Pluribus is the new show Vince Gilligan created, and whose first two episodes premiered on Apple TV, with Rhea Seahorn as the main character. After her stunning performance as Kim Wexler in Better Call Saul, it seems Gilligan felt inspired, and no wonder. I still think her not winning any awards of what she did with Kim is one of the great injustices of tv world. Anyway: While the show is set in Albuquerque like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, it belongs to a quite different genre and in a way has Gilligan go back to his X-Files roots. With the stunning cinematography of BB/BCS, and some (based on those first two eps) great twists on the whole invasion/hive mind/zombie tropes and genre. Also, Gilligan's and his fellow artists ability to quickly create three dimensional feeling side characters with just a few minutes of screen time shines, and the way he can connect visceral emotion and horror on the one hand and black humour otoh.

( Spoilers are wondering just what saving humanity really means )

I'm really looking forward to seeing more of how the show continues to deal with those questions. Well done, Gilligan, I'm hooked!


****

In other news, having recently made a trip to Vienna, I posted a gigantic historically themed pic spam here!

Even Darth Real Life is not able to keep me from my annual Easter Well sight seeing, or the pic spam based on it. Happy Easter to all who celebrate, and hopefully good holidays to everyone:





( More Easter Wells await beneath the cut )

I had a really busy month, but there was one day I spent in Salzburg, which is easily reachable by train from Munich, where I live, and I had the most magnificent weather. And that city does look like a baroque cake. Which is why you get a Salzburg pic spam before my nativity pic spam during the holidays.





( More Salzburg splendour beneath the cut )

This past month, I spent a week at various places at Lake Constance, aka The Lake Between Three Countries (Germany, Switzerland and Austria), which despite some bad April weather in between the occasional sunshine is always breathtakingly beautiful to visit. Which means, naturally: a pics pam.





First, I made a brief stop in Bregenz, Austria. Featuring the famous built-into-the-lake opera stage featured in a James Bond movie, so international viewers might dimly recall it.

( Bregenz )

Next, I crossed the border to Switzerland and visited St. Gallen, home to one of the most beautiful preserved libraries of the world:

( St. Gallen )

The big monastery rival of St. Gallen in the early middle ages was the monastery on the island Reichenau, which is where I went next. (Crossing borders agian to the German part of the lake.) This island is celebrating its 1300th birthday this year, but it's worth visiting at any time, although, unlike St. Gallen, the Reichenau monastery had bad luck from the late middle ages onwards, and so its library disappeared and now the books reside elsewhere, having returned for the first time in centuries fo rthe big anniversary exhibition.


( Reichenau )


One great help for Lake Constance visitors is that there's a ferry for cars to use between Constance itself and Meersburg on the other side of the lake. Take it, and spare yourself 70 kilometres country road around the lake. Which is what I did when visiting Meersburg, that medieval delight with Germany's most famous female poet's final resting place.

( Meersburg )


Next, I visited Salem. No, not the one with the witches. Or the vampires. The other one. Behold:

( Salem )

Before returning to the other side of the lake again via ferry, I paid a visit to Unteruhldingen, where a century ago, Bronze age settlements were found and reconstructed:


( Unteruhldingen )

But what about Konstanz itself, you ask? The city that gave its name to the English version of the lake? (It's "Bodensee" in German.) The city that saw a Church synod, the depostion of not one, not two but three Popes at the same time, and the burning of Jan Hus?

( Constance )


Back to the opposite site of the church. One laketown that's frequented by people wanting to lose some weight is Überlingen. It has, however, also other attractions. Including another scandalous Statue by Peter Lenk.

( Überlingen )

On my day of departure, I finally lucked out with the weather and the sun was with me once more as I visited the one tiny Bavarian part of Lake Constance, to wit, Lindau. Most famous for its gorgeous harbour.

( Lindau )

And thus I took my leave of Lake Constance:

During a quick visit to Berlin this weekend, I visited Charlottenburg Palace for the first time since I was 16, and wow, did they ever get some restoration work done. For a big pic spam, see here.

Also, having read the "Radiant Emperor" duology, I checked whether there is fanfiction, and indeed there is, like Rivers and Mountains, which takes the "character X after their death ends up back in time and has the chance to fix things (or not)" trope and runs with it in a compelling way.

I took part in a conference there last weekend, which took place next to one of the Berlin VIP of Arts cemeteries and it so happened that September 3rd was also open door day for the Reichstag, our Parliament which I had not had the chance to visit post spectacular Norman Foster restoration, so between conferencing, I visited both. Pic spam time!




( Berlin Sights, Compressed )

Yours truly has made it back from Portuguese sunshine to German rain, and thus can present the promised addendum to the travel pic spam, since the APs and I this time did manage to get inside the Monasterio dos Jeronimos en route to the airport.



( Manuelismo alert )

Still in beautiful Portugal and exploring the Algarve, this next two parter of a pic spam presents you with cities, churches and storks in the first part, and in the second… well, you’ll find out. But first, after previous pic spams featured the Western half of the Algarve, let’s move on to the East.




( Of Storks and the Church I Sing )
And this was it for part I. Part II tonight!

Once more, I have to split up the accumulated photographic goods. We left Lisbon and first visited Sintra.



( Sky of blue and sea of green… )

For the first time in a good long while, I‘m visiting an European country I‘ve never visited before: Portugal. We‘re starting with Lisbon, and it‘s so gorgeous that I need to pic spams to cover it before moving on to the rest of the country, which the APs and I will do tomorrow. But first:



( The most beautiful harbor of Europe )