Perdonanza Celestiniana, reconocida por la UNESCO como Patrimonio Cultural, está considerada un precedente del Jubileo universal. El Papa Francisco fue el primer Papa en abrirla personalmente (2022).
Basílica de Santa María de Collemaggio, en L’AquilaPuerta Santa en la Basílica de Santa María de Collemaggio, en L’AquilaPuerta Santa en la Basílica de Santa María de Collemaggio, en L’AquilaBasílica de Santa María de Collemaggio, en L’Aquila
Cronológicamente la siguiente Puerta Santa documentada es la de la Catedral de la Asunción de María en Atri, también en la región italiana de Abruzzo, así que la incluimos en nuestro itinerario. La primera vez que se abrió fue en 1295, el privilegio se atribuye a Celestino V o a Bonifacio VIII, y se abre cada año el 14 de agosto, en el marco de la fiesta de la Asunción, y permanece abierta hasta el 22. Quienes la cruzan, cumpliendo las condiciones habituales, obtienen la indulgencia plenaria durante esos ocho días.
Catedral de la Asunción de María en AtriPuerta Santa en la Catedral de la Asunción de María en AtriPuerta Santa en la Catedral de la Asunción de María en Atri
Las siguientes Puertas Santas documentadas fueron las creadas en Roma ligadas a la tradición del Jubileo.
El primer Jubileo cristiano lo proclamó Bonifacio VIII en 1300. La práctica de abrir una puerta física como rito jubilar se documenta a partir del siglo XV: en 1423 el Papa Martín V abrió la primera en la basílica de San Juan de Letrán. Alejandro VI consolidó el rito en 1500 al extenderlo a las otras tres basílicas mayores de Roma.
En la Iglesia católica, el Jubileo puede ser ordinario (cada 25 años, y 2025 lo fue, por eso encontramos las Puertas Santas abiertas en Roma) y extraordinario (celebrando algún hecho destacado, por ejemplo, en 1983 proclamado por Juan Pablo II para conmemorar el 1950º aniversario de la redención).
El año del Jubileo ordinario comienza con el Papa golpeando con un martillo tres veces para abrir la Puerta Santa de la Basílica de San Pedro: Aperite mihi portas justitiae, ingressus in eas confitebor Domino (“Abridme las puertas de la justicia; entrando por ellas confesaré al Señor”).
Para el Jubileo de 2025 (cuya bula papal fue Spes non confundit, “La esperanza no defrauda“, conocido como Jubileo de la esperanza) así lo hizo el Papa Francisco el 24 de diciembre de 2024, marcando oficialmente el inicio del Año Santo. Unos días más tarde fue abriendo las Puertas Santas de las otras tres basílicas mayores.
Basílica de San PedroPuerta Santa en la Basílica de San Pedro, RomaPuerta Santa en la Basílica de San Pedro, RomaBasílica de San PedroSepulcro de San Pedro
Durante los días que estuvimos en Roma en agosto de 2025, también visitamos las otras tres Basílicas mayores.
Archibasílica de San Juan de Letrán
La Catedral Archibasílica Papal del Santísimo Salvador del Mundo y de los Santos Juan Bautista y Juan Evangelista en Letrán, Madre y Cabeza de todas las Iglesias de la Ciudad y el Mundo, es más conocida como Archibasílica de San Juan de Letrán. Es la catedral de Roma, donde se encuentra la sede episcopal de su obispo, el Papa. Fue fundada en el año 324 y es la basílica más antigua de Occidente.
Archibasílica de San Juan de Letrán, RomaPuerta Santa en la Archibasílica de San Juan de LetránArchibasílica de San Juan de Letrán
Basílica de Santa María la Mayor
También conocida como basílica de Santa María de las Nieves y Basílica Liberiana. Después de que el papado de Aviñón acabase formalmente y los Papas regresaran a Roma, la Basílica de Santa María la Mayor se convirtió en residencia temporal de los papas debido al estado de deterioro en que se encontraba el Palacio de Letrán.
Basílica de Santa María la Mayor, RomaPuerta Santa en la Basílica de Santa María la Mayor, RomaBasílica de Santa María la Mayor, Roma
Basílica de San Pablo Extramuros
Fue fundada en el año 386 en el lugar donde el apóstol Pablo fue enterrado. La Basílica representa la tipología de la arquitectura paleocristiana.
