The Tudor Fair Blog
The Alhambra: a Trip that Wasn’t (aka Traveling with a Toddler)
It’s not every day that you get to push your babygirl in a stroller around a 9th century Arab complex on a hill in Granada. La Alhambra, which was a massive fortified city with splendid palaces and gardens from the 13th century, and the last fortress to fall to…
Cambridge, and the draining of the Fens
It’s October, which means that I’m in my head planning for another year spending November in a NaNoWriMo haze in addition to the tryptophan-induced sleep coma of Thanksgiving. In case you don’t know, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, wherein participants pledge to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.…
5 Reasons Cirencester is a Hidden Magical Gem (aka History Travel Tuesday)
There are a handful of cities in Europe that were once major epicenters of the universe, but are now snoozy little hamlets who betray nothing of their illustrious pasts. Cordoba comes to mind. The place was once pretty much the center of the universe, and the most populous city in…
Richard Hakluyt: England’s first Travel Writer
I’m working on a new Renaissance English History Podcast about trade and exploration (because of course the two were linked – without the possibility of new trading markets, there could be no exploration of new lands). It’s impossible to read much about any of the early English explorations without stumbling…
Ronda Explorations: Arab Baths and Roman Ruins
I posted last week about the history of Ronda, the town where I’m living right now, and how its history spans pre-Roman Celtic times, through Christians, Moors, and back to Catholic with the Reconquista. Over the weekend I dove deeper into two of the epochs, Roman and Muslim. After spending…
Ronda: How one city is Celtic, Roman, Moorish and Christian all at the same time
Ronda is the closest big town to where we live, it’s where our Spanish school is located, and where we do most of our shopping (when we don’t want to make the drive to Little England aka Gibraltar). It’s jam packed with history, and the architecture is a constant reminder that…
Let’s Pause for a Moment, and Reflect
I’ve started working through the Jeff Goins TribeWriters and Intentional Blogging course in the past month. I’m about midway through TribeWriters, which is why you’re seeing some nifty changes around this blog – like a move towards being self-hosted, the newsletter sign up box, a more consistent blogging schedule (which I’m…
Visiting Gibraltar: How to Capture a Piece of England in Spain
When I first arrived in Spain back in June, I wanted to go exploring – Seville, Granada (the Alhambra) – there were very few cities in Andalusia through which I didn’t want to wander. But it was summer. And Europe was in the midst of this awful heatwave. So we planned all…
Favorite Places and Spaces: Soho in London
When I lived in London, I worked at 76 Brewer Street, on the end of Soho near Golden Square, on the eastern end, tucked away from the tourists of Piccadilly, Leicester Square, and Oxford Street on all sides, a neighborhood of its own. What used to be a hunting ground…
launching the bigworld tour company, and why I love early choral music
This year I am embarking on a new project as an entrepreneur who leads cultural tours to England, specializing in trips to listen to great choral services in cathedrals. My dear friend Jim and I are building a tour company, our first trip is scheduled for May 2016, and I’ve been working on…
Favorite Places and Spaces: Downtown Lancaster Pennsylvania
I grew up in Lancaster Pennsylvania. For much of the country that means Amish Country. But most tourists, who hang out on the eastern end of the county shopping at the outlets, ogling the Amish buggies, and visiting places with names like, “the Amish Farm and House” (it’s not Amish,…
Random Friday Fun Facts: Dr. David Skinner and the music of the 16th century
About a month ago I was in the UK for a girls’ weekend (by myself), and as I’ve been trying to do more with my Renaissance English History Podcast lately (like my Tudor Minutes on youtube), I decided to find an interesting person to interview for the show. At the…