Though the New Year might start on January 1, and the calendar puts mid-March as the start of spring, May is when it finally feels like winter is over. In England and North America, May and June also once meant the return of an exciting seasonal celebration: the strawberry party. Jane Austen’s 1815 novel Emma depicts a June strawberry party hosted...

In the upscale Prati neighborhood of Rome hides a sinister sanctum of horror with an underground dungeon displaying the darker side of Italian cinema. Founded in 1989, Profondo Rosso is a lot more than a mere little shop of horror memorabilia. To begin with, its owner is none other than Dario Argento himself – the giallo legend known for such glaring,...

While Chioggia is known for its canals, to the extent it is also known as "little Venice," most of its canal footbridges are relatively simple. However, where Vega Canal meets the sea a brilliant white structure, the Ponte Vigo, catches the eye. The current Vigo bridge is made of Istrian stone with marble balustrades and dates back to 1685. It is...

Now that nearly everybody carries a camera with them in their phone, photography is ubiquitous. But there were times when taking a picture was a big deal, and required expensive and hard-to-find equipment. In these early days, people became famous for their photography skills—some to the point where their names became synonymous with their photographs.  ...

The freshness of spring is already in the air by February in the Croatian hilltop village of Viskovo. A riotous noise approaches: a cavalcade of bell-ringing, music, and screaming. In a magical-seeming ritual, an army of men in grotesque animal masks dance, draped in sheepskins, armed with axes and clubs. They huddle into a concentric circle and shake...

Ryūjin, literally translated as "Dragon God," is one of the major deities in Japanese mythology. An embodiment of the forces of nature, the dragon represents the sun, the sky, the element of water, disasters, fortune, and power. His worship stems from ancient animism and continues to be popular across Japan, with hundreds of Shintō shrines dedicated...