Basílica de San Pablo Extramuros, RomaBasílica de San Pablo Extramuros, RomaSepulcro de San PabloSepulcro de San PabloTrozo de las cadenas con las que ataron a San Pablo durante su cautiverio
Fuera de Italia hay otras dos Puertas Santas permanentes.
En España, hay una en la Catedral de Santiago de Compostela, que se abre en el Año Santo Compostelano, que se celebra cuando el 25 de julio, fiesta del Apóstol Santiago, cae en domingo.
La tradición del Año Compostelano tiene su origen en el privilegio de Calixto II (1122), confirmado por Alejandro III (bula Regis aeterni, 1179): La Puerta Santa (también llamada del Perdón), situada en la Plaza de la Quintana, se abre al inicio de estos años y permanece abierta durante todo el año. Aunque el origen exacto de la puerta física es discutido, la actual parece que es del siglo XVI. Cruzarla forma parte del rito con el que los peregrinos obtienen la indulgencia plenaria. El próximo Año Santo Compostelano será en 2027. Recuerdo que con el colegio fuimos a Santiago de Compostela en el Año Jacobeo de 1993 (la secuencia es cada 6-5-6-11 años).
En Canadá, hay una en la Basílica-Catedral de Notre-Dame de Québec. Fue autorizada e inaugurada en diciembre de 2013 con motivo del 350º aniversario de la parroquia, la primera diócesis católica en América del Norte al norte de la América española. Esculpida en bronce por Jules Lasalle, muestra a Cristo con los brazos abiertos y a la Virgen. Se abre durante jubileos o años santos diocesanos designados (como el de 2013-2014 o el de 2023-2024 por el aniversario de la diócesis) y otorga la indulgencia plenaria en esos periodos.
Por lo que he visto, leyendo en agosto de 2025 y ahora para escribir este post sobre Puertas Santas, no hay otras Puertas Santas permanentes, pero ha habido temporales, por ejemplo, en el santuario de San Juan María Vianney en Ars (concedida por Benedicto XVI en 2007) y la de la Universidad Pontificia de Santo Tomás en Manila (2010).
Finalmente, me extrañó que no hubiese Puertas Santas en Hispanoamérica, en lugares como la Basílica de Guadalupe en México o la Catedral de Lima.
Chinchón es un pueblo del sureste de la Comunidad de Madrid con unos 5.800 habitantes, cuyo centro histórico está declarado Bien de Interés Cultural y es principalmente conocido por su Plaza Mayor, con sus famosos soportales y balcones del siglo XV. En la plaza se celebran todo tipo de actos, como teatro o corridas de toros.
Plaza Mayor de Chinchón
El pasado 11 de julio se celebró en Chinchón la primera semifinal de la Copa Chenel 2026.
La Copa Chenel lleva el nombre del torero Antonio Chenel Albaladejo, Antoñete (1932 – 2011). Antoñete fue un torero clásico distinguido por su elegancia y pureza con el capote y la muleta. Se retiró en 2001 con casi setenta años y murió a los 79. Recibió a título póstumo la Gran Cruz de la Orden del Dos de Mayo. La copa que lleva su nombre tiene como objetivo promover el toreo en la Comunidad de Madrid y dar oportunidades a toreros de la región.
Copa Chenel
Aprovechamos la ocasión para ir a los toros por primera vez con los niños (quienes ya habían estado en un concurso de recortes) y con mi madre, además de con Luca, que ya había ido conmigo hace muchos años.
Toros en familia
Los toreros en aquella corrida fueron Javier Cortés, Héctor Gutiérrez y Alejandro Chicharro, que lidiaron toros de José Cruz y Peñajara. Hubo un lleno total.
La actuación según recoge la web oficial de la Copa fue:
Javier Cortés, ovación y oreja.
Héctor Gutiérrez, silencio y silencio tras aviso.
Alejandro Chicharro, ovación tras aviso y vuelta al ruedo.
Sólo Javier Cortés pudo cortar una oreja al cuarto toro. La corrida en general fue discreta. Otro hecho a reseñar fue que el quinto toro tuvo que ser devuelto por un problema con el pitón derecho.
Javier Cortés celebrando la oreja obtenida con el cuarto toro
A toda la familia le gustó bastante la experiencia y sirvió para comentar y explicar muchos aspectos de la tauromaquia.
