Traveling to a Conference by Land

I participated in an international conference on cultural history (ADHC/ISCH 2026) in Paris in early September. The trip was otherwise a fairly ordinary work trip, except that this time I traveled by land from Finland to France and back. I’ve been curious about train travel for a long time, and I thought this would be a good opportunity to see how it is to travel like this. The University of Turku also encourages us to avoid flying.

Last winter, our group of eight Finnish scholars of antiquity applied to attend the conference. We also planned our travel and accommodation together. Juha, Saara and I agreed to travel to Paris by train, and Juha and I would also take the train back (Saara had to fly home because of her schedule). Juha is an experienced train traveler and took care of all the travel arrangements: he checked the timetables and connections, bought the ferry and train tickets, and booked an Airbnb. It was really easy and pleasant to travel under Juha’s expert guidance.

From Turku to Stockholm by ferry (Viking Grace)

The journey began with the evening ferry from Turku to Stockholm on Sunday, 6th September. We arrived in Stockholm early at 7:30 a.m. We had almost the entire day before our train departed, so we took our time over breakfast at a nice café, wandered around Södermalm, sat in a library, and had Indian food for lunch. In the afternoon, we walked through the Old Town to the railway station where we boarded the night train to Hamburg at around 4:30 p.m. It was a very traditional sleeper train, which rattled, swayed, and made a lot of noise. We nevertheless had a great time admiring the scenery and enjoying the offerings in the restaurant car.

Tranströmer Library at Södermalm

Snälltåget night train to Hamburg

The cabin had six berths in total, but luckily there were only three of us

After a restless night’s sleep, we had to get up at the crack of dawn to get off the train in Hamburg at around 5 a.m. After three hours of dozing at the station, we boarded a train to Frankfurt, where we continued our journey to Paris on a French TGV. There were no major surprises on the way, and we arrived in Paris more or less on schedule on Tuesday afternoon. From Gare de l’Est, we took the metro to our accommodation in Aubervilliers, a suburb of Paris. We were greeted by a somewhat austere but practical apartment in block of flats, clearly furnished specifically for short-term rentals. It had a mixed assortment of furniture and the kitchen was rather sparsely equipped. However, the apartment had good metro connections to both the conference and the center of Paris, and sharing the accommodation kept the cost down.

The only rain we got on the way to Paris caught
us just as we were trying to get into our accommodation.

Our apartment in Paris

Aubervilliers

On Wednesday, we had a full day off before the conference began. Being tired from traveling, we slept in and didn’t set off until around noon. Like proper tourists, we chose the Louvre as our destination even though we had visited it before. The collections there are so vast that there is plenty to see over multiple visits. We explored the Greek and Roman antiquities and French painting sections, among others, sometimes together and sometimes separately. After more than six hours at the museum, we set off in search of somewhere to eat south of the Seine. Maria joined us there; she had travelled from Rome to Paris on Wednesday and was staying with us. We ate at a Mexican restaurant and then returned to our accommodation.

The balloon that served as the Olympic cauldron during
the 2024 Olympics in the Tuileries Garden

Painting depicting the sights of Rome (Giovanni Paolo Panini, 1759)

The Seine

On Thursday the conference finally began. The venue was Campus Condorcet, part of a new campus complex in Aubervilliers. The conference program got off to a late start as the time and location of the welcome session had been changed at the last minute. Half of our Finnish delegation nevertheless got down to business right after that. In our first panel, Juha, Suvi, Jasmin and Enni gave excellent presentations on the portrayal of enemies in ancient Greek sources, nymphs in Augustan literature, foreign royal hostages in Roman sources, and the influence of Greco-Roman ideas about well-being on modern architecture in Finland. During the day, I also listened to several other presentations related to antiquity. In the evening, our entire conference group went out for dinner together.

Thursday's panelists

Our Finnish delegation at dinner
(photo: Jasmin Lukkari)

On Friday, an interesting-sounding keynote lecture on migration and identities in antiquity was scheduled. The lecture had an English title in the program, but when the invited speaker began she announced that she had decided to give the lecture in French after all. She had prepared an English translation of her lecture, however, and offered to display it on the screen for us to read while she delivered the lecture in French. I decided not to stay and instead went for an early lunch.

