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Cabinet of Chic Curiosities
Category / Off-Beat & Little Known

A Brief Guide to Cocktail Hour in Cuba

Picture the scene back in 1937, during the heyday of American jaunts down to Cuba, when the first Pan Am seaplanes regularly took pleasure seekers from Key West to Havana: a group of hard drinking, ex-pat newspapermen are ensconced in the bar of Havana’s grandest hotel, the Nacional, discussing the finer point of sports and…

Secret Tourism: Travelling with Europe’s Nomadic Shepherds

It will probably sound out of character if we told you that to discover Europe’s most secret corners, you should follow the herd and keep to the beaten path, quite literally. But hear us out and grab your hiking boots because today we’re taking notes from a very small group of folks who actually plan…

The Wholesome Lost World of Competitive Barrel Jumping

Whilst exploring the abandoned Grossinger’s holiday resort in New York’s Catskill mountains one last time before it was torn down, something caught our eye in the crumbling ruins of what had once been the ice skate house. Propped up against the wall was a large wooden sign that had been left behind. Dusty like a…

100 Rooms and 70 Secret Doors: Washington DC’s Quirkiest Secret

When most people think of secrecy in Washington, DC, they probably think of the FBI, the CIA or the Pentagon. But just south of Embassy Row, nestled behind the façades of five row houses, there stands an icon of kitsch, African American history, and rock and roll: the Mansion on O Street. Is it a…

What’s Up With Death Valley’s Bespoke Coffin Workshop?

The Nevada desert is arguably home to some of the strangest attractions in North America. From Clown Motels and Ghost Towns to haunted dolls and Area 51 there is no shortage of places to satisfy your taste for weird America, but none like Coffinwood, a custom coffin factory, wedding chapel, hearse garage and pet cemetery…

The Azores: Secrets of Europe’s Hawaii

Lost in the Atlantic Ocean, nine islands thrust out of the depth of the sea in a fiery birth created by seismic activity. The archipelago of the Azores, said by some to have even been the fragments left behind from the lost continent of Atlantis – the sunken land said by Plato to have been…

The Lost Art of the Miniature Golf Course

They go large in the States – even when it comes to the small stuff. And perhaps nowhere is that more true than with a particularly kitsch specimen of American vernacular architecture, the miniature golf course. A period of history defined by the automobile and the ease of travel it allowed, post-WW2 prosperity led to…

The World’s Oldest Pharmacy, Still Selling Potions for Graverobbers and Queens

Once upon a time, the pharmaceutical industry was entirely in the hands of monks and nuns, and monasteries were at the cutting edge of intellectual learning and medicinal practice. Medieval medicine in Western Europe was composed of a mixture of pseudoscientific ideas from antiquity and medieval monasteries gained access to Ancient Greek medical works by the 6th century.…

When in Rome, Discover Hollywood on the Tiber

Italian cinema is synonymous with hauntingly special silver screen moments, the stuff that flashbulb memories are made of. Who could possibly forget the larger than life screen goddess Anita Ekberg – all platinum locks, bare shoulders and curvaceous black dress in Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita? Or the doe-eyed flamboyant gamine Audrey Hepburn on her…
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