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Lesley Peterson is a Toronto-based blogger tripping on travel, art, culture, museums, cities and legendary landscapes. Catch her on Twitter as @culturetripper or contact her at lesley@culturetripper.com. All content by Lesley Peterson copyright © 2009 - Until the Present. All photos by Lesley Peterson except where other credit noted.
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Key West for culture trippers
Like Alice passing through the looking-glass, I entered the Florida Keys through a dissolving veil of rain. The summer squall cleared as fast as it had blown in and I spent several sunny days exploring Key West’s unique architecture and thriving arts scene. There’s always something raffish about a port town. With its strange past […]
28.08.2012 · Filled under: Architecture, Art, Destination Guides, Florida · Tags: Artists, Books, Florida, hemingway
Exploring culture, food, and Route 66 fun in Albuquerque, New Mexico
The drum is a heartbeat, faster than mine. Apache Crown dancers pace the circle, bodies painted, pine boughs bobbing at their hips, bells the size of tangerines adding an edgy jangle. With cotton sacking disguising their human features, feathers dangling from where their eyes should be, the dancers are eerie, otherworldly. My heartrate rises to […]
14.07.2012 · Filled under: Architecture, Destination Guides, Food, Legendary Landscapes, New Mexico · Tags: CITIES, HISTORY, road trip!
Santa Fe for culture trippers
There’s a kind of hush over Santa Fe, New Mexico, a hush quite remarkable for a UNESCO Creative City and the third-largest art market in the U.S. (after New York and Los Angeles). Located at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains at an elevation of 7,000 feet, the color and beauty of New Mexico’s […]
29.06.2012 · Filled under: Architecture, Art, Destination Guides, New Mexico · Tags: CITIES, museums
Myth and water around Lamezia Terme, Calabria, Italy
We’ve been using Calabria as a back door to Sicily for a few years, preferring direct flights to Lamezia Terme to non-direct flights to Palermo. Car rental is a lot easier at Lamezia, too. This time we stayed in the area for a few days to decompress and explore. Our first stop is always the quiet […]
01.11.2011 · Filled under: Destination Guides, Europe, Italy, Legendary Landscapes, Myths & Legends · Tags: water
Amsterdam for culture trippers
Amsterdam charms with history, her lovely canals lined with houses that resemble gingerbread cookies piped with white icing. And with more museums per square kilometer than any place else on earth, it would be easy to imagine the city as an open-air museum of Holland’s Golden Age. But the spirit of adventure, tolerance and freedom that built […]
20.04.2011 · Filled under: Art, Destination Guides, Europe, Netherlands · Tags: Artists, CITIES, Holland
Song and sin in Santiago de Cuba
It’s easy to get into mischief in Santiago de Cuba. Closer to Haiti and the Dominican Republic than it is to Havana, this city on Cuba’s rugged south coast is famous for its July Carnival and the earthy Caribbean street party atmosphere that pervades year round. Son, salsa–just about every Cuban music genre originated in Santiago’s narrow alleys. From Afro-Cuban drumming in Parque Cespedes […]
Buffalo’s electric cultural scene
There’s something Gotham-esque about Buffalo, New York, at night. The moon rises through cold crisp darkness over monuments to its past wealth and importance: the ghost-white Electric Tower, the floodlit ladies atop the Liberty Building, the magnificent Art Deco pile of its City Hall. In dark streets below, the city’s legendary nightlife carries on until a […]
26.11.2010 · Filled under: Architecture, Art, Destination Guides · Tags: Buffalo, CITIES, museums, road trip!
Changing Sicily
Having married into a Sicilian family and visited it often enough to consider it a second home, I still succumb to Stendhal syndrome within an hour or two of arrival, willing victim of its beauty and exoticism. At the crossroads of the Mediterranean but on the fringe of Europe (it’s closer to Africa than Rome), […]
17.10.2010 · Filled under: Destination Guides, Europe, Italy, Legendary Landscapes · Tags: Antiquity, Italy
Beautiful downtown Pittsburgh
When Visit Pittsburgh invited me to come and see the city’s private and public art collections, I jumped at the chance. My expectations were high but were exceeded many times over. Yes, the Warhol. Seven storeys of work by one of the 20th century’s most influential artists, including something you’re not going to see anywhere […]
31.07.2010 · Filled under: Architecture, Art, Destination Guides · Tags: Artists, CITIES, road trip!
Oh, Ottawa!
Four days in Ottawa last week – which I almost backed out of for fear I’d be bored – wasn’t enough as I ran out of days before I ran out of things to do. Toronto Mayor Miller recently asked: who would want to live in Ottawa? Well, I wouldn’t mind. Perhaps it takes a Torontonian […]
10.05.2010 · Filled under: Architecture, Art, Canada, Destination Guides, Festivals & Events · Tags: CITIES, Gardens, museums