By Richard Varr Corinthian columns stand double-stacked across a wide Roman stage, and although chipped and riddled with cracks, the remarkably well-preserved blue-streaked marble pillars add to the splendor of one of Spain’s most visited landmarks of antiquity: the Roman Theatre of Mérida. “Most of it was hidden in a thick layer of earth…
By John Poimiroo The sonorous tone of mission bells announced arriving travelers along California’s El Camino Real from 1769 to 1834. Increasingly today, the jingle of bicycle bells announce the arrival of cyclists at the 21 Spanish missions beside this Royal Road. Touring the California Mission Trail by cycling or hiking is an “epic adventure”…
San Miguel de Allende lies in the Eastern part of Mexico’s State of Guanajuato, about a three-hour journey from Mexico City. It’s a cobblestoned colonial town with pastel-colored buildings that has changed a lot over the past century yet remained remarkably the same. The city’s main square, or Jardin Principal, is canopied by trees. It’s a popular local hangout where Mariachi bands roam about awaiting paying customers. On the Northern corner stands the majestic Catholic church, Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel.
By Teresa Bergen Jason Spoolstra stands with his back to a mural of Jesus welcoming Stanley Rother into heaven. He is introducing a tour group to more than 20 martyrs depicted on the mural. “We’re going to start on the right,” says Spoolstra, the Rother shrine’s director of pilgrimage. “The gentleman closest to Jesus, he’s…
By Toby Saltzman What sounded like a pickup line turned out to be friendly banter from a local who enjoys meeting visitors in his quiet Mississippi River town. Seated on the step of a yellow clapboard house, smile lines wrinkling around blue eyes, he called out, “How y’all doin,’ lovely lady? Are ya off the…
By Nancy Wigston East of the wine-making capital of Bordeaux and north of the Canal de Garonne lies the River Lot, the seventh longest in France. Every day vacationers fresh off the fast train from Paris hop aboard boats on the Lot bound for a romantically medieval landscape that once belonged to English kings. Legendary…
When gold was discovered in a frigid creek running through the Sierra Nevada foothills in January of 1848, a headlong Gold Rush began that soon would change the American West. By the following year, hardscrabble prospectors called “49ers” were discovering gold, silver, copper, lead and other valuable metals in isolated canyons bypassed by earlier pioneers. Today, many 19th-century mining communities are eerie ghost towns whose storied pasts consist of crumbling foundations, swirling dust and dangerous fissures. And yet, over the course of time, as decades become eras before turning into centuries, a few towns have survived the sun, storms and inattention.
Romania conjures mysterious and sinister images of Count Dracula and the Transylvanian forests. The foreboding Bran Castle high in the Carpathian Mountains certainly looks like the location of Irish writer Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Stoker’s story of vampires rising from their coffins is an invented tale. But in autumn when twilight comes early it’s easy to imagine ghostly spirits of the undead lurking in the shadows.
Yet the Bucharest I saw was a bustling metropolis with museums and traffic jams, wide boulevards and cobblestone streets, good restaurants and late-night clubs. And a handful of lakes and gardens.
By Tom Adkinson As I navigated the International African American Museum’s intellectually challenging artifacts and displays, a scene that lasted only a few moments captivated me. A Black man, perhaps in his 60s, stood at a floor-to-ceiling window and gazed out on Charleston Harbor. He was watching a hulking cargo ship approach, carrying who knows…
Petra’s fascination today lies not in its association with Indiana Jones but with lingering echoes of the Nabatean civilization that softly murmur at the end of the day when shadows envelop the terraced caves wealthy merchants once called home. Read More