In the afternoon, it was time for our second panel, in which Maria, Saara, Roosa and I gave papers. The topics covered the agency of practitioners of magic, the status of children in Roman religion, Martial’s poetic identity, and good and bad emperors in Late Antiquity. We were pleased with how both of our panels turned out. They had coherent themes, we stayed on schedule, the papers were of a high standard, and they stimulated good discussions. It was a shame, though, that there were rather few people in the audience. The conference as a whole seemed to suffer from low attendance, even though almost 200 people had registered for the conference.

Fridya's panelists
(photo: Juha Isotalo)

After Friday’s program ended, many of us headed to Montmartre. We visited the Sacré-Coeur Basilica, admired the views from the hill, and had dinner at a North African couscous restaurant. On our way to the restaurant, we noticed a commemorative plaque on the slope of the Sacré-Coeur hill explaining that fossil discoveries made there had inspired the development of modern paleontology.

The Sacré-Coeur Basilica

Commemorative plaque about the origins of paleontology

There were still some presentations scheduled for Saturday morning, but I decided to skip them and instead went with Roosa to the enormous antiques market at Saint-Ouen. This Parisian suburb is famous for its flea markets and antique shops, which spread across several blocks. We only had the energy to explore the shop-lined streets of one block and a couple of covered markets. It was fascinating to see the kinds of things that were for sale—and just how much of it there was—even though I ultimately didn’t buy anything.

The outdoor antiques market at Saint-Ouen

On Saturday afternoon, the conference program included some guided excursions. A few of us had chosen a tour of the Richelieu site of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. According to the information we had received beforehand, the groups were supposed to leave the campus at 2 p.m., but I noticed one group setting off as early as 1:40. I soon found my own group which was also getting ready to leave, even though not everyone had arrived yet. Apparently, the change of schedule had been mentioned during the previous day’s keynote lecture, but the information had not reached me. We nevertheless left at around 1:45, and no one even checked whether everyone who had registered for the excursion was there. To make matters worse, we had to pay for our own metro tickets to get to the site.

The library itself was magnificent and well worth seeing. The guided tour was interesting, although our young guide struggled somewhat with her English. As part of the tour, we also got to visit the library’s museum which contains a large collection of Greek and Roman artefacts. After the tour, we stayed in central Paris and met up for dinner with some of the others, who had visited the Musée de Cluny and gone book shopping instead of attending the guided tours. 

The Labrouste Reading Room at the National Library

Our group with our guide in the library lobby

Dinner at a Greek restaurant
(photo: Juha Isotalo)

For some members of our group, the journey home came sooner than for others. Suvi left on Saturday afternoon, while Roosa, Maria and Jasmin left on Sunday. The rest of us spent Sunday in Paris. Saara, Juha and I visited the Musée d’Orsay which we explored for about three hours. There would have been much more to see but travel fatigue started to catch up with us. In addition to the masterpieces of French painting and sculpture, the building itself made a strong impression: it is a magnificent combination of late-19th-century steel architecture and modern museum interior. This former railway station is worth seeing in its own right. After the museum, we had a late lunch with Enni. We then returned to Aubervilliers, where we spent the evening in the garden of the Airbnb rented by Enni and Suvi, just a couple of blocks from our own accommodation.

The Musée d’Orsay building served as a railway station from 1900 to 1939

“The colours in this painting are really beautiful!”
(photo: Juha Isotalo)

Monday morning meant that it was time for the last of us to leave Paris. Enni and Saara flew home, while Juha and I headed to Gare de l’Est early in the morning. The route and connections were the same as on the way to Paris but in reverse: first a train from Paris to Hamburg via Frankfurt, then a night train from Hamburg to Stockholm, and finally a ferry to Turku. One memorable moment from the first train was when a fellow passenger asked us two Finns to be more quiet in an otherwise completely silent carriage. Apparently, we still have something to learn about French train etiquette.

A quick lunch at Frankfurt railway station,
where we had a layover of about a half hour

We arrived in Hamburg at around 5:30 p.m. with about six hours to spare before our next train. We decided to visit Miniatur Wunderland, one of Hamburg’s—and apparently Germany’s—most popular attractions. In the halls of a former industrial building, enormous and incredibly detailed miniature worlds have been built depicting different continents and cities. You can spot the Swiss Alps, the sights of Rome, casinos of Las Vegas, Pompeii and Vesuvius, Norwegian fjords, and all sorts of other places. Trains, cars, and other mechanical contraptions are constantly moving around, and everywhere you look there are amusing scenes and little details to discover. We could easily have spent the whole day there but we only had two hours before the exhibition closed.

