In Manitou Springs, a place perched on the edge of a mountain and history, you’ll discover an enchanting, colorful rendition of the 19th century. The extra flair is for the tourists’ benefit. There are boutiques and museums that showcase local designers and artists, pottery shops featuring Native American craftsmanship, and fun places for kids. All of this is brushed with a sugary mix of hemp, hippies, and mysticism. Whether in for the day to ride the Cog Railway up Pike’s Peak or passing through Colorado Springs, there are hours of enjoyment to be had in this little town.

​In 1887, J.G. Hiestand built what is known today as the Iron Springs Chateau Melodrama Dinner Theater. From its origins as a candy and cigar store in 1880, the operation changed owners a number of times before the Iron Springs Company purchased it and began to use the venue to sell mineral water commercially. 

Satisfy your taste for old-school (cash only) at Mo's Diner & Lounge with its eclectic 1940s decor and friendly staff. Serving good traditional food, they specialize in generous, classic breakfasts, burgers, meatloaf, biscuits and gravy, and some Mexican dishes, like burritos and green chili. Nothing fancy and prices to match. A warm family atmosphere with lots of locals.

For some more adult refreshment, the Ancient Mariner Tavern, built like a ship’s galley, features some rocking local entertainment, often without a cover charge. It boasts a full bar featuring Colorado draught microbrews. It’s a rowdy place and the music is loud – perfect for quenching your thirst after hiking up and down the hilly streets.
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Older than the state of Colorado itself, the walls of the Cliff House have seen history transpire. Once a stagecoach stop and gold rush boarding house, the inn was converted in 1886 to a sophisticated resort hotel capitalizing on the mineral springs in the region. The list of famous guests includes Theodore Roosevelt, P.T. Barnum, and Clark Gable. Food and service are impeccable at this reasonably priced vintage hotel.

The downtown Manitou Outpost has stood on the same spot since its beginnings as a livery stable in the 1800s. By 1913, a cafeteria pavilion showcasing an erupting geyser had replaced the stable. Later, a garage offering both mechanical work and tours of Pikes Peak was built at the site. Souvenirs, homemade fudge, and ice cream are the main attractions these days, along with the Navajo geyser well that is still preserved inside - but has ceased to spout.

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Born in 1932, C. H. Rockey came to Colorado as a young child. First a Marine and then a teacher, Rockey paid his dues before earning a chance to do what he truly loved – paint. He is one of the Pikes Peak region’s finest and least commercial artists. His whimsical images of a Tolkienesque ‘Manidoon’ will charm fantasy lovers the world over.

PATSY’S CANDY The product of an Irish popcorn vendor’s vivid imagination, this family-run business has been churning out delectable confections for decades. Tour the factory in Colorado Springs, where chocolate, taffy, and butterscotch popcorn are still produced using specialized machinery dating to the 1940s or give your kids a taste of the past at their original 930 Manitou Avenue location.  

Right next door, an old-fashioned penny arcade houses an impressive antique and retro collection that includes pinball, coin-operated rides, 1964 skee ball, and the latest video games. Competing in 12-player mechanical horse-racing, you could win a fistful of tickets to exchange for prizes. A sweet treat for all generations, this whimsical spot will tickle your senses and put a smile on your face.

COLORADO, USA

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​Newcomers to Tampa Bay may be unaware 'tis a pirate's haven, but what could be more beguiling to kids than a town that revolves around these legendary time travellers? From January through May, the city is invaded by buccaneers during the Pirate Fest Stage Street Festival, the Gasparilla Parade (tons of elaborate floats and marching bands), the Outbound Voyage with Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla, and Searle’s Sack of St. Augustine, a thrilling reenactment of Robert Searle’s deadly raid in 1668 (complete with an authentic battle). Join the assault, and snatch up some sparkling beads and doubloons while yer at it!     

Ella's Americana Folk Art Cafe is a whimsical eatery that offers eclectic cuisine, supports local artists, and features live entertainment on Friday and Soul Food Sunday nights. The creative menu reflects the personality of its chef, and is best washed down with one (or more) of the cafe’s beers, ciders, wines or specialty drinks. The quirky art collection will amuse and charm even young children. Not to mention the ‘world famous two-headed alligator of Seminole Heights’ (or a reasonable facsimile), captured by local trappers, and on display here.       

​Want to get right out of town to the ocean and fresh air? Drive for 25 minutes down the coast to see manatees in their natural habitat near the Big Bend Power Station at Apollo Beach. The station's discharge canal sends clean, warm saltwater back to the Bay where these gentle mammals seek sanctuary when the surrounding ocean reaches less than 68 degrees.

​The site also features educational tours of the power plant, solar energy, a boardwalk, a wildlife observation tower, and an award-winning butterfly garden.     