Tras la corrida de ese fin de semana los tres toreros participaron en la semifinal a seis donde cada uno de ellos lidió otro toro. Con base en las puntuaciones obtenidas en las semifinales, tres toreros se clasificaron para la final en la plaza de Las Ventas. Éstos fueron Alejandro Marcos, Héctor Gutiérrez y Manuel Diosleguarde (solo Hector toreó en Chinchón, los otros dos torearon en la otra seminal, en Valdetorres de Jarama). El ganador de la copa (en la que participaron 18 toreros) fue Héctor Gutiérrez.
We first learned about this year’s total solar eclipse from our son David who had discussed it in class last year (grade 4, 10 years old). Since then we made the point of going somewhere in Spain to watch it.
For medical reasons, we had to spend three weeks in Bagnères de Luchon at the end of July to mid August this summer, so we had to pick a spot to watch the eclipse that allowed us to drive to and from within a day. Thanks to the website Mirador del eclipse, which I came across in X/Twitter, we decided to go somewhere in Aragón. If we watched it from Zaragoza or somewhere South from it we would be able to have about 80-90 seconds of total eclipse, 100%, meaning we could watch it with the naked eye (even though we had bought glasses for the eclipse over a month ago, from the optician in our village).
“Mirador del eclipse”, selecting the location
I then made a quick query to Grok, X/Twitter artificial intelligence assistance, asking it to give me suggestions for elevated points from which you watch the eclipse sounds villages South of Zaragoza. We then selected Cadrete. In that village there is a castle on a hill which was our initial selected spot. But while driving there we saw that some cars were driving further up towards the Mirador de las Planas (a view point) so there we went.
Checking the view from Cadrete ahead of the eclipse.
We arrived at the spot at 19h30, just 3-4 minutes ahead of the start of the eclipse. We were equipped with glasses, water and chips to enjoy the next hour. And so we did.
I share below some of the pictures we took with our smartphones, no professional photographer gear, hence nothing close to what you may have seen already in social media.
Mirador de Las Planas, Cadrete Watching the eclipse (before the total eclipse)Watching the total eclipse with the naked eyeTotal eclipseTotal eclipse from Mirador de Las Planas
As you may have lived or read, watching the total eclipse with the naked eye for those 80+ seconds was a breathtaking experience. Totally worth it
Finally, as you may have already read, next year, on August 2nd 2027, there will be another total solar eclipse going through Spain, this time across the South (Cádiz, Málaga) which will last longer (over 4 minutes of total eclipse).
The expression “crossing the Rubicon” means passing a point of no return. It relates to the crossing of the river Rubicon by Julius Caesar in January (~10th) 49 BC. During last summer holidays in Italy we reenacted that crossing.
The crossing of the Rubicon by Caesar is described by Suetonius in his book “The lives of the Caesars” (we have at home a recent translation by the historian Tom Holland).
Map of Italy
In the map, the river Rubicon can be seen South of Ravenna, flowing to the Adriatic sea. The river later was called Fiumicino until the 20th century when the name changed back to Rubicon.
The course of the river is not the same as it was two thousand years ago and the exact location of the crossing is not surely known, though the more credible location is in the village which today is known as Savignano sul Rubicone. The former Roman road Via Emilia connected Bologna with Rimini, and the path is more or less preserved in the SS9 road, which crosses the Rubicon river in Savignano.
Via Emilia
In the path of the former Via Emilia across the river there is a Roman bridge (which has gone through several renovations) where a statue of Julius Caesar is located.
Roman bridge over the RubiconThe bridge over the Rubicon marking the border between Roma and Gallia (Cisalpine Gaul)“Senatus Populusque Senensis (“The Senate and People of Siena”) / Gaius Julius Caesar / Perpetual Dictator”After crossing the Rubicon
I leave below some excerpts from Suetonius describing the events:
[…] he wrote letters to the senate, pleading with them not to deprive him of the special privilege granted him by the people; either that, or the senate should oblige other generals as well to divest themselves of their armies (he proposed this because he took for granted – or so it is thought – that he would find it easier to summon his veterans when the need arose than Pompey would to summon his raw recruits). Even as he was offering to disband eight of his legions and the command of Gaul north of the Alps, however, he demanded it as a condition from his enemies that he keep two legions and the province of Cisalpine Gaul, or else one legion and Illyria, until such time as he had become consul.
