Tag Archives: travel
Art is alive in Pilsen
Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood is alive with art. Murals are everywhere; sophisticated and well-designed murals, political murals, naively-drawn murals, misspelled murals, and entire houses covered with murals. Pilsen smells fantastic—a combination of tortilla factory corn, fried dough, sugar and spicy street food. Houses are adorable and oddly sunk below street level. Spanish is spoken everywhere, guitarists […]
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 […]
Picnic at the Cathedral 