Miniatur Wunderland, one of the absolute highlights of the entire trip!
(photo: Juha Isotalo)

Monks tinkering with the Pope’s popemobile outside St. Peter’s Basilica

They took some artistic liberties with Pompeii (and many other places),
but you can still recognize a lot of the details.

Around midnight, we continued our journey on the night train to Stockholm. This time, there was no need to get up early—we could sleep in until breakfast around 10 a.m. We arrived in Stockholm just before 2 p.m., about an hour behind schedule. This was the only significant delay of the entire journey, and it didn’t affect our travel plans because Juha had planned sufficiently long connections for us. We had lunch in the Old Town, and I went to buy a painting I had seen in April during a holiday in Stockholm. We whiled away the time here and there until it was time to board the ferry to Turku in the evening. We arrived in Turku early on Wednesday, 16th September.

Shopping for art at Antikaffären PHM
(photo: Juha Isotalo)

We stopped for a drink at Pastis, a Parisian-style restaurant
(photo: Juha Isotalo)

The actual reason for the trip—the conference, whose organization left quite a lot to be desired—ultimately wasn’t the most important part of the experience. Much more valuable was getting to spend time with friends and colleagues, discuss and exchange ideas, and take a break from everyday routine. I believe that many of the conversations we had during the trip will lead to plenty of fruitful things professionally as well in the future.

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Research Trip to Rome

I spent almost the entire month of June at the Finnish Institute in Rome doing research. I worked on my dissertation and gathered research literature in local libraries. I hadn't planned to visit Pompeii this time, but I ended up there anyway guiding a group of the institute's teacher training course. I also saw many new archaeological sites and museums and much more.

I didn't travel directly to Rome but first spent a couple of days in Munich visiting some famous museums I have long wanted to see. I arrived on Friday May 29th, and during the weekend I admired ancient sculptures in the Glyptothek, other ancient artifacts in the Staatliche Antikensammlungen museum, and more recent paintings in the Alte Pinakothek. I also visited a few churches and went swimming in the Isar River which flows through the city.

Sculptures at the Glyptothek

The banks of the Isar River are popular swimming spots

On Sunday evening, I boarded a night train that went directly from Munich to Rome. I had a single berth, which is apparently a fairly new form of travel. Instead of a four-person cabin, the same space is divided into separate bunks, which are accessed directly from the corridor. The cabin is not the most comfortable in the world – it is a bit difficult to get to the top bunk, the space is quite narrow, the pillow and blanket are thin, a large suitcase has to be placed in a separate carriage – but it offers privacy and peace. The price includes a modest breakfast (coffee/tea and a bread roll with spreads). From the small window in the cabin, I watched the nighttime alpine landscape and illuminated villages as the train meandered along the Austrian mountains.

There was storage space for small items in the compartments between the beds

Fortunately, I had my own pillow with me on the trip

After a somewhat restless night's sleep, I arrived in Rome on Monday morning at around 11 am (a little behind schedule). From there, I headed to Villa Lante, which I saw for the first time since the renovation. The house and its courtyards look mostly the same as before, but they have received a considerable facelift. From the resident's perspective, the most important change is the air conditioning in the guest rooms, which really came in handy during the June heat. Another significant difference is the residents' kitchen, which has been moved from the upper floors of the dormitory down to the ground floor where the former caretaker's apartment was. This change is welcome, even though reaching the kitchen now requires climbing down the stairs a few floors. The noise from the kitchen doesn't disturb the residents, and there is direct access to the pleasant new backyard terrace. The institute's other gardens are now also freely available to the residents.

I stayed in an apartment that is usually used by an artist at the institute.
It had a separate study and a private bathroom!