[30] When, however, the senate refused to engage with this proposal, and his enemies declared that they would never haggle over the security of the republic, he crossed into Nearer Gaul; there, after a circuit of the local courts, he made his base in Ravenna, with the intention of pressing his claim by armed force should the senate launch a crackdown on the tribunes of the plebs who were championing his cause. Such, at any rate, was the pretext he gave for civil war; but others think he had different motives. Gnaeus Pompey frequently used to say of him that because, as a private citizen, his income would be insufficient to complete the projects he had embarked upon, and to satisfy the expectations which the prospect of his return had aroused among the people, his goal was upheaval and chaos. Others say that he dreaded being compelled to give an account of all the auspices he had ignored, all the laws he had broken and all the tribunician vetoes he had flouted during his consulship – for Marcus Cato had repeatedly declared, and on oath too, that he would impeach him the moment he disbanded his army, and it was popularly anticipated that, should he return as a private citizen, then he would be obliged to answer the charges against him just as Milo had done, amid a ring of armed men. Evidence for this is provided by Asinius Pollio, who records that, as he gazed at the corpses of his enemies where they lay strewn across the battlefield of Pharsalus, he uttered these words: ‘They were the ones who wanted this – for not all my great achievements would have prevented them from finding me, Gaius Caesar, guilty, had I not had my army to turn to for backing.’ Some think he was so seduced by the habit of command that, after weighing up his own strength against that of his enemies, he seized the opportunity to grasp after the absolute power that he had been craving since the earliest years. This, it seems, was the opinion of Cicero, who writes in the third book of On Duties that two lines from Euripides were forever on Caesar’s lips (the translation is Cicero’s own):
For if the law must be broken, then let it be broken with the aim of winning a throne. Otherwise, show the law respect.
[31] So it was, the moment news reached him that the tribunes’ veto had been overridden and the tribunes themselves had fled the city, he ordered his cohorts to advance, but under cover, so as not to rouse suspicion; meanwhile, keeping his own intentions disguised, he attended a public festival, inspected the plans for a gladiator school which he was planning to have built, and hosted a well-attended dinner party, as he invariably did. Then, after the sun had set, and mules taken from a nearby mill had been harnessed to his carriage, he set out in the utmost secrecy, with only a modest retinue as company; for a while – because his torches had gone out, and he had lost his way – he blundered about, until, as the sky began to lighten, he located a guide, who led him on foot to where he needed to be; catching up with his cohorts on the banks of the Rubicon, the river which marked the frontier of his province, he paused for a while, revolving in his mind the sheer enormity of what he was contemplating, before turning to those nearest to him and saying: ‘Even now we could turn back. But once we have crossed that tiny bridge, everything will have to be decided by war.’
[32] Then, as he was hesitating, a wondrous thing happened: nearby him, a figure of remarkable size and beauty abruptly appeared, sitting and playing on a pipe; and when some of his soldiers – trumpeters and shepherds who had run to listen to the music, the apparition snatched the advance with a mighty blast, and crossed over to the far bank. Then Caesar spoke. ‘Let us go where we are summoned both by divinely authored signs and by the wrongs our foes have done us. The die is cast.’³⁹
[33] And so his army crossed the Rubicon; and he welcomed the tribunes who, following their expulsion from Rome, had come to join him, summoned the soldiers to an assembly, and then, weeping and tearing the garments from his breast, called on them to pledge him their loyalty. Some have thought that he went so far as to promise each and every one of them equestrian status – but this is incorrect. What actually happened is that, while he was giving his rallying cry to the troops, he would point again and again to a finger on his left hand, insisting that he would gladly tear the ring from it if only it would provide to those who were backing him in defence of his honour commensurate reward; but because those on the margins of the assembly – who could see him better than they could hear him – based their understanding of what he was saying on his gestures rather than on his words, the story spread that he had promised them all the right to an equestrian ring, plus 400,000 sesterces each.
