Update from his Ghost Town: Time Capsules, Mine Exploration & Disaster

It’s been 7 months since our Zoom Date with the guy who bought a ghost town and 8 months since he started living there alone as the pandemic took hold of the United States. A lot has happened in the abandoned mining town of Cerro Gordo since. We’ll start with the bad heartbreaking news. The…

I Went to Rome’s Last Surviving Adult Theatre So You Don’t Have To

The Romans are famous for a lot of things – building and conquering empires, trade, art, food – and don’t forget sex! Pompeii was excavated at the end of the 19th century and the archeologists who uncovered the city found themselves surrounded by erotic images at every turn. For more than a hundred years, there…

Vacationing with Wes Anderson: The American Motel Edition

Wes Anderson did it again with another eye-feast of aesthetics in “Asteroid City”, set in futuristic quasi-mid-century Southwestern United States, a barren desert setting reminiscent of New Mexico or Arizona. He’s made us want to pack some hard-sided suitcases, load up the station wagon, and get our kicks back on Route 66. After watching Asteroid…

A Taste of Vintage Italia

Let’s not pretend that a summer in Italy doesn’t revolve around food, food … and food, discovering charming family-run restaurants and uncovering the secret pasta recipes of Italian grandmothers from Milan to the caves of Matera. But this is not your stereotypical Italian story of family and good food. At Osteria del Castello, housed inside an old court of a…

The Restaurant that Grills its Food over a Volcano

It’s about that time of year again when we’re dusting off our BBQs and getting ready to fire up the grill to see who can turn out the most badass backyard burgers this summer. But I don’t suppose you have a volcano in your backyard, do you…? Didn’t think so. So let’s hop over to…

Remains of an Underwater Habitat left by 1960s Sea Dwellers

It was an ambitious, otherwordly idea, dreamt up by American military physician, Dr. Bond, deemed too risky and ultimately rejected by the US Navy. Bond then turned to French diving/ filmmaking pioneer Jacques Cousteau and his ‘Calypso’ diving team, who accepted the challenge, never before attempted by man, to build an underwater colony where divers…

Once Upon a Time in Krakow at the Old Jewish Quarter Café

Once Upon a Time in Kazimierz, a little restaurant in the heart of Krakow’s old Jewish ghetto, is better than most museums. Set inside a row of recreated, turn-of-the-19th-century Jewish traders’ shops, it’s arguably one of the smallest restaurants in the city, with eleven candlelit tables offering a dining experience from another century, like walking into…

18 Reasons why I’m Proud to be a Frenchy

This week the French are celebrating Bastille day. It’s a really big deal, sort of like American Independence day and we celebrate being Frenchies and all that patriotic stuff. So I thought being half French myself, I’d do a little patriotic post on why it’s awesome to be French… 1. We were infamously led into…

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Found Photographs of Perfect American Road Trips, Fifty Years Too Late

Trailer parks just don’t look like this anymore! What I wouldn’t give to go back 50 years and re-do the American road trip just like I picture it in my mid-century kodachrome dreams. Today I found a fabulous Flickr account full of old slides and photographs found at estate sales and garage sales by a nostalgic…

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The Forgotten LGBT Queen of Paris and Her Secret Masonic Temple

She was the kind of woman who never belonged to anyone but herself. At least, when it came to love. But for Natalie Clifford Barney, life overflowed with colour, creativity, and passion in Paris’ Left Bank during one of city’s most romantic periods. Think of her as a lesser-known Gertrude Stein, albeit one who curated…