The new resident's terrace

The main reason for my trip was to work on my dissertation in the libraries of Rome. I had a long list of research literature that I had not been able to get my hands on elsewhere, most of which I knew could be found in Rome. The library of Villa Lante had some of these, but the collections most relevant to my research are in libraries such as the American Academy in Rome and the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (DAI). I visited these several times. The American Academy has become particularly familiar because it is just a stone's throw from Villa Lante on the Gianicolo hill. The DAI, on the other hand, is further away on the other side of Rome. During my month-long stay, I found almost everything I was looking for and many works that I was not aware of.

The library of Villa Lante

The library of American Academy

An interesting conference was held at the Swedish Institute in Rome during my visit to Rome (see program). The conference was themed after the recently deceased Swedish scholar Bengt E. Thomasson. I attended a few lectures which included discussions on Thomasson’s life’s work, Swedish epigraphic research, and the connections between epigraphy and epigrammatic poetry. I also met scholars who, like me, are studying inscriptions and the poems of Martial.

During the first two weeks of June, a course for teachers of history and social studies was held at Villa Lante, led mainly by the institute’s vice director. Many of us visiting scholars were also asked to participate in the course by giving lectures and guiding the group. I had the opportunity to take the participants to Pompeii where we spent a sunny Friday. At the end of the tour, we happened to meet an American research team who were presenting their excavation project to the public. They were acquainted with Finnish researchers from Villa Lante, and one of them said he was interested in Pompeian insults. I promised to contact him later.

Guiding teachers in Pompeii. Photo: Olli Taskilahti

Archaeologist Allison Emmerson presenting their project
investigating one city block in Pompeii (I 14)

Our group stayed overnight in a hotel in the center of modern Pompeii, where we saw, among other things, campaign events for the local mayoral election. Next day, I guided the group through the Naples Archaeological Museum. After the guided tours, I stayed in Naples with a colleague while the teachers headed back to Rome. On Sunday, we visited Herculaneum and the nearby Reggia di Portici palace, which served as the first storage site and museum for the Herculaneum finds in the 18th century.

Herculaneum

The Reggia di Portici palace now houses
the Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Naples

Although I have spent a total of almost two years in Rome in varying periods, there is always something new to see there. This time I got to see, among other things, a Roman necropolis under the Vatican parking garage, Roman houses and parts of an aqueduct under modern houses near the Trevi Fountain, the museum exhibitions at the stations of the new subway line C, the newly opened museum in the Basilica of Neptune behind the Pantheon, and the renovated museum of Ostia. We also visited the Cinecittà studios, where a huge number of Italian and international films and TV series have been filmed. The most interesting thing was getting a guided tour of the sets depicting ancient Rome, where, for example, HBO's Rome and Ridley Scott's Gladiator have been filmed. The Rome Pride also took place in June. This was the fourth time I attended the event.

The Vatican necropolis

Remains of a Roman house and other artifacts
at the new subway station by the Colosseum

The set of ancient Rome at Cinecittà studios

Rome Pride 2026

I also had time to visit the Porta Portese market

In addition to working and sightseeing, an essential part of living at the institute are its residents, with whom it was again a pleasure to spend these weeks in Rome. Some were old acquaintances, but I got to know many new ones during shared dinners and excursions. The meetings with other researchers were also important. Once again, the visit to Rome gave me much more than I expected. Still, it was nice to return from the heat of Rome to Finland for my summer holidays.

The institute's summer party was held mid-June

Ice cream helped me cope on the hottest days

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Editing a Book: Experiences and Surprises

Last autumn, a non-fiction book about Gaius Julius Caesar was published, which I edited together with Maria Jokela. This was my first experience with editing a non-fiction book – in fact, with any kind of editorial work. I had some idea about the role of an editor, but I learned a lot during the project, and there were many surprises along the way. For example, I never could have imagined that I would later be receiving an award for this book.

Kirjan julkaisua juhlittiin moneen otteeseen viime syksynä

The idea for the book originated within the Department of Classics at the University of Turku, when in the spring 2023 we were planning a seminar about Caesar titled Julius noster for the following autumn. The topics of the seminar presentations seemed suitable as chapters in a non-fiction book. Maria and I seized the idea and started outlining the book. During the summer, we invited additional writers, and by late summer, we approached the academic publisher Gaudeamus, who immediately took interest in our book proposal. After that, the project moved forward at a good pace, and the book was published two years later, just in time for the 2025 autumn book fairs.

