EL PAÍS

Miami, the city of vibrant landscapes and sustainable spirit

Galo Martín Aparicio — Fri, 08 May 2026 10:46:37 +0000

In Miami, it’s essential to stay alert for tropical storm and hurricane warnings. Torrential rains and high winds are compounded by rising sea levels due to global warming caused by climate change. South Florida’s porous limestone foundations act like a sponge. As sea levels rise, groundwater rises to the surface. To prevent Miami from becoming Atlantis, the only option is to raise it above the water, a project underway in Sunset Harbour and other residential areas — see the MB Rising Above cell phone app for details. This strategic plan is part of the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact.

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The Atlantic Wall, a concrete barrier with the strength of straw

Galo Martín Aparicio — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 13:27:55 +0000

If brick is the building material that characterizes the Levantine coast, concrete was the defining characteristic of the northern and western coasts of France during World War II. Instead of apartment blocks, bunkers and other military structures were built there. Its geolocation is a nod to beauty, albeit circumstantial. What its German architects, who had previously been occupiers, sought were strategic locations, not beautiful ones. The so-called Atlantic Wall was a discontinuous coastal defensive system commissioned by Adolf Hitler in 1942 to repel a potential Allied invasion from the sea and air. It stretched from Hendaye, in the French Basque Country, almost to the Arctic Circle, in northern Norway.

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Lee Miller, the photojournalist who brought dignity to those who suffered during WWII

Galo Martín Aparicio — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 16:55:23 +0000

For the past decade, British actress Kate Winslet, 49, had been patiently deciding which of Lee Miller’s three life stages she wanted to portray. On March 7, 2025, the film Lee was finally released in Spain, after a 2023 premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. Directed by Ellen Kuras, it stars Winslet, who’s also one of the producers. In the prologue to the book Lee Miller: Photographs (2023), by Antony Penrose, the actress writes: “Lee Miller was a woman who made things happen [...] I wouldn’t have made the film if I didn’t feel such a deep passion for it. [As for] Lee... I couldn’t get her out of my head.”

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Bridges and bike lanes: What to see in Copenhagen beyond cultural offerings

Galo Martín Aparicio — Sun, 29 Dec 2024 04:30:00 +0000

If the Danish capital feels like a friendly and welcoming city, a city one can trust, it’s in part thanks to its understanding and promotion of urban mobility. Copenhagen’s dimensions favor the commute, but its topography does not. The city is flat, aquatic, and insular, its canals both large and small traversed by many bridges, each one with its own unique character and history. Some connect disparate corners of the metropolitan area, some decongest traffic, and some can even be raised to allow for the passage of boats.

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Artists fight to keep the neon lights on in Hong Kong

Galo Martín Aparicio — Sun, 25 Aug 2024 04:05:00 +0000

The defeat of China in the opium wars of the 19th century left the island of Hong Kong, including the Kowloon peninsula, the New Territories and the Outer Islands, under British colonial rule. So it remained until the night of June 30, 1997, when Hong Kong began a transition towards complete reintegration with China by 2047. Until then, it is classified as a special administrative region of the Asian world power, a halfway step that has left its residents wondering about the future. They ponder just what their relationship with China will look like. Their uneasiness is justified.

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When movie and TV locations become hot travel destinations

Galo Martín Aparicio — Thu, 26 Jan 2023 18:10:20 +0000

Two common conversation starters are “Where are you going on vacation?” and “What are you watching on television?” No one ever asked Vincent van Gogh about television, but Japan would have been his answer to the first question. The Dutch artist and other Impressionist painters of the time loved the Japanese woodblock prints called ukiyo-e because of their use of light, the landscapes they depicted and the technique for making them. Utagawa Hiroshige’s Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi bridge and Atake inspired Western sensibilities and sparked an interest in travel to Japan. Movies and television are now doing what paintings and books used to do.

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