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Category / Off-Beat & Little Known

The Disappearing Membership Cafés of Provence

The village of Gordes in Provence is one of the most beautiful & charming in a part of France that’s teeming with small towns that are … well, beautiful and charming. Perched high on the slopes of the Monts de Vaucluse, Gordes is a treasure trove of narrow, winding cobbled streets, crammed with old homes…

The Alluring Art of Fake Food in Japan

They say we first eat with our eyes, and no one seems to understand this better than the Japanese restaurant industry. From a pot of thick gravy mid-pour over a perfectly cooked steak to an ice cream sundae with everything on it– you name it, they’ll make a plastic replica for it. Sampuru, derived from the English word…

A Buried “Daytime Hotel” rediscovered in all its Art Nouveau Splendour

It was built to provide a moment of rest and rejuvenation for citizens going about their day in the big city; a temporary home away from home for travellers arriving in Milan to find their feet. Welcome to “L’Albergo Diurno Metropolitano”, which literally translates to the Daytime Metropolitan Hotel. Situated beneath Piazzale Venezia in Milan, indeed, it…

Rosa Bonheur’s Chateau is a Time Capsule Waiting to be Discovered

Rosa Bonheur was one of the most popular artists of the 19th Century. Not only was her work being sold and seen around the world, songs were composed about her and dolls were made in her image. Today, some of Paris’ most thriving bars and nightclubs are named after her. But her artistic merit has…

The Lost Art of the Miniature Golf Course

They go large in the States – even when it comes to the small stuff. And perhaps nowhere is that more true than with a particularly kitsch specimen of American vernacular architecture, the miniature golf course. A period of history defined by the automobile and the ease of travel it allowed, post-WW2 prosperity led to…

The World’s Oldest Pharmacy, Still Selling Potions for Graverobbers and Queens

Once upon a time, the pharmaceutical industry was entirely in the hands of monks and nuns, and monasteries were at the cutting edge of intellectual learning and medicinal practice. Medieval medicine in Western Europe was composed of a mixture of pseudoscientific ideas from antiquity and medieval monasteries gained access to Ancient Greek medical works by the 6th century.…

When in Rome, Discover Hollywood on the Tiber

Italian cinema is synonymous with hauntingly special silver screen moments, the stuff that flashbulb memories are made of. Who could possibly forget the larger than life screen goddess Anita Ekberg – all platinum locks, bare shoulders and curvaceous black dress in Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita? Or the doe-eyed flamboyant gamine Audrey Hepburn on her…

Tucked away in a Florentine Medici Villa is the World’s Rarest Citrus Collection

The dynasty of the lemon has fallen from the aristocratic tree and now occupies the common ground of contemporary cuisine. Lost to us are its exotic cousins, the strange fruits of all sizes, colours and shapes with the family name Citron, not lemon. Together with olives and garlic the now humbled lemon is perhaps the…

How the World’s Largest West African Voodoo Collection Ended up in a Water Tower in France

Strasbourg is famous for its massive Christmas markets, white wines and fairytale architecture, but this city also has a unexpected cultural treasure – hidden in a 17th century water tower. The Chateau Vodou is home to the largest collection of Voodoo artifacts (Vodou is the French spelling) in the world. It includes over 1,200 pieces,…

Stargazing for Aliens, not Celebrities, on the French Riviera

As it turns out, the French Riviera caters to more than a few of our favourite holiday past-times: channeling Brigitte Bardot, building sand castles at the beach and … tracking down aliens? About an hour north of the seaside city of Nice, into the mountainous terrain where Provence meets the Cote d’Azur; at the end of a…

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