Yesterday I had one of those days that truly nourishes your soul, your spirit, and everything else.

I visited the Caesar and Cleopatra exhibition at the Historisches Museum der Pfalz in Speyer and, my goodness, it was incredible! You know how these things drive me completely crazy, and how happy I am surrounded by antiquities—and if they're Egyptian antiquities, I'm basically in total ecstasy mode.

I loved how the exhibition is organized, especially how they present the relationship between those two great powers of antiquity: Rome and Alexandria.
Alexandria blew my mind because, honestly, I didn't know that much about its history. What an incredible city! How cosmopolitan it was, its urban organization, the design of its streets... it was the Manhattan of antiquity! Imagine: its famous library with nearly half a million papyrus scrolls (half a million, please!), the great lighthouse that was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, streets perfectly planned in a grid, specific neighborhoods for each cultural community. They even had sewage systems when the rest of the world was still doing their business in any corner!

And then there's her, Cleopatra, who has fascinated me since I was little. Not only for being the last female pharaoh of Egypt (you already know that Ancient Egypt has stolen my heart forever), but for how unfairly history has treated her. Because, of course, history is written by the winners, and the Romans—who won—painted her as a seductress, a femme fatale, manipulative and everything terrible, when the reality is very different.

Did you know that Arab historians like Al-Masudi described her as a woman of brilliant intelligence and extraordinary political wisdom? Even the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who wasn't exactly her number one fan, had to acknowledge her exceptional intellectual training. Even Plutarch had to admit that what made her irresistible wasn't her appearance, but her intelligence and conversation.

Cleopatra VII Philopator was an absolute genius: political strategist, historian, mathematician... And a polyglot at god-level! She spoke several languages, including ancient Egyptian (something no other Ptolemaic ruler had bothered to learn before), Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Ethiopian, Median, Syrian... among others. She could receive ambassadors from half the world and speak to them directly in their language. Can you imagine the look on their faces? Pure diplomatic power.

Her alliance with Caesar and later with Mark Antony... sure, there would have been seduction, they were humans after all (and she was pretty clever, and they were quite conquerable), but Cleopatra's move was a brutal strategic maneuver to maintain Egypt's independence. And she succeeded! Until Rome destroyed everything, of course.

By the way, do you see the necklace I'm wearing in the photos? It's one of my treasures, I bought it in Egypt a couple of years ago and I love it. It was my little tribute to the exhibition, to Egypt, and to Cleo. The Egyptians adored turquoise (color of the sky) and the red of coral (color of life) as symbols of power and protection. So there I was, standing in front of statues more than 2000 years old, with my Egyptian necklace, completely in my element.

Anyway, if you have the opportunity, don't miss visiting this exhibition. It's truly fascinating and absolutely worth it. And if you can't go, at least look up something about Cleopatra beyond the image Hollywood movies have sold us. I assure you, the lady was much more interesting than all that—in fact, I've left some websites below, in case you're interested.