Lyrics “Reasons Not to Be an Idiot” – Frank Turner, 2008
I’ve been back home from my last stint as “Travelling Fangirl” for a good week now and still haven’t shared any photos or stories. From the two Frank Turner gigs I went to or from the two cities I visited – Antwerp and Paris.
So, Antwerp. We went there because Frank Turner played a show, but also because the city itself seemed interesting enough. And it was. So lovely and with so many interesting museums / buildings / churches to see. We only were there for a day and so of course were only able to scratch the surface. I do plan to spend a whole weekend or even a bit longer there next year – preferable in the spring / summer and not November.
Let’s start with my favourite (only to be honest) museum I visited that day. The Museum Plantin-Moreteus, which is a museum about the history of book-printing and within that also about cartography. As someone who loves maps and cartography and books and who is interested in the history of things I was in my absolute nerd heaven. Which I hadn’t even expected to be to be honest. I came back out with the impulse to find non-fiction history books on a variety of subjects, which I felt I don’t know enough about. I admit I haven’t gone searching for those books yet, but I might.
Here are the two things that made my nerd heart soar a bit in this museum, both came as a surprise.
Remember the days – 20 or so years ago – when more and more fonts became available in any kind of word processors or web design software? How many do you really know of, except Times New Roman, Arial and Comic Sans? Did or do you have favourite fonts?
I always had a thing for serif fonts. Not Times New Roman in particular, but others. Georgia is my favourite these days, I think. On this blog I use a font called Libre Baskerville. I must have had a thing for the Garamond font back in the day as well. At least I remember it well. So imagine my delight to see this little label on a wall next to a glass case:
How awesome is that? The mere idea that we are typing our thoughts in a typeface someone had thought of 400 hundred years ago?
The whole process of actually making the metal types being used for printing also was super interesting to read up on and see images off. How they standarized the types so that the letters are all spaced equally in a line / on a page and all that stuff.
The second piece on exhibition which blew my mind was the first ever atlas. Maps collected in one book. Sounds so simple these days. Well for us who learned their geography from maps hang on the wall in a school room and atlases and not through maps on a screen. No judgement for the latter, just a bit of nostalgia.
Abraham Ortelius had the idea to adjust the scale and format of maps to make them fit into one book. It wasn’t even called atlas then. They only came up with that term about 100 years later. And there it was the first ever collection of maps in one book. I did A level geography, so of course my mind was blown.
I could go on and on and on. I won’t, don’t worry. Just trust me that I had a great time and might come back to this place if I visit Antwerp next year again.
The lighting wasn’t always good enough to snap proper photos and I wondered about that and alsovabout health and safety on narrow old stairs and such until I saw this sign 🙂
Anyway here are a few more photos. For some reason I can’t get the gallery working the way I’d like. Maybe in my next post.
And yes, that painting is a Rubens. In a private home of a rich businessman back then. Because, why not?