​In Tampa, when it rains, it floods. And lightning strikes. It's no accident that's the name of their hockey team. So you'll want to have great accommodations, especially if travelling with little ones. For a taste of southern hospitality in a quiet location, you can't go wrong with a two-room suite priced at $149 offered by Palmer House Bed and Breakfast. You’ll be treated like royalty in this remarkable blend of the comforts of home and style of an upscale resort. The hosts could not be kinder, nor could there be greater attention to detail in the services. And it’s conveniently located just out of the city and close to parks and activities, such as canoeing, horseback riding and biking.

It's the most wonderful time of the year, especially for kids in the Northern Hemisphere. If they're really, really lucky, they may get the chance (and you, too!) to escape winter's last gasps by running away to a sunnier place. And how better to celebrate than with a Tampa Extravaganza! Here, we lay out a few of the lesser-known best times in this city on Florida's Gulf Coast - a blast for both the young and the young at heart.

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​Ybor City is a historic neighborhood near downtown Tampa, founded in the 1880s by cigar manufacturers and populated mostly by tabaqueros from Italy, Spain, and Cuba. Known as the “Cigar Capital of the World,” the factories rolled millions of cigars annually for 50 years – about 700 million at the industry's peak. Ybor City was unique in the American South as a successful town nearly completely owned and operated by immigrants - not a bad place to start a good discussion with your kids, if you're up for it.

​The delightful Ceviche tapas restaurant is intimate and romantic. Sparkling fresh sangria and spicy tapas make a great combination, either hot or cold: ceviche de la casa (chilled and marinated lime shrimp, seabass, and squid); tabla fixta (Spanish cheeses and sausages); calientes (stuffed artichokes in sherry sauce), gazpacho, paella… on and on into gourmet heaven. An authentic slice of Tampa that will make a great first impression.    
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hundred wunders started out as a scrapbook for storing my good memories and doing something useful with the many albums of pictures I've taken over the years. Nothing intense, and much of the time it has simply been a nice place to visit. 

But with patience and dedication, hundred wunders has begun, slowly but surely, to live up to its name. I've been invited to write for travel websites, such as trip.com and GPSmyCity, spent a lot of hours wondering, but best of all, met a whole bunch of incredible people. This fascinating adventure recently inspired me to launch the hundred wunders brand and multiply the iterations of what can be done conceptually with archival photographs taken over the years and all over the world.

hundred wunders' leggings, dresses, scarves, gender-friendly baby clothing, and handmade soaps are all produced locally in Montreal, Canada, which helps to limit our carbon footprint. Our fashionable, eco-friendly leather bags are handmade by small, genuine leather crafters around the world. These manufacturers use vegetable tanning, a traditional process employed to tan leather without chemicals. Each satchel, duffel and backpack is unique, exhibiting its own grain, nuances and scars. The bags will be among the most reasonably priced and beautiful pieces of leather you will ever purchase.

​Who knows what else you'll find, off the beaten track? Welcome, and enjoy! And please, shop! In so doing, you'll be supporting some of the finest lesser-known artists and artisans of the world.

The creations in the hundred wunders collection are inspired by photographs of urban environments, representing otherwise random moments in city time. Each piece is completely original - you will not find either the concept or the designs anywhere else. A far cry from the standard framed print, although I love those too, they capture something precious about each of the strange cities I've travelled, mainly on foot. They are the canvas on which these pieces will live from now on.

​The 'architecture' series is the heart of the project, and it plays upon the notion of where the environment stops and the people start. The process involves transforming a single view of a place at a given moment, with all its qualities and limitations, to create a completely unique article of clothing that is true to that view: a snapshot of the city has been laid across cloth so that it can wrap around your body, making you one with the urban environment.
 

In fact, the Pemaquid-Bristol region looks a lot like Cornwall, very similar to the Fal estuary on the south coast. We even had a boat ride, to see the seals – but no ferry from St. Mawes! Lots of lobster and seafood, including fish and chips!

You don't get many chances to photograph real coal these days!

On our way, we stayed in the mountainous region of Jackson, New Hampshire. There is a funny little steam locomotive at the foot of Mount Washington, still puffing, complete with an engineer in a dirty face and overalls.

We spent one night in Jackson, New Hampshire, had dinner in the pub and listened to a local Irish folk band. The rest of the time was at Hawks House Inn, a comfortable, laid-back B&B near Damariscotta, Maine. The host was large, gregarious and couldn't do enough to make us feel at home, and the inn was busy each day. Breakfast was buffet style laid out on two large tables. Steve, the host, was very proud of his artisanal cereals and bread, all bought at the local farmer's market, he said, as was the selection of fruit. This was ideal for us since we could help ourselves to what we liked. Not having bacon and eggs each morning probably did our figures some good, and every little bit helps these days!

As you can see, the sun shone every day, which apparently is not particularly typical of the coastal region of Maine. While this is about the closest we are to the ocean, it is still almost exactly 600 kilometres away, so not an afternoon's drive.

