We arrive at Madrid airport on July 13th after a two-hour flight. Already the heat is intense! A young girl singles us out from the mass of tourists and businessmen. Alberto, one of the organisers of the festival has sent her, to accompany us to the small village of Tarançon, 100 km south of Madrid, where the festival will take place. Upon arrival we are led to the festival's headquarters, the local arts centre, where Alberto is waiting for us. Kadmon from Allerseelen is there, as well as the musicians from Hekate. Unavoidably the discussions turn to this year's Wave Gotik Treffen in Leipzig....... but no danger here, this festival's organising committee is rather reduced and the number of expected visitors far smaller. We spend the day reconnoitring the place and helping our friends. The evening is spent in the company of our friends from Rosa Crux, Allerseelen and Elijah Mantle drinking beer and eating excellent Tapas.

Friday: When we finally get out of bed on this first day of the festival, the sun is already high in the sky. We attend the press conference given about the whole Europa Arcana project and later the completely acoustic concert of Ataraxia at the central place of the village. On the whole a rather strange public attending this concert: girls in black lace dresses mingle with old Spanish matrons, young mind-warriors wearing paramilitary uniforms with the local farmers. Apart from the miserable sound-engineer (an deplorable local and his son, their only experience coming from occasional village fiestas), the concert is exceptional and we get the impression to have been taken back in time, this feeling reinforced by the seclusion of the location, the proximity of the village church and the rural habitations.
After this we direct our steps to the community centre where an exhibition features young Spanish artists. Some of these are really gifted (especially Raul Moreira), presenting melancholic and sombre works, artfully avoiding the clichés of the dark scene. Still at the same place we attend a lecture of Iberian poems by Lord Mephisto of Cirene, accompanied by sparse guitar sounds. The performance is really impressive. Lacking the courage to hide in dark of the cinema (watching Eisenstein films) or to attend other conferences, we take a stroll round to the pavilion of stands where we meet some friends from Barcelona as well as some band-members from Rosa Crux, with whom we pass some time conversing.
Only a few paces away busses are waiting to take us to the big concert location: the roman amphitheatre Segrobiga, a remarkable archaeological site. The place is magic, only old stones in the middle of a deserted landscape, and amongst them a public whose looks are very adapted to enchantment this location creates.
At dusk the formation Kulgrinda starts a pagan ritual: traditional chants and dances in the honour of Mother Earth. Very beautiful and moving!
After that it's the turn of Morpheus, a Dark-Ambiant Madrilean project.... not bad, but really a bit too repetitive and static. Taking a closer look at our surroundings in the setting sun, we find that the place is getting crowded. Amongst the public we happen upon Manuel and Elena from Camerata Mediolanense, Dario from Militia and Miguel from the Zero shop in Barcelona, and together we pass some time in animated and interesting discussions. At nightfall Elijah Mantle give their first concert. A female voice, a male voice, a violoncello, percussions and a piano accompany the singer. Their performance is really extraordinary, magic and romantic. The public is ecstatic and can't get enough of the band. The evening closes with the concert of Rosa Crux, who unfortunately have to use pre-recorded percussions instead of their famous electromechanical orchestra because of a technical problem concerning the power of their machines. For the famous Earth Dance all the dancers join in an enormous banner dance.

Saturday: We begin this day at the Casa Parada, with poems from Morpheus (better than the concert) and Mark St. John Ellis (singer of Elijah Mantle). The latter recites poems from Baudelaire in a beautiful grave voice - unfortunately in English and not French, in which language they have a particularly entrancing rhythm. After a dip in the pool we take the bus to the Segrobiga site.
The evening starts with a performance of the Portuguese Sangre Cavallum, playing a particularly original Dark-Folk mixing the traditional music of their country with sparse guitar sounds and military percussions.
At dusk Allerseelen come on stage. For this special occasion the percussionists from Hekate accompany Kadmon and they play the entire new album Neuschwabenland. When Ataraxia begin their concert the moon has already risen high in the night-sky. What can be said about this quartet? Simply magnificent! We had already seen other concerts of this Neo-Medieval formation, but this time they surpassed themselves. Francesca Nicoli managed not to overdo the effects of her voice, staying mainly in the low repertoire, and the integration of the new percussionist is really amazing. They are rewarded with a very enthusiastic public.
Tony Wakeford and his Sol Invictus close the evening. As always their concert is extraordinary (this time with an interpretation of Black Easter), however we found the performance a bit less intense than usual - but maybe the lateness of the hour and the heat contributed to tire the nice Tony.
After this concert we go back to Tarançon where a DJ set awaits your faithful DJ Antz at the closing party. Given this public I can indulge totally in European, ritual, medieval music, Neo-Folk and Electro-Industrial... as do many other DJs of this evening. Unfortunately the next DJ plays a very mediocre set (German Dark-Wave and English Gothic-Rock from the early 90'), which lessened the magic of this evening a bit and was a real shame for the people having come from Madrid especially for this party.

The following morning we had to get up early because two exiting days of visiting Madrid in the company of Manuel and Elena from Camerata and Kadmon awaited us......but this is another story...