Off-Beat & Little Known Archives - Messy Nessy Chic
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Cabinet of Chic Curiosities
Category / Off-Beat & Little Known
November 6, 2018

Three NYC Bookshops That Will Steal Your Heart

New York City has no shortage of vast bookstores where you can easily spend an hour peacefully browsing the endless shelves and genres, but what I’m looking for is a bookshop that makes my heart ache a little; one that makes me want to swap lives with the bookseller and live inside their world. So…
November 2, 2018

A Kitschy Weekend Guide to the Australian Outback

We’ve got that itch for a little road trip once again, and this time it’s taking us to the Land Down Under, specifically, to the town of Broken Hill— no sandy beaches, no respite from a sun that (literally) shines longer and brighter than most places on earth, but it’s the keeper of some of…
November 2, 2018

Unlocking the Secrets of Vinegar Hill, New York

How can you escape from the New York City grind on an MTA card budget? Make a break for Brooklyn’s Vinegar Hill, the sleepy neighbourhood that’s managed to safeguard its 400-year-old, cobblestone streets from the clutches of big development. It’s on small but hallowed ground, bound together by a tight-knit community whose homes look like…
October 31, 2018

Interview with a Vampire in Paris

It was a dark and stormy night – or, at least, I had hoped it would be. The quaint and sleepy residential streets appeared an unseemly location for some of the most terrifying creatures imaginable to reside, until I arrived at a rusted cast iron gate overrun with foliage that also claimed every inch of garden…
October 25, 2018

Edgar Allan Poe’s Cottage Is Just Sitting There in the Bronx

Finding it there seems improbable. Absurd, even. Yet, on a sunny day in Sector G of the Bronx, amidst cheap Thai massage parlours and “99¢ Only” stores, stands the final home of the king of American macabre, Edgar Allan Poe. That the house stands after 221 years is a miracle alone. It’s been a quiet…
October 24, 2018

The Night We Found Sleepy Hollow’s Jack ‘O Lantern City

Every October in the woods of Sleepy Hollow, and yes,  it’s a real place,  jack ‘o lanterns spring up from the ground to form a whirling carousel and a herd of dinosaurs; a complete circus train a towering bridge — all made entirely of 7,000 hand-carved pumpkins. For locals, it’s just another year at a…
October 19, 2018

5 Little-Known Chateaux to Visit Near Paris this Fall

‘Tis the season for chateaux hunting! The summer crowds have gone and the weekends are ripe for exploring French history and horticulture as the Autumn leaves crunch beneath your feet. Of course, you won’t find us fighting our way through the selfie sticks at Versailles, and I thought we should round up a few of…
October 16, 2018

Paris Has a Brutal(ist) Side

Love it or hate it, brutalist architecture has an unavoidable presence in every major metropolis– even Paris. In fact, the French capital is something of a haven for futurist concrete architecture. Brutalist boomed here during the 60s and 70s in response to Modernism’s utopian vision, and after Haussmann, came superstar architects like Le Corbusier and an…
September 4, 2018

Hiding Out in Paris’ Littlest-Known Medieval Tower

Hiding in plain sight, sandwiched amongst Haussmann buildings on the right bank, is one of Paris’ grandest but littlest-known surviving medieval towers– and former home of one of the city’s more villainous citizens, Jean the Fearless. The Tour de Jean Sans Peur has been lurching over the heart of the city since 1411, but it took even…
August 29, 2018

In Other News, Turkmenistan’s Dictator Wants to Be a Superstar DJ

For the President of Turkmenistan, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov it’s been a busy year. Aside from running Central Asia’s own hermit kingdom, which according to the Human Rights Watch, “remains one of the world’s most repressive countries”, he manages to find the time for some rather unconventional hobbies. Let’s meet Turkmenistan’s “multi-talented” dictator… How do you entertain a country that…
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Mum & Dad named me Vanessa, but you can call me Nessy.