Music & Travel

Now that the Delta Machine tour came to an end, I realize I still haven't published my photos of the concert Depeche Mode gave in Barcelona, well, two months ago... Better late than never... I am not really sure how this is even possible, given that I've been a fan of Depeche Mode for a long time, but I had somehow managed to always miss them when they were in concert, be it in Paris or in Barcelona. Add to this the fact that I really loved their last record, which I found much more interesting than the previous one, and you will easily understand that nothing in the world would have made me miss this concert! So this is how it went... 15th of January 2014: I made my way to the Palau Sant Jordi among the crowd, quite impressive given that the concert was sold out. Reassured to see that my usual predominantly black outfit was clearly not out of context (!), I was also pleased to find myself in a rather relaxed, joyful atmosphere. Hell, we might all have been about to w...

After admiring the beautiful sunset over the Golden Gate Bridge and after spending the coldest night of my life in Oakland, my motivation was stronger than ever at the start of this second day in San Francisco. And that was lucky 'cause it turned out to be a rather busy day! As if to stress even more the impression of diversity I had a glimpse of on the previous day, we started strolling about Haight Street, the "anarchic" neighbourhood still known to be one of the most unconventional in the city. Some of the beautiful old houses still have a somewhat psychedelic look about them. There even was something of a Camden Town feel about some places of the neighbourhood (that is, the pre-touristy invasion Camden Town, of course), while other places just gave me the impression of having been teleported to a kind of weird Summer of Love revival! A walk in the Golden Gate Park provided us with a much quieter environment and allowed us to gather strength before climbing ...

After spending this incredible day -the last of 2013- in Death Valley , we were back on the road, heading North towards the second stop we had planned: San Francisco. Of course, a not-so-planned stop happened in-between because, basically, we also needed to eat and sleep! But we finally made it to San Francisco in the afternoon of the 1st of January, just in time to admire the Golden Gate Bridge in the light of sunset. Obviously, it is difficult to say anything truly original about this city because it completely is a part of our collective imagination, be it for its history, its cultural references or simply because we all saw at some point photos of its vertiginous streets, we all saw films with the Golden Gate Bridge or Alcatraz. So even though I'm not going to add anything new to all the things that have already been said or written about San Francisco, I simply wanted to share my enthusiasm and emotion to find myself in this beautiful city. The very geographical settin...