My presentation at the Julius noster seminar in September 2023

I knew that the editor’s job involves keeping the project on track and acting as a point of contact between both the publisher and the writers. The editor is mainly responsible for ensuring that the book turns out as intended in terms of the text, structure, and layout. Especially for a non-fiction book aimed at a broad audience, it is important to have a smooth and coherent overall narrative, with a writing style that fits the target audience. This requires the editor to read and comment on the chapters written by others during the project's various phases. I was lucky to share this editing task with my colleague Maria. Our collaboration worked seamlessly from the start.

Maria and I often sat in the department's coffee room or
meeting spaces working on the book. Here we were drafting
the book proposal for the publisher in August 2023.

One clear challenge was the large group of writers. There were 16 of us in total, and we had to coordinate the content of the chapters, work phases, and deadlines with everyone, as well as develop each chapter. Maria and I read and commented on the chapters several times at different stages of the project. We also gathered with the writers at the University of Turku in September 2024 to discuss the book and its chapters. For some chapters, the structure and content came together easily, while others required more work. There was also the task of cutting out redundancies and repetitions from the chapters. Even though we had to occasionally remind everyone about deadlines, the work progressed well on schedule. The manuscript was sent to the publisher for peer review just before Christmas 2024.

The writers at the University of Turku in September 2024.
Some of the writers participated remotely. Photo: Jaana Vaahtera

It was no surprise that the book’s overall structure changed quite a bit during the project. Initially, we had planned to organize the chapters into four thematic sections. However, one of the peer reviewers suggested changes which resulted in the rearrangement of several chapters and the division of the book into three themes: Caesar’s life, writings, and legacy. The structure became much more coherent and functional as a result of these changes. Based on the feedback from the peer reviewers, we also rewrote the introduction almost entirely and added an epilogue to the book.

What I learned the most about was the later stages of the project, specifically the peer review process and working on the manuscript with the copy editor to finalize it for publication. I knew roughly what peer review meant, but this was the first time I saw how it is actually carried out and how it affected the text and structure of the book. As editors, our job was to convey the feedback to the authors and later to compile a summary of the changes for the publisher.

Many cups of tea were consumed while working on the book,
usually from this mug decorated with Shakespearean insults

It was only after the peer review in spring 2025 that we were assigned a copy editor. Until then, all communication had been with the publishing director, Leena Kaakinen. Before this project, I had imagined that the copy editor would be part of the process much earlier. However, in hindsight, it is understandable that the authors are responsible for the manuscript until the book has passed the review process and is approved for publication. The final publishing contract was also signed after the peer review in March 2025. 

A toast to the publishing contract on March 14th, on the eve of the Ides of March!

In late spring, we began refining the manuscript for publication with our copy editor, Olga Poropudas. She did thorough work on the text and also handled the layout for both the print and digital editions of the book. We worked on the book cover, illustrations, and maps together with Elina Blomqvist and Teemu Ojanne. The publisher's graphic designers took care of the final visuals of the cover and the maps. Later on, we also worked with the audiobook narrator, Markus Bäckman, for example, to ensure the correct pronunciation of Latin quotes. It was a diverse group of people at the publisher who worked on the book, and I am extremely pleased with the outcome, both for the printed book and the audiobook. 

Illustrations were a key part of the book, as we wanted to visually illustrate the book’s themes and also to highlight material sources that survive from antiquity such as buildings, sculptures, coins, and inscriptions. Maria and I gathered images from our own archives, the archives of our writers, and from online resources. One unexpected task related to the illustrations was writing so-called "alt-texts" (alternative texts). These are necessary for screen reader programs which read the book aloud and describe the content of the images to readers with visual impairments. Another challenge involved the Asterix comics, as using images from them required obtaining permissions and licenses from the rights holders in France. Fortunately, the publisher deemed this effort and cost worthwhile, and we were able to include a couple of excerpts from the Asterix comics in the book.

All the Caesar-related illustrations we gathered
(like this one and the ones below) ultimately did not make it into the book

During the summer of 2025, we continued working hard on the finalizing the book. We compiled various supplementary materials, such as a list of sources and abbreviations. We had two student assistants, Taika Sillanpää and Niko Tiainen, who helped with this. Maria and I also wrote a short glossary and introductions to the key figures in the book. At the same time, the copy editor worked on the text with us and the authors. In early August, we received a draft layout of the book to review, which still required quite a bit of tweaking. Once the text and layout were finalized, the final task was to compile the index. 

