Tag Archives: travel
First Church of Deliverance in Chicago: an electrifying encounter in lime green
We walked around the corner onto S. Wabash, clutching a map from Chicago Architecture Foundation’s Open House Chicago, and OH HECK YESSSSSSSSS, there was this delightful architectural surprise: a Streamline Moderne church! With it’s twin towers of terra cotta and glass block, the First Church of Deliverance nods to traditional church structure, but don’t be deceived–there’s nothing traditional […]
Travel advice from my mentor, the Wife of Bath
My blogging name, The Wife of Bath, has become a kind of secret handshake with English lit nerds. One of my readers commented “I saw your WOB handle and I just had to follow. I am a huge fan of both Chaucer and the bawdy and bodacious Alison”. For you not so word-nerdy sorts, here’s […]
Pienza: all Renaissance towns should have a bird that talks like a refrigerator
During a fascinating period of the Italian Renaissance, humanist scholars and architects set out to create the ideal city. Surprisingly, one of these urban planners was a pope–Pope Pious II. Pius II (formerly known as Enea Silvio Piccolomini) transformed his home town, Cosignano, into a miniature urban Renaissance Utopia. He hired the architect Rossellino to […]
Devon Street Chicago: where a trip to the hardware store leads to hand slaughtered meat and a mango lassi
As much as I love to travel, I always end up homesick for the sheer variety of people in Chicago, especially for the delightful urban melting pot of my own neighborhood. We live in multi-cultural splendor in Roger’s Park, on the North side of Chicago. This morning HOB and I set out for a walk to the […]
Caspar David Friedrich painting or The Infamous Blue Traveling Poncho?
This could be a post about an ugly travel poncho. Or more likely, a tribute to the earnestly brooding Romantic landscapes of German painter Caspar David Friedrich. However, I’d prefer this to be be a story of how an undignified rain coat can transform the experience of traveling in crappy weather from dreary to hilarious. So, is it The […]
Figeac: the genius of Champollion and the body odor of Jacques
Figeac, a well-preserved medieval town in Southwest France, is a scenic stop on The Way of St. James (Jacques) Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage trail. Our personal pilgrimage was meant to pay homage to hometown hero Jean-François Champollion, though we unintentionally found ourselves in rather intimate proximity to a distant relative of St. Jacques (more on that later). Jean-François Champollion, […]
In which St. Francis preaches to the birds, tames a wolf and jumps the shark
What saint could be more endearing than St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals? St. Francis (1182 – 1226) grew up as a rich, fashionable boy in Assisi, but a religious epiphany turned him from a dandy to a monk. He “married” poverty, founded the Franciscan order of friars, and was a hugely influential […]
Farnsworth House: when modernism calls, take the bus to Plano
Living in Chicago, I am fortunate to see the architecture of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe almost every day. I love to slip around behind the 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments and look out to the sun shining off the waves of Lake Michigan through the glass plaza. HOB gets off the train early most mornings […]
How to spot a tourist trap
Tourist traps are the junk food of traveling: get trapped by one and walk out with a lighter wallet and that sick, empty feeling that comes with high calories but no nutrition. If you want to be a smart budget traveler, learn to spot tourist traps and avoid them in favor of a more nutritious […]
The next time you’re in Vézelay tell the people with the elephant ears I said hi
We were all alone in Vézelay’s Sainte-Marie-Madeleine Abbey, the light was fading, darker, darker…and then we climbed down into the crypt. No, not actually a horror story ending, but in fact the ending to a perfect day, a day we spent from sunup to sundown in and around one of the world’s greatest Romanesque churches. Vézelay […]
Picnic at the Cathedral 