Medieval Plague Badges In medieval Europe, pilgrimages were wildly popular. It’s estimated that in the 13th and 14th centuries, 500,000 pilgrims a year visited the famed cathedral of Santiago de Compostela alone. Adherents undertook these pilgrimages to seek healing or forgiveness, but if they earned badges along the way, all the better. These badges were thought to be imbued with the divine power of shrines in a portable form, but while most badges depict religious motifs and scenes related to specific saints and shrines, a not-insignificant number are sexual in nature. Many scholars believe that these badges were thought to serve a specific function: protecting against disease, specifically against the Black Death.  READ MORE →

SPONSORED BY GRADUATE HOTELS Ralph’s Donut Shop Stop by this donut shop on your road trip through Tennessee for a dose of history and warm pastry goodness. Opened by WWII Army veteran Ralph Smith in 1962 in a former bus stop building, the store is now run by Smith’s daughter Cynthia and her husband Mark Pullum. The shop turns out more than 5,000 cake and yeast donuts per day (that’s about 1.5 million a year!), all of them made by hand the old fashioned way, using the same family recipes that have been passed down through five generations. READ MORE →

GASTRO OBSCURA Modern Māori Cooking Not many cookbooks kick off with the creation of the universe. Yet that’s where Monique Fiso begins Hiakai, a groundbreaking new book on Māori cuisine. Hiakai means ‘hungry’ or a craving to eat, and it’s the name of both Fiso’s cookbook and her popular restaurant in Wellington, New Zealand, where she champions modern Māori cuisine. Published last year, Hiakai is both a field guide and a vivid culinary history of Aotearoa, the name that New Zealand’s original inhabitants gave to their homeland. It’s also the first haute-cuisine cookbook devoted to Māori food. READ MORE →

ELBERTA, UTAH Sinclair Gas Station This early 20th-century gas station was constructed to serve the town of Elberta and those commuting to and from a nearby gold mine. The Sinclair station on US 6 started serving early automobiles in 1917 and stayed in operation until 1982. While it no longer operates as a gas station, the shop is maintained by a family member of the last owner. READ MORE →

A Controversial Coach In June 2021, the Amsterdam Museum is slated to receive the Golden Coach. Once a royal chariot, the Golden Coach has since been used for several royal weddings, including the most recent one, in 2002, and has also often wound through The Hague in September, on the first day of the parliamentary year.The Coach underwent a renovation in 2015, and will soon enter the museum’s courtyard as an exhibition piece. But this gilded royal vehicle has taken on a form of something beyond grandeur—it’s sparked increasing debates about its symbolism of Dutch colonialism. READ MORE →

NEW BRUNSWICK, NEW JERSEY Giant Spider Crab Nope, this isn’t a monster. It’s just a giant exoskeleton of a spider crab, gifted to Rutgers University by Japan for its role in educating some of the first Japanese citizens to study outside the country. The preserved crustacean, which measures 11 feet wide, can be found on display on the second floor of the geology museum. READ MORE →

CLACHAN-SEIL, SCOTLAND Clachan Bridge This quaint humpbacked bridge spans a narrow channel waterway called the Clachan Sound. Because both ends of the sound spill into the Atlantic Ocean, the little one-arched bridge has been dubbed the “Bridge Over the Atlantic.” Cross the bridge to see outstanding views up and down the Firth of Lorn, as well as an inn curiously called Tigh an Truish, or the House of the Trousers. READ MORE →