Browsing: Historical travel

You’ve walked Canyon Road and enjoyed Indian Market in Santa Fe. You’ve soaked up all the spirituality you can in Sedona. You’ve driven through the lunar coyote-and-roadrunner landscape of Monument Valley and seen Albuquerque’s Balloon Fiesta, but you still can’t get enough of the Southwest. For many people, the Southwest holds an allure that’s tough to pinpoint, but undeniably addictive. Perhaps it’s the hundreds of sunny days, the dry warmth, the delicious spicy food or …

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Let’s get a few things straight. First off, Oxford University is not in London. Oxford is in Oxford, approximately 60 miles northwest of the United Kingdom’s capital city. Secondly, there is no “campus”; the University is comprised of over three dozen colleges and private halls which are spread across the aptly named “city of dreaming spires.” Finally, the University was conceived as an institution of higher learning—one of the world’s most prestigious, in fact—and …

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Europe is known for having an extensive and impressive array of Christmas markets, but the seasonal merriment doesn’t have to stop there. In springtime, when flowers, trees and hibernating critters begin to come out of winter hiding, new markets also start to pop up across the continent. Some are devoted mainly to Easter, and all the fuzzy lambs, cheerful bunnies and religious traditions that come with it, while others are more widely in celebration of …

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Museums sometimes seem to fall into the same old categories and might not always be very enthralling, even if a particular museum has a good reputation. At the museums featured here, they don’t have such problems, because their collections are anything but ordinary — and they really can’t even be categorized, as far as museums go. How often do you come across a series of exhibits devoted solely to ghosts, dentistry, shoes, hair or funeral …

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Approximately 20 kilometers north of downtown Quito, smack through the middle of Ecuador, stands the official marker for the Equator…but does it really mark the fabled line? It appears the answer is not quite as rock-solid as the materials used to build the marker.

The “Mitad del Mundo” (or ‘Middle of the World’) is a large, government-sanctioned official marker visited by tour buses, private tourists and public transit about one hour outside of Ecuador’s capital …

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One of the nicest things about the world’s greatest art galleries is that they tend to be in the world’s greatest cities – which is incredibly convenient. Once you’ve walked through kilometres of galleries and squinted at countless treasures until your arty-farty quotient is exhausted, you can soak up the vibe of the city around you. Theatres, restaurants, pubs, clubs, parks and shops galore will inject new life into tired eyes and feet, so you’re …

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When you hear this phrase, the “bread basket” of the Roman Empire, a panorama of beautiful travel photos may spring to mind, from Greece, Turkey, Spain…

Surprisingly, these are the wrong postcards. The “bread basket” of the Roman Empire was their provinces in North Africa, covering vast swatches of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. While today’s Sahara desert is rapidly expanding, there are still areas of these countries where you can get an idea of …

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We rev up the 600 horses in the ancient engine, which at first sputters, then coughs, then spurts to life.

I’m sitting in a 68-year-old fighter plane from World War II, an AT-6, nicknamed “The Texan” by the cocky young pilots who flew her. I’m going to do some stunts, in tandem with Dennis Van Swol, the vastly-more-experienced pilot who’s sitting in the second cockpit behind me.

As we turn onto the runway at the …

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Though best known for their colorful Carnival, Aruba has all kinds of cool festivals, annual events, and visitor-inclusive celebrations happening all year round!

Though Carnival lasts for three months, it really doesn’t matter when you visit Aruba as there are all kinds of gala events going on all year-round. And you need never worry about the weather for outdoor festivals: Aruba is outside of the hurricane belt and boasts a balmy average of 85 degrees …

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The Romans called it ‘Terra Magica’ and it’s no surprise why. There are many things about Istria which make it a unique and enchanting place to visit: its scenic landscape of rolling hills which rivals the countryside of Tuscany, picturesque hill-top villages and medieval fortified towns, lush valleys covered in vineyards, and a beautiful coastline and spectacular islands.

The region also boasts many stunning architectural treasures which are testimonies to its Roman, Venetian and Byzantine …

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It’s the Spanish moss you notice first. Draped over the live oak trees which fill the many squares in Savannah, Georgia, it hangs in ragged festoons from each of the branches. It creates a mood. A relaxed, sultry, southern mood. A Savannah mood. A pleasant mood that you can enjoy for your entire stay.

Savannah is the largest city in Chatham County, Georgia but still feels like a small, sleepy Southern town – and the …

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Some of early-America’s greatest painters and writers called this one of the most beautiful spots in the world. On the map, it’s only two hours north of Manhattan. But it may as well be a world away.

The Kaaterskill Clove is a Catskill Mountain ravine of stunning beauty, with dense forest and thundering waterfalls. And the biggest of those waterfalls — Kaaterskill — is higher than Niagara.

This region is a place of Technicolor surprises …

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A million words of poetry and prose have been penned to describe the wonders of Petra, the ancient city that lay forgotten for centuries beyond a secret mountain gorge.

Artists and photographers strive to capture the mystical beauty of this pink-tinged city carved into desert sandstone. Every guidebook to Jordan bristles with views of Petra’s magnificent monuments, now considered one of the seven modern Wonders of the World. Heck, even Indiana Jones swung through the …

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The photograph at left, taken by police photographer Charles Nettleton, shows the Australian outlaw Ned Kelly, on November 10, 1880 in Melbourne Gaol.

Less than twenty-four hours later, at 10:00AM on the morning of November 11, 1880, Kelly felt the hangman’s noose tighten around his neck just before he was hung following his conviction for murder. And so, at the age of 25, ended the short but eventful life of Australia’s most famous bushranger, Edward …

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