Author: Ms. R.

On a breezy summer day just outside Santander in Spain’s northern Cantabria region, a group of children and adults gather around a 12-year-old girl. She presses her hand against an outcropping of gray limestone as a woman leans in, holding a straw to her mouth. The woman exhales sharply and blows ochre pigment over the girl’s hand. As the girl steps back to admire the outline her hand left on the rock, an eager eight-year-old boy walks up, cracking……

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Judging by the typical show at Medieval Times or a Renaissance Fair, one might think that knights and kings during the Middle Ages dined exclusively on large hunks of animal flesh. A new study presents compelling evidence, however, that before the Vikings swept through Europe, most people ate very little meat at all. “We generally assumed that rich people at least in the Middle Ages had these very rich diets, and that was presumably one of the ways a……

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In Atlas Obscura’s Q&A series She Was There, we talk to female scholars who are writing long-forgotten women back into history. It was 1991 and Sue Tilley was heading to her second job. When she arrived at the unassuming, brown brick townhouse in London, she said hello to her employer and began to strip. For five years, Tilley posed for British painter ​​Lucian Freud, who completed four canvases featuring her naked, curvy form. In recent years, those paintings have……

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The name Dunure is said to have come from the Celtic for “fort of the yew tree.” The site dates from the late 13th century, the earliest charter for the lands is dated 1256.  The current remains of Dunure Castle date from the 15th and 16th centuries. One tradition has it that the castle was built by the Danes, while another claims that the MacKinnons took the castle from Alexander III as a reward for their valor during the Battle……

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This serene, beautiful cemetery is a must-see for visitors to Sayulita, Mexico, near Puerto Vallarta.  The cemetery is nestled on a hillside under majestic trees, just steps from the ocean. The ornate, well-tended graves are colorful and stunning, often with photographs of the deceased, flower arrangements, candles, and even balloons on the graves of young children. Next to the cemetery, a beautiful beach awaits, with crowds much smaller than beaches in town. Playa de los Muertos (the beach of……

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The Isle of Man has seen its fair share of shipwrecks, with over 1,126 recorded within Manx territorial waters just 12 miles offshore of the island. One which is rather significant to the Manx people of the Isle of Man is located on the southeastern tip of the island near the Calf of Man Islands. It was here, on April 8, 1858, that a number of brave locals came to the rescue of a French Schooner vessel Jeune St Charles. On……

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Near the tip of Alaska’s long tail of islands, a dotted line that curves across the North Pacific toward Asia, there is a giant spider lying in wait. The creature, made of fire and molten rock, sits at the center of a web spun of ice and frozen lava, its heart blood-red from its own heat. This is not a scene from a fantasy novel. It’s an image captured by a satellite passing above Alaska’s brooding Great Sitkin volcano,……

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