Search Results

Eerie Travel Coincidences Or Fate?

by Dave Seminara on

Do you believe in coincidences or do you think that everything happens for a reason? Nine years ago, my wife and I met an old man with a grizzly white beard in the lovely mountain village of Apiranthos on the island of Naxos, who offered to pose for a photo with my wife and a young Italian woman we were traveling with. He was so photogenic that I couldn’t resist the offer, but the old pervert also took advantage of the moment, by trying to reach around and grope the women’s breasts.

In June, we returned to the same village, by chance rather than by design, and when we arrived, we didn’t immediately place the groping incident to Apiranthos. We split up so I could take some photos of the village and, at one point, passed an old man with a long, gray beard who looked somewhat familiar. I took his photo and thought nothing more of it, until I showed my wife the photo later on, and she immediately recognized him.

“That’s the same pervert who groped me nine years ago!” she exclaimed.I searched for the old photos and could only find one shot, but sure enough, not only was it the same guy, but he was also wearing the same shirt and same hat. I don’t know, perhaps the guy has only one shirt and hat, and maybe he had barely moved from the spot we first saw him nine years before, but it seemed like a bizarre coincidence.

That is, until I typed the word Apiranthos into Google images and noticed that a Canadian guy had photographed the same guy in 2011, and someone else photographed him and submitted it in a photo contest earlier this year. I kept looking and found another, and another, and another. In each photograph, the guy is wearing the same shirt and hat.

This past winter, I experienced another déjà vu incident in another remote mountain hamlet, San Sebastian del Oeste, in the Mexican state of Jalisco. I photographed the same man, sitting in the same square two years in a row. But that incident didn’t surprise me as much, because in San Sebastian, pretty much everyone sits in the town’s lone square all day long, and only a year had elapsed between encounters.

Less than two weeks after the Apiranthos incident, we had an even stranger travel coincidence in London. Prior to our trip, I booked a room at a chain hotel called The Premier Inn near the Earl’s Court tube stop based upon some positive reviews I read online. I wasn’t searching for a specific neighborhood, I just wanted a place that was somewhat affordable and in a central neighborhood near a tube stop.

As soon as we walked into the hotel, we had a strange sense of déjà vu that we couldn’t understand because on our last visit to London, ten years ago, we stayed at a place called the Comfort Inn. Still, I couldn’t shake the sense that we’d been there before so I asked the young woman at the check in desk if the place had once been a Comfort Inn.

“It certainly was,” she said. “It became Premier Inn about five years ago.”

Ten years ago, we were in London on our honeymoon and had been assigned the Comfort Inn by chance, through priceline.com and then we returned, again by complete chance, for our anniversary, ten years later. Given the fact that there are nearly 2,000 hotels and B & B’s in London reviewed on Trip Advisor, the