Is the Balanced Rock in North Salem, N.Y. a mere geographic anomaly or something more magical? The Bashful Adventurer investigates.
Graveyard in Saratoga: Death on a Clam Shell
I have a penchant for dramatic graveyard art, those winged but bent angels, the weeping women clinging to crosses, the monuments that stretch toward the heavens. One stone in the Greenridge Cemetery in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.that has me wondering about its bearer’s past is in the shape of a clam shell. This seems like an…
Russian History: Anastasia for Tweens and Up
Reading Anastasia and Her Sisters by Carolyn Meyer In some ways, Anastasia Romanova is like any teenager anywhere, replete with crushes, squabbling sisters, working parents, the inability to cook, concerns about her weight. Then, of course, she is actually one of a very small set—one of the overprotected, sheltered daughters of a czar who is…
McDonald’s Paris for a Pulp Fiction Royale with Cheese
The burger John Travolta made famous, the royale with cheese, really is on the menu. The Bashful Adventurer experiences a “Pulp Fiction” moment at McDonald’s Paris
The Paris Panthéon
Worshipping the Republic at an Almost Church Like the Pantheon in Rome, the Paris Panthéon has a mixed history, although not one that takes it from paganism to Christianity. Rather, the former Ste. Geneviève Church became, not long after the French Revolution, a tribute to notable secular figures, a number of whom happen to be…
Hoofing It
Get to Know a City by Walking It The best way to learn a city, see its inhabitants, and begin to understand a place is by walking it. Catching a cab, taking a bus, hopping on a subway are all perfectly viable means to get a traveler from one point to another, but the dusty…
If It’s Buffalo, It’s Got to Be the Anchor Bar
I imagine not many vegans or vegetarians wander into the Anchor Bar hoping for a pick-me-up. The place where Buffalo chicken wings were born when the owner’s son and some friends showed up late one night and she didn’t feel like doing much more than throwing together some ingredients she had on hand is a…
Reading Sonia Choquette’s Waking Up in Paris
A Life-Changing Escape to the City of Lights Long a fan of both Paris and intuitive/psychic Sonia Choquette (to the point where I actually attended a day-long session she gave years ago at the New York Open Center), there was never any doubt that I would make room for Waking Up in Paris in my…
Marie-Antoinette’s Life of Contrasts
As a little girl, I had somehow managed to pick up a sufficient amount of European history to know that Marie-Antoinette had been a gray-haired queen of France. When I learned that the real name of my great-grandmother, whom I called Mom, was Mary Antoinette, I could not believe my luck. My Mom was old…
Paris in Four Days
How to Thrive in a Whirlwind Trip to the City of Lights Getting all of the Youthful Adventurers together for a family trip is increasingly challenging given their hectic schedules, so we decide to make our journey to France a quick one. Attempting to do Paris in four days, we appreciate that there will not…