[34] Here, in the order they happened, are the most significant things he went on to do. He seized Picenum, Umbria and Etruria; he defeated and then set free Lucius Domitius, the man who, on the outbreak of civil war, had been named his successor and had garrisoned Corfinium against him; he advanced along the Adriatic coast to Brundisium, which had been serving the consuls and Pompey as their bolthole, and from where they were planning to cross to Greece. Then, after the failure of all his various stratagems to block their escape, he made his way back to Rome and summoned the senate to discuss affairs of state, before heading for Spain, where he moved against three of Pompey’s legates (Marcus Petreius, Lucius Afranius and Marcus Varro), who between them commanded a formidable army. ‘First,’ as he had put it to his friends before setting out, ‘we will target the army without a general – and then, on our return, the general without an army.’ Sure enough, although he was delayed by having to lay siege to Massilia when the city closed its gates against him, and by a serious shortage of grain supplies, it did not take him long to bring everywhere under his control.
[35] From Spain he returned to Rome, then crossed to Macedonia, where he blockaded Pompey for almost four months behind massive siege works, before eventually defeating him in battle at Pharsalus and pursuing his fugitive rival to Alexandria…
[Note 39: In Latin, iacta alea est. According to Plutarch, in his life of Pompey, the phrase was ‘Let the die be cast’ (anerrhiphtho kybos): a quotation in Greek from the comic playwright Menander. Some editions of Suetonius, following this, accordingly amend Caesar’s famous saying to iacta alea esto.]
Last month I visited Riga and took the opportunity to visit The Museum of the Occupation of Latvia. The museum tells the story of the Latvian nation and Latvian state that it founded, as the German and Russian empires collapsed at the end of the First World War. A key message of the museum is to raise awareness of the conspiracybetween Communist Soviet Union and Nazi Germany:
On 23 August 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany conclude a mutual non-aggression treaty. It is signed by the People’s Commissioner for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union Vyacheslav Molotov and German Minister for Foreign Affairs Joachim von Ribbentrop. Its secret protocols divide the eastern part of Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence and pave the way for the Second World War.
The Soviet Union and Germany collaboration lasts for almost two years. In September of 1939, they occupy and divide Poland. The Soviet Union demands the Baltic States and Finland to sign “mutual assistance” treaties that establish Red Army bases on their territories. Finland refuses to comply; on 30 November, it is attacked by the Soviet Union. The Baltic States sign the imposed treaties.
Thus from October 1939 to September 1998 foreign troops – alternately Soviet Union, German, Russian forces – are stationed in Latvia. For 50 years, the Soviet Union denies the existence of the secret protocols. Modern day Russia continues to justify them as a necessity dictated by the historical situation.
Protocol attached to the non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.Map with the division of Poland
The museum is arranged chronologically and even though it’s not very big, there’s plenty of material to read and watch. I could spend only about two hours in it, as I had a flight to catch.
Organization of the museum:
Creation of an independent Latvia (1918–1940)
Conspiracy. The Hitler-Stalin Pact (1939)
First Soviet Occupation (1940–1941)
Soviet Mass Deportations of 1941 and 1949
Nazi German Occupation, Holocaust (1941–1944/1945)
Resistance against the Soviet Totalitarian Rule (1944/1945–1991)
Gulag – Descent Into Hell. Incarceration and Forced Resettlement (1940–1988)
A Renewed State. Rebuilding Latvia
In Western Europe we have many museums and war memorials to remind ourselves of the totalitarianism from the Nazis, not so many from the totalitarianism from Communism which still enjoys sympathy in some circles, that’s why it’s interesting to visit this kind of museum in countries that suffered from it. I will include some pictures and transcriptions of different panels from the museum to illustrate it.
The Soviet Union annexes Latvia as the expression of the “people’s will”. Front page of the newspaper Pravda.
Soviet security operatives arrive from Moscow in June as Soviet rule is instituted in Latvia. They are charged with the liquidation of real and imagined opposition, intimidation of society, and enforcement of compliance.
The Soviet security service is known in Latviaafter its first acronymCheka, in most of the world, after the last – KGB. In 1940, it is the People’s Commissariat of the Interior – NKVD, whose State Security Administration establishes offices in the largest towns of Latvia with headquarters in Riga. The NKVD was the perpetrator of Stalin’s Great Terror with extreme brutality.
Latvian citizens, who have been able to trust a fair trial for the past 20 years are suddenly losing real legal protection, basic human rights and many disappear without a trace.
The museum included the map below with the Gulag camps:
What is the Gulag? GULAG (ГУЛАГ) is the Russian acronym for the Chief Administration of Corrective Labour Camps under the Soviet Union Interior Ministry. It exists officially from 1930 to 1960, but continues to function also after reorganisation.
