Category Archives: Art

New Year’s in Old Havana

Note: On June 5, 2019, the Trump administration announced new restrictions on travel to Cuba that are going to make life a lot harder for the Cuban people. However, U.S. citizens can still travel to Cuba under the “support for … Continue reading

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Ten tips from 12 days of Spain

Bargain airfares, a favorable exchange rate, and a niece studying abroad pulled me to Spain this spring, my first trip to Europe in many years. Here’s my general spin on 12 days in Spain, with more detailed posts to follow. #1: … Continue reading

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Inventing Nature at Acadia National Park

I love the barren open summits of Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island, Maine.  On Memorial Day, we set out from the Jordan Pond House and completed the 6-mile-ish out-and-back hike to Penobscot and Sargent Mountains. We started hiking … Continue reading

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Tiny travel, big world at the Peabody Essex Museum

I call this blog The Maniacal Traveler because I have a mania for travel in all its forms.  Visiting museums, wherever they are, is a sort of super-condensed travel, or tiny travel. The Peabody Essex Museum – established by the … Continue reading

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Art amidst the mills of North Adams

A decaying mill town on a gray November weekend in an isolated corner of Massachusetts might seem an unlikely destination, but North Adams had been on my radar for a while. The  Massachusetts Museum of Modern Art (Mass MoCA) offered intriguing, … Continue reading

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The Ghost of a Pepperrell Lady

Elizabeth Royall was a royal – a member of New England’s informal royalty.  When she was a tween girl, she and her older sister Mary sat for a young John Singleton Copley when he came to their Medford, Massachusetts house … Continue reading

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Nathaniel Sparhawk and the art of swagger

“A wealthy merchant of Kittery, Maine”. So reads the caption, at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, beneath this John Singleton Copley portrait of Nathaniel Sparhawk, one of Kittery’s most prominent citizens of the 18th century, mostly because he had … Continue reading

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