We were lucky with the weather but here at home, we REALLY need some rain. It has been a consistently hot, dry summer and the gardens have suffered, in our case due to the heat, but also because of the ravages of the plant pests which such hot weather seems to encourage. Sigh! We can't have it all...

Located right next to the SkyWheel, classic competition can be had between friends, family or colleagues at Strike Rock N'Bowl, a 14-lane, 10-pin bowling facility. Features include high-definition audio-visual systems, LED lighting, touch screens, and adjustable bumper rails to set game levels for kids and novices. You can also play pool, pinball and other arcade games, and even ride a racing simulator.

If wax museums are your thing (and let’s face it, they aren’t everyone’s…), Niagara Falls is your place. Since 1983, the Ramunno family has been running a rock music souvenir store, while patriarch Pasquale perfected his sculpting technique. The resulting Rock Legends are not to be missed. You’ll discover a one-of-a-kind collection showcasing over 70 excessively famous and lesser-known rock stars, from Buddy Holly through Ozzy Osborne to Slipknot.

So too, on the outskirts of what is less a town than a motley collection of mismatched streets, you cannot help but be struck by the number of abandoned homes and businesses (700+ in fact), often standing alone in vacant lots against a backdrop of monster hotels. The cause is a 50% population drop since the 1960s, and the lack of a realistic recovery plan. You may wonder where the residents of the remaining shacks have gone. You won’t see them, and the people left over seem somewhat tired and worn, as if dependent on the next wave of seasonal visitors to wind them up again.

Niagara is an enigma, a place of paradox. She has dual citizenship, and on either side of the Canadian-American border the chasm between tourists and locals is about as deep as the gorge itself.

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At any given moment you can find all kinds of weird exhibits and activities to pass the time on Clifton Hill, from the famous Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museum to the Moving Theater to limited engagements such as Wigan's Micro-miniatures, a display you can only see through a 400x microscope. How long each attraction holds your kids’ attention is subjective, so you may want to consider discounted flex combo packages. Wizards’ Golf is a climate-controlled, wheelchair-accessible miniature golf course – one of the largest in North America and one of the newest attractions in Niagara Falls. It’s also one of the best. A mystical, intriguing, glow-in-the-dark world of fantasy will enchant you, and no two holes are alike. If you enjoy a great challenge among good company (wizards, trolls, fairies, and dragons), you’ll get your money’s worth here.

In warm weather, both the Canadian and American towns are over-run with sightseers and impossibly crowded. On the off-season, the streets are somewhat bleak, and despite the bright lights and gaudy painted frontage of popular attractions, there is a kind of faded grey emptiness to the in-between spaces. You get the impression that everyone who works at this great pantomime is either unnaturally young or significantly old: the absence of lifeblood in the middle range is striking.

Nevertheless, whatever the weather, there’s always action within the walls of the town’s two casinos. Casino Niagara is slotted into the Crowne Plaza-Sheraton hotel complex, while Fallsview sprawls the length of the downtown mall. With 150 tables and 4,500 slot machines between them, these vast adult arcades excite the senses, day and night. Clearly, cash runs through this town like water, but there is no reservoir. Rather, it rushes over the city like the cataract, and away again, down the river.

Beginning a study of historic bridges is to embark on a journey that can literally take the traveller all over the world. Many fascinating adventures can be planned by researching and mapping the location of bridges you might wish to explore. When you find one, there is much to be discovered about the bridge itself, from background information about its construction, to its purpose and all of the details that make up its structure.
   Unfortunately, bridges that aren't protected by public institutions such as the National Register of Historic Places risk falling into disrepair, leading generally to demolition. Historic bridges are an endangered resource that require protection and funding for upkeep. Nevertheless, they constitute a surprisingly rich and interesting collection with a mystique that appeals to all generations. Best of all, they are accessible. You don't need a ticket to see a bridge, although you may sometimes have to pay a toll to get to the other side.

The history of bridge building in the world has always been characterized by the quest for better design and strength. The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, opened in 1883, was the first suspension bridge to use steel wire cables instead of iron. Sailors accustomed to high rigging were hired to string the 1,500 suspenders for the deck.
   The risk above the bridge was matched by the danger below. To build the two giant stone towers, timber caissons were sunk deep into the riverbed and filled with concrete by crews of men in air-locked dungeons. Digging until they reached bedrock, some of the workers (dubbed “sand hogs”) were ultimately afflicted by decompression sickness, the same hazard risked by deep-water divers when rising to the surface too quickly. The condition disabled Brooklyn’s engineer, Washington A. Roebling, resulting in the completion of the work by proxy through his wife Emily, also a trained engineer. All told, at least 20 people lost their lives in the 14 years it took to build the Brooklyn Bridge.