We were relieved when the book finally went to print at the beginning of September. Of course, the editor’s job didn’t end there; we still had various tasks related to the book’s marketing. However, for most of September, we were just anxiously waiting to see if the book would be ready in time for the book fairs. On October 1st, we received word that the book had come from the press, just in time for the Turku Book Fair, which took place on 3–5 October. At the fair, we finally got to hold the book in our hands. We were also interviewed by the reporter Juha Roiha on Saturday afternoon, when the fair was already quite crowded, and we had a good number of listeners.

The editors being interviewed at the Turku Book Fair

Signing copies of the new book at the Turku Book Fair

After the fair, the book was featured in an event organized by Paideia, The Classical Association of Turku, which attracted nearly 70 listeners to the Turku City Library. The following week, we celebrated the book’s release at the University of Turku. At the end of October, we represented the book at the Helsinki Book Fair. At the start of the book project, we had discussed with the publisher that the book would be a part of the fairs, but I didn't imagine that I would be representing the book as a speaker. The biggest surprise, however, was still to come.

Interview together with Jaakkojuhani Peltonen at the Helsinki Book Fair

Just before the Helsinki Book Fair, we learned that the our book had been chosen as one of the five nominees for the Kanava Prize for the best Finnish biographical book of the year. The nominees were announced at the Helsinki Book Fair on October 23rd. We were extremely honored that our book had been nominated alongside many much more famous authors. However, the real bombshell came in November when Suvi-Anne Siimes, who was appointed to choose the winner, decided to award the Kanava Prize to our book. This kind of recognition was something I never would have expected! The award was a clear acknowledgment that the diligent work we put into the book paid off and that the results were visible to the readers as well.

Kanava Prize nominees at the Helsinki Book Fair.

The Kanava Prize was awarded on November 18th in Helsinki

In addition to the book fairs and the Kanava Prize, the book has also received attention in various media. Maria was interviewed in the radio by reporter Kalle Haatanen and later also appeared on the Parlatorio podcast produced by the Finnish Institute in Rome. A few newspaper and blog articles about the book have also been published. See the links below.

Making the book was an exciting challenge that taught me a lot. At the same time, it was at times arduous and time-consuming. After all, we editors and writers all worked on this book alongside our main jobs. This is typical in academia and especially when it comes to popularizing science. Nevertheless, I consider the time spent on making the book a good investment, as the final result is great and brings visibility both to the book’s authors and to the research on antiquity more broadly. I am, however, relieved that this book project is over and that I can fully focus on writing my PhD dissertation. This book still requires a lot of work! 

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The book can be bought at most Finnish book shops and agencies. An e-book and an audiobook is available at the publisher's webshop. The audiobook is also available in most audiobook services.

About the book:

Sanahirviö: Asterix-luvun kirjoittamisesta Gaius Julius Caesar ‑tietokirjaan (9.10.2025)

Gaudeamus: Kanava-palkinto Gaius Julius Caesar -teokselle (18.11.2025)

Suomen Kuvalehti: SK:n journalistipalkinto Petri Kejoselle – SK palkitsi pitkän linjan radiojournalistin. Kanava-palkinto myönnettiin Julius Caesar -tietokirjalle (18.11.2025)

Kalle Haatanen: Gaius Julius Caesar (26.11.2025)

Uusi suomi, Puheenvuoro-blogi: Nerokas valtiomies ja kalju avionrikkoja (26.11.2025)

Kulttuuritoimitus: Sotapäällikkö, latinisti ja naistennaurattaja – arviossa Gaius Julius Caesar: Rooman diktaattorin monet kasvot (10.12.2025)

Verkkouutiset: Gaius Julius Caesaria jäljittelivät monet – Suomalaistutkijoiden Caesar-analyysi on vertaansa vailla (25.1.2026)

Parlatorio-podcast: Gaius Julius Caesar (29.1.2026)

Tainan ja Tommin aarrearkku -blogi: Kaikkien aikojen Caesar (25.2.2026)

Maaseudun tulevaisuus: Julius Caesaria herjattiin homosuhteesta, kaljuudesta ja ihokarvojen nyppimisestä (28.2.2026)

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