It's been a while since I last blogged I see. Been busy and now it's already deadline time again. We're going flat out finishing up Ancient Warfare II-2 ('Victory and Defeat'). I'll update the website for that issue later, but I'll bring you up to speed first with what I've been up to.

The first two weeks of this month were completely taken up by (finally) moving into our new office. We have paid rent since January, but as those things go, it took an age and a half to get the keys, get furniture delivered, internet arranged and such.

But we have now moved in. I have to say, it's great! Much better than running a magazine from my desk in the living room. .. Not to mention the fact that my girlfriend is much happier now that unsightly boxes of magazines, stationary, books and binders have finally left the building. We'll be moving ourselves as well, later this year. This episode has certainly proved that our apartment in the center of the city is great location-wise, but really too small for two tall people, two ferrets and more books than is probably healthy.

Anyways, looks like quite an organized office, doesn't it? Knowing me, I'm sure that won't last too long, but it is really great to be able to go to your own office in the morning. Does that sound odd?

While all this was going on, I made another trip, hunting for items to photograph. I got on the train at 6.49 in the morning, changed trains twice and at 11.35 I was in an other European capital.

Recognize the lampposts on the right? They're really more appropriate for the next issue, as early modern interpretations of the ram / prow of ancient warships. To be fair, although they are a bit fancy, they do look like some of the prows you see depicted on ancient triumphal decorations (and there we're back at Ancient Warfare II-2). For anyone without a naval tic, this next picture is probably more telling. It's a view of the column of Ramses from the gardens of the Tuileries. The Champs d'Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe are in the background and behind me is the Louvre.

Yup, that's right, I had decided visiting the Louvre would be an excellent way to replenish my photo stock for future issues of Ancient Warfare. Well, that's true. It is. It's also a very bad idea to try and do that in one afternoon. The Louvre is big, very big, even huge and a lot of it is filled with artifacts from the Ancient Near East, Greece and Rome. I took some 600 photos in that afternoon and some of those will show up in the coming issues, I'm sure. The next morning I took myself to the village of St.Germain-en-laye, just outside of Paris where the French national archaeological museum is housed. That too is certainly worth a visit, although I was sorry to see that the section on Caesar's gallic wars was closed for renovation.

This museum wasn't that big, so I went back to Paris and went to the Musée de la Marine (the Naval museum) where, I remembered, they used to have a copy of the Athlit ram. Sadly, that wasn't the case anymore, but it is a nice museum with a large number of beautiful, old ship's models and the State Galley of both Napoleon's. Quite spectacular! 

Finally, I visited the Army Museum, at Les Invalides. They do have a collection of ancient equipment as well, but sadly that room was closed for renovation as well. But if you're interested in Medieval and Renaissance armor, oh boy, this is the place to go. Their collection is just mind boggling in size and quality of the armors displayed.

Pretty soon it was time to go off to the train station again collapse, basically. I was back home at 10.30 in the evening with well over 700 new photos. Highlights? The most colorful depiction of combat on an Etruscan urn that I've ever seen, the Ahenobarbus relief when it wasn't being used as a group seat, the Niobid crater with beautiful depictions of various Greek warriors, a helmet mould for a Boeotian helmet (odd, when I was looking for it in Amsterdam ...). There's lots of it and yeah, I can recommend the Louvre. But everyone probably new it was 'worth the detour' in Michelin guide phraseology.