Formerly neglected by tourists but now fully on the beaten path, Portugal is having a moment. Yet the country still suffers from visitors thinking they’re in Spain. As a result, paella, tapas and sangría are now ubiquitous in the country that doesn’t really consume them, to the frustration of locals proud of their cuisine. Whereas much of neighboring...

Improbably located in a parking lot, down a side street in the former coal and steel town of Sydney Mines, this poor-marked 5,000 square foot museum houses the largest collection of 'Coal Age' (Carboniferous) fossil plants in Atlantic Canada, as well as 300 million-year-old fossil animals, trackways, and local rocks and gems.  Collectively, these...

Affectionately deemed "the white city" for its distinctive volcanic stones, Arequipa’s old town is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site—and it has everything to do with the fossilized gas, or sillar, mined within the local quarries of the Chachani Volcano. However, the Añashuayco quarry has a unique charm as artists have discovered these lightweight...

The story goes that in the early ‘50s, there was a barman at Porto’s A Regaleira who had worked in France. Compelled to make a local version of the croque monsieur, he took a few slices of leftover roast pork leg, supplemented it with thin linguiça, fresh sausage, and a few slices of ham, put all of this between two “bijou” rolls, topped it with melted...

Following the horrors of World War II, most of Europe was left in ruins and the city of Elblag in Poland was no exception. This Hanseatic League city was nearly completely flattened along with the church of The Blessed Virgin Mary in its historic center. The church lay in ruins without funding to rebuild until 1961, when local artist Gerard Kwiatkowski...

Odoriba Station is one of the subway stations on the Blue Line, which runs across the city of Yokohama. The name could mean "staircase landing" but literally "dancing place," and in this case it's the latter. Not only that, it comes from a curious, obscure local legend. A few centuries ago, the area was a post station called Totsuka-shuku where many...