On a wider scope, Gulag refers to the entire Soviet penal system and its components – prisons, camps, transfer of prisoners, mass deportations, forced resettlement areas.
Both criminals and political prisoners comprise the more than 18 million who have been detained there. From 1940 until 1988, about 200,000 residents of Latvia are held in the Gulag.
The light of the map above is not very good, because it was located in an area recreating a Gulag concentration camp, including a watchtower, sketches with the organization of the camps, stories from victims, clothes, etc.
Stalin’s death in 1953 marks a decrease of mass terror, but it does not change the totalitarian nature of the Communist Party. Psychological terror replaces physical terror. The goal remains: subjugate the Latvian people.
The Cheka and the army buttress the Communist Party. The Soviet Union’s government implements the Party’s orders. The Soviet citizen carries them out. In line with communist ideology, the economy, culture and social life are centrally planned in Moscow.
The Communist Party of Latvia and the government are Latvian in name only. They obey Moscow’s aims to colonise Latvia and blend the Latvian people into a Russian-speaking mass – homo sovieticus.
At least 30 countries didn’t recognize the occupation and annexation of Lavia. The Latvian legation in Washington DC continued to operate during the entire period of occupation. For a number of years there were also legations in London, Paris, Buenos Aires, Geneva and Rio de Janeiro, and a diplomatic mission in Madrid.
In 1983, Ronald Reagan proclaimed June 14th as the Baltic Freedom Day.
The Baltic Way
On 23 August 1989 – exactly 50 years after the signing of the Hitler-Stalin Pact – Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian independence movements organise the largest demonstration to regain freedom. Some 1.5 million people form a 660 km long chain that stretches from Tallinn to Riga, to Vilnius. The Baltic Way resounds in songs sung in each native tongue.
By holding hands in unity the Baltic nations demand the Soviet rulers to acknowledge the existence of the Pact and its secret protocols, and to liquidate the Pact’s consequences – restore the independence of the Baltic States.
The news of the chain sweep the globe; the world begins to listen to the Baltic nations. The Berlin Wall still stands. It falls two and a half months later.
In 1991 joins United Nations. In 1993 the Parliament reactivates the original Constitution. The Soviet (later Russian) Army doesn’t leave the country until 1994. Latvia joins NATO in 2004, as well as the European Union. During the 50 years of occupation ethnic Latvians went from 75% of the population in 1935 down to 52% in 1989.
The museum celebrates Three Heroes of Conscience: the poet Vizma Belsevica, Lidija Doronina-Lasmane (convicted three times for anti Soviet activities) and Gunars Astra (an activist convicted for reading 1984 and Archipelago Gulag).
On September 19th 2019, after the 80th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, thd European Parliament passed a resolution on the Importance of European remembrance for the future of Europe, which among other points included the following:
– whereas although the crimes of the Nazi regime were evaluated and punished by means of the Nuremberg trials, there is still an urgent need to raise awareness, carry out moral assessments and conduct legal inquiries into the crimes of Stalinism and other dictatorships;
– whereas in some Member States, communist and Nazi ideologies are prohibited by law;
– whereas remembering the victims of totalitarian regimes and recognising and raising awareness of the shared European legacy of crimes committed by communist, Nazi and other dictatorships is of vital importance for the unity of Europe and its people and for building European resilience to modern external threats;
– Condemns all manifestations and propagation of totalitarian ideologies, such as Nazism and Stalinism, in the EU
Black Ribbon Day: The 23rd of August, since 2009, is officially known in the European Union, as the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism and also referred to as the Europe-wide Day of Remembrance for the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes
I leave some more pictures from the museum below.
Hitler and Stalin. Dictators. Terror.Enemies of the people: non-Aryan people, wealthy people.Gulag camps, concentration camps.The Great Terror. Kristallnacht.Holocaust. Holodomor.
Hacia principios de mayo de 2025 la temporada que estaba haciendo Morante de La Puebla era ya de época, así que mi amigo Luismi y yo decidimos comprar entradas para ir a verle torear en Nîmes, el viernes 6 de junio, por la tarde. Para ver aquella corrida salimos a mediodía desde la oficina en Toulouse.
Se lidiaron toros de Garcigrande y junto a Morante, torearon Alejandro Talavante (a quien llevábamos tiempo queriendo ver) y un joven Marco Pérez que tomaría la alternativa.
El ambiente en Nîmes en la feria es espectacular, con la música en las calles, las peñas, la cantidad de gente que viene de Francia y España… La puesta en escena en el anfiteatro romano, la banda de música, el himno francés, también es de ensueño.
La corrida fue un gran espectáculo. Si bien Morante no tuvo suerte con los toros y el descabello en su segundo, lo que evitó que tuviese premios, Talavante y Pérez tuvieron una buena tarde. Talavante cortó una oreja a cada toro y Pérez obtuvo dos orejas en su último toro, con lo que los dos salieron a hombros por la puerta grande, la Puerta de los Cónsules.
Marco PérezMorante de La PueblaTalavante y Pérez a hombrosLuismi y yo en la feria de 2025
La temporada de Morante siguió siendo épica hasta el punto de que anunció su retirada en octubre en Las Ventas en la Corrida de la Hispanidad.
2026
El 18 de febrero quedé a comer con Luismi y entre otras cosas hablamos de toros, de la vuelta Morante que ya se había anunciado para Sevilla, de las próximas vacaciones, etc. Unos días más tarde, el 26 de febrero, me envió un mensaje con los carteles de la Feria de Nîmes de 2026 que se acababan de publicar:
Se confirma la vuelta de Morante en Nîmes, con Talavante y Marco Pérez.
Un clásico para no perdérselo.
Buenas vacaciones de ski!
Nos vemos a la vuelta.
LM
De vuelta de las vacaciones de ski, paramos una noche con la familia en Nîmes. Cenamos en el restaurante italiano Pinocchio y la mañana siguiente desayunamos en el café Le Goeland, en el boulevard de La Libération, en el mismo sitio donde habíamos desayunado tras la corrida de 2025. Después de desayunar volvimos al hotel, recogimos y continuamos el viaje de vuelta a casa.
Pocas horas después recibí una llamada de Azucena, una compañera de trabajo, para anunciarme que Luismi había fallecido ese mismo 8 de marzo, en una pausa de su excursión de ski a La Mongie.
Así es que, cuando el sábado pasado 23 de mayo volví a Nîmes a la Feria de Pentecôte a ver aquella corrida, que habíamos planeado ver juntos, fue la primera que me tocó ver solo, sin Luismi.
Morante sufrió una cogida en abril y a pesar de haber vuelto a torear, anunció un par de días antes que no estaría en Nîmes. Fue sustituido por Juan Ortega. Los toros esta vez fueron de El Freixo.
El ambiente en Nîmes era espectacular, como siempre, pero en vez de estar con el dicharachero Luismi y su don de gentes, con su facilidad para entablar conversación con todo el mundo, esta vez iba solo y con una mezcla de recuerdos.
La corrida en sí empezó con Talavante cortando dos merecidas orejas a su primer toro, y luego otra más en el cuarto. Juan Ortega no pudo sacar mucho del segundo toro, pero con el quinto obtuvo una oreja. Marco Pérez volvió a dar muestra de su arrojo, recibiendo a los dos toros a porta gayola y dando varias tandas de rodillas. Al tercer toro le cortó las dos orejas y el rabo, pero con el sexto tuvo menos suerte y además falló con la estocada, dando tres pinchazos.
Marco Pérez
De nuevo Talavante y Pérez salieron por la Puerta de Los Cónsules, como en 2025, pero con una factura todavía mejor.
Talavante y Pérez a hombros
Sirva este breve post como recuerdo a Luismi, nuestra afición compartida y las corridas que disfrutamos juntos. DEP.
This is a short post to share some locations to follow the steps of the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh in Provence, in Arles and Saint Rémy de Provence.
Van Gogh was born in 1853, and at the age of 27 he decided to become an artist, to which he dedicated the next and last decade of his life. During that time he was financially supported by his brother Theo, with whom he moved.
In February 1888, he left Paris seeking the light and colors of Provence and settled in Arles, where he invited his friend Gauguin and where he hoped to establish the “Studio of the South“.
After a mental crisis in Arles, during which he cut off part of his ear, he interned himself to the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum for treatment and rest. The asylum nowadays is open for visits and is located in Saint Rémy. The village and its surroundings provided several of the landscapes he painted.
Between Arles and Saint Rémy he spent just around two years but was the most productive period of his life with over 200 paintings (out of ~900 in his career).
The best museums to see his paintings are the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, the Kröller-Müller museum in Otterlo (Netherlands), the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, and the Metropolitan and MoMA in New York. And a good complement to those museums is to visit Arles and Saint Rémy in Provence, where in some places together with the landscapes there are panels with copies of the paintings to relate to one another. In Arles there is also a small museum, the Fondation Vincent van Gogh, about his life and style.
I will share some of those examples below.
Cafe La Nuit at the Place du Forum, Arles.“Terrace of a cafe at night (Place du Forum)” (Kröller-Müller)Pont de Langlois (South Arles)“Pont de Langlois” (Kröller-Müller)“Les Paveurs”“Cyprès avec deux femmes”Entrance to the Hôpital Saint-Paul de MausoleVan Gogh’s room in the asylum.“Cueilleuses d’olives”“Oliveraie”“Prairie dans les montagnes”“Hôpital Saint-Paul de Mausole”“Les Alpilles aux oliviers”“Les Alpilles aux oliviers” (MoMA)View from his room at the asylum.“Champ de bl锓Champ de blé avec cyprès”
Last October, we visited Dunkirk, the harbor, the beaches, the nearby village Zuydcoote and the museum Musée Dunkerque 1940 – Opération Dynamo. Dunkirk is a town in the North of France, by the North Sea which is 10 km from the border with Belgium, which had been historically affiliated to Flanders or France (for the last 360 years).
In the Dunkirk evacuation (Operation Dynamo), which took place between 26 May and 4 June 1940, at the beginning of the Second World War, over 338,000 allied soldiers were evacuated from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk.
After Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, France and the British Empire declared war on Germany. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was sent to help defend France. After the Phoney War of October 1939 to April 1940, Germany invaded Belgium, the Netherlands, and France on 10 May 1940. In just a few weeks, the German troops advanced fast and cut off allied troops around Dunkirk. In just over a week the evacuation took place.
Even if the Dunkirk evacuation had been represented in movies before, it was in 2017 with Christopher Nolan‘s movie that made the iconic images of the beaches and piers with lines of soldiers waiting to be rescued, the bombing of those and the ships by the Luftwaffe airplanes or the courageous Little Ships of Dunkirk, the flotilla of fishing boats, merchant ships and yachts, widely known to the public.
The visit of the museum is a must if you want to make sense of the operation, as just by visiting the harbour or the beaches you cannot get much information other than the dimensions of the place.
Musée Dunkerque 1940 – Opération DynamoMalo-les-bains beach with the pier at the back
In the museum there is a detailed account of the beginning of the war and the advances of the German troops and how the evacuation went day by day.
Situation on the evening of 30th May 1940 (British forces in red, French forces in green, German forces in blue).
In this mock up at the museum there is the situation of the different allied ships at both sides of the Malo pier, with the names in the legend and a description of the different bombs they received in those days.
As it is mentioned above the Crested Eagle ship ran aground on the beach of Zuydcoote, a few kilometers North of Dunkirk. We went there by car but could not see anything of the remains, possibly because of the tide.
Looking at the numbers, most of the soldiers could be evacuated, though there are different views on whether it was a successful operation.
The big numbers shown in the panel at the museum: ~239,000 (71%) allied troops evacuated from the port and 98,000 (29%) from the beach; hence the lion’s share were evacuated from the port. Of the overall ~338,000 soldiers evacuated around ~28,000 (8%) were so thanks to the ~1,200 to 1,600 “little ships” involved, following orders from the Admiralty broadcast by the BBC (as seen on the movie). About 35 to 40,000 were taken as prisoners and there were around ~11,000 losses (87% evacuated, 10% prisoners, 3% losses).
In terms of nationalities: ~221,000 British soldiers (65%) were evacuated and between 100-122,000 (35%) French and Belgian soldiers (this comes as a point of conflict in the movie, where British soldiers had priority to get into the ships).
Figures of the Operation Dynamo
Looking at the material losses, the Allies lost around 240 ships of different sizes, including 6 destroyers and 3 torpedo boats, and around 250 aircraft fighters in the wider French campaign. Also 80% of the town of Dunkirk was destroyed.
Looking at the Little Ships part of the operation, even if in the overall picture their contribution in terms of soldiers evacuated was just 8%, it represented a boost in the morale and a success in the mobilization of civilians to support the evacuation.
