Author: Ms. R.

The ruins of Rocchetta Alta dominate the remote valley of the Volturno River in the Appennine region of Molise, in central Italy. The original medieval settlement gathered around the impressively positioned Battiloro Castle, which was built to protect the nearby Benedictine Abbey of San Vincenzo al Volturno and initially owned by the Pandone family. Its misfortunes began as a result of intensive deforestation, which caused a number of landslides from the 1800s onwards. The landslides forced the inhabitants to migrate……

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In 1999, a film crew accompanied archaeologist Jonas Ström and numismatist Kenneth Jonsson to an unassuming farm on Gotland, Sweden’s largest island. After a farmer had discovered a Viking coin, roughly 150 coins and artifacts had been unearthed. The crew got the footage they wanted and left the site, but Ström and Jonsson stayed behind, continuing their unofficial search with a metal detector. In less than half an hour, the men discovered two massive caches of Viking treasure. They……

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The Balkans have seen their share of conflict and turmoil. There, for centuries, Orthodox Christians have been at odds with Muslims, and these religious identities have turned into national identities, as Serbians are predominantly Christian while Albanians, which are the majority of Kosovars, are Muslim. Yet in the small southern Kosovo municipality of Ferizaj (Albanian) or Urosevac (Serbian), one plot of land holds temples to both religions. A mosque, known as Madhe Mosque, was originally built in the 1890s, during……

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It seems only fitting that a few short blocks away from the oldest Roman Catholic convent in the United States, what now claims to be the country’s oldest continuously-operated gay bar opened in 1933. It’s a comforting balance in a city where you’re likely to lose your footing once or twice.  Before its exile, the original Café Lafitte occupied Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, the former headquarters of a pirate whose life of crime was pardoned for assisting the Americans in the……

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Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, on the northeast shore of Lake Michigan, has become a haven for families that want to stretch their legs and get some fresh air as a break from hunkering down. Though the place isn’t as busy as it would be in a typical spring, “We’re seeing lots of traffic and people out and about in the park,” says Merrith Baughman, a park ranger and the chief of interpretation and visitor services. Park staff and……

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Maybe you were supposed to go to New Orleans this summer to see what Nicolas Cage’s pyramid tomb was all about. Perhaps it was Kenya to visit a mansion for giraffes. Or else it was Myanmar to see the island that inspired Neverland. We may not get to travel the world this summer as planned, but that doesn’t mean we can’t drink like it. Dust off the cocktail shaker, push aside the regulars at the front of your liquor……

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As many of us find ways to explore the world from inside our homes, maps can be a source of comfort and inspiration. Recently, we asked you to be the cartographers by creating maps of your own. The results were a fascinating mix of real and imagined worlds, and a few that charted the ground between those spaces. Some submissions were filled with dizzying details and abundant alliteration, while others were beautifully simple, leaving room for the reader to……

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Gabriel Rosenbaum was walking through the streets of Cairo one day when he heard a familiar word, zahub, coming from a nearby shop. The word sounded awfully close to the Hebrew word for gold, zahav, and as an Israeli, he was intrigued: The Arabic word for gold (dhahab) is similar, but zahub’s presence here seemed unusual. Rosenbaum, a professor of Arabic language and literature at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, decided to turn into the shop. Rosenbaum found himself……

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Located in the ancient city of Rajgir, the Son Bhandar Caves are two artificial caves about which little is known. They are noted for their polished surfaces, a common trait in ancient Mauryan artifacts, but rather unusual in cave temples. One of the caves is believed to be from the time of the Mauryan Empire, which ruled South Asia from the late fourth to early second centuries B.C. The second cave, adjacent to it, has been largely destroyed, but……

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As stones create Stonehenge, basses create Basshenge. In 2001, Chicago Symphony double bassist Joseph Guastafeste collaborated with artists to create this monument to the double bass off of Highway 11 in Minnesota. The spiral of sculptures forms a bass clef when viewed from above. The metal bass sculptures are made from thin steel plating. There are 21 basses in total, and the ones in the center are taller than the ones that make up the outer ring. Pairs of……

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