13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CCLXXVI)

7. The world’s largest wine cellar is in Moldova. It has streets named after grapes and traffic rules apply The largest wine cellar in the world is Moldova’s Mileștii Mici. Its streets carry the names of grape and visitors drive cars or bikes through it. Traffic rules apply. The second largest wine cellar in the…

We went on a Picnic in a Parisian Nazi Bunker

I‘ve been on some adventures in my lifetime, but none of them ended with a candlelit banquet in an abandoned Nazi bunker. And it is with great pleasure that I finally get to share this surreal experience with you. The idea began with the proposal of a picnic with a few friends, somewhere a little…

So in Japan, Their Public Toilets are Actually Worth Documenting

Japanese people are known to be fanatical about cleanliness and take their lavatories very seriously. A Tokyo-based publisher produced a guide book to the best rest rooms in the city, and there’s even an annual award for “Toilet of the year”, awarded by the ministry of land, infrastructure and transportation. One very unique instagram account, called…

The Boy Robot of 1774

It’s hard to imagine that before the United States of America even became a country, a Swiss watchmaker had already created a machine with the capabilities of a modern programmable computer– in the form of a small boy. The 70cm-tall automaton known as “The Writer”, is an extraordinary but often forgotten anomaly of its age.…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CCLXXV)

1. Japanese Secret Love Hotels looking like a Wes Anderson Set True to their moniker, pay-by-the-hour love hotels cater to millions of Japanese couples every year… With increasing life expectancies, the rising age of marriage, and high population density, multigenerational households are ubiquitous. When married couples live in close quarters with elderly parents and children,…

The Vault

Murder and Afternoon Tea on the Orient Express

“The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances,” wrote Agatha Christie in her iconic 1934 novel, Murder on the Orient Express, which was adapted into a Hollywood motion picture this year featuring an all-star cast including Johnny Depp, Kenneth Brannagh, Michelle Pfeiffer, Willem Dafoe and Penelope Cruz. It still feels…

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French No Man’s Land looking Suspiciously Like a Wes Anderson Film Set

Staring out of the passenger seat window on car journeys through France, I’ve always found the roadscape of highways strangely alluring ever since I was a small child. What lives at the side of the road in a no man’s land of concrete and abandon are often ignored and very rarely the subject of artistic…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. CCLXXIV)

1. When Howard Hughes built the biggest plane in history (out of wood) Hughes’ H-4 Spruce Goose Because of wartime rationing on strategic materials such as aluminum, the plane was built almost entirely out of wood. A skeptical press dubbed it “The Spruce Goose.” Hughes hated the nickname. He felt it was an insult to…

My Perfect Little Paris Attic

A nineteenth-century poet once described the Place Dauphine as the ‘vagina of Paris’, because of its erotic triangular V shape. Rumour has it King Henri IV modelled the place after the private parts of his favourite courtesan. Ah, French romance. Vaginas aside, it is one of my favourite squares in Paris, tucked away on an…

England’s Secret Historic Hotel Network

I don’t know what’s more astonishing– discovering so many spectacular historic buildings where ordinary people can actually spend the night, or the fact that most of them won’t cost me more than £20 per person a night … OR that it took me so long to discover the Landmark Trust. Hiding in the shadows of the mainstream…