Tossa De Mar, Fairy-Tale Magic, Gotham City Art, German Roadtrip & More: Endnotes 04 March

Every Friday, we celebrate the weekend — and all the reading and relaxing and daydreaming time ahead — with Melissa's favorite book- and travel-related links of the week. Why work when you can read fun stuff?!

This post is part of our Endnotes series.

That romantic image above is sunset at the Tossa de Mar castle on Spain’s Costa Brava. Known as Vila Velha (‘old town’), it’s perched on a hill overlooking Gran Beach and the blue water of the Bay of Tossa. Back in ye olde medieval days, the town was surrounded by defensive walls, and its economy was built on fishing, grapes, and cork (!). Modern fun fact: In 1989, Tossa de Mar was the first place in the world to declare itself an Anti-Bullfighting City. This is a nice overview of fun ways to while away your time there, or you can take a leisurely (video) walking tour around the town.

• Our thoughts continue to be with the people of Ukraine and the Russians who are protesting the invasion. Here are two poems by Ukrainian poet Serhiy Zhadan to help you feel your feelings. And when you’re ready to take action, here are 7 verified charities working to help Ukrainians.

• Exodus from Ukraine is a first-person dispatch from Poland and Ukraine that was originally published in Novaya Gazeta on 27 February. It’s been translated from Russian to English by Ilona Yazhbin Chavasse.

• BookRiot shared a roundup of Ukrainian books in English, and the book buyer for Europe’s biggest bookshop shared a list of Ukrainian books on Twitter; click below to see the thread.

• Do you love magical realism? Here are 20 books for you. (There are so many titles on this list I want to read, and 100-percent yes to Like Water for Chocolate.)

• I recently read The Thursday Murder Club and enjoyed it immensely. I disagree most strongly with this dour, cynical review.

• Have you ever tried Pennsylvania scrapple? It’s a polarizing breakfast treat, and I am firmly on #teamscrapple. Dave is not.

• I found this essay from GriefBacon about anguish/love/loss and these pandemic times to be very relatable, sad, beautiful, and cathartic. ‘There is no way to ever plan for the future, and yet love says let’s settle down here in this room and do exactly that. Loving one another is always the process of deluding ourselves into believing in a better world.’

• Who invented the question mark?

• Earlier this week, I fell down the rabbit hole of LA’s Union Station website. It highlights the art found throughout the station, as well as the station’s history and why it’s called ‘the last of the great train stations’. (If you’re feeling nostalgic about trains, you might listen to our podcast episode Trains: Better Than Planes and Cars. Fight Me.)

• This is a fun look at the various designs of Gotham City through the ages.

• Author Gareth P. Jones explores why fairy tales have had such long-lasting appeal. Eagle-eyed readers might see a familiar name quoted in the piece.

• What’s your ETA for the hairport? See more hair-o-planes here. (Sorry.)

• Fans of Lauren Groff rejoice! Granta shared a new short story from the author. (Here’s our review of her fantastic novel The Monsters of Templeton.)

• Tor.com asks, If I Don’t Remember What I Read, Did I Really Read It At All?

• The first-ever road trip was undertaken in Germany in 1888. Writer Phoebe Smith set out to recreate the journey. ‘Think road trip and the USA springs to mind, but the first-ever long-distance car journey happened in Germany. Inspired, we hit the tarmac to discover castles, eccentric kings, and a little touch of magic.’

• The new app Apollo Podcasts is a podcatcher devoted to fiction podcasts. Its library offers more than 7500 shows across 18 categories, including adventure, comedy, mystery, historical, romance, and more.

• A recent episode of the Smarty Pants podcast asserts that our icy mythology of ‘the North’ was as much invented as it was discovered. ‘The North has been a blank, snowy canvas for our best and worst fantasies for thousands of years, home to biting winds, sea unicorns, fearsome Vikings, and even a wintry Atlantis.’

• This video about the preservation efforts of The Hill House in Scotland is fascinating.

Take good care of yourself out there.

Top image courtesy of Error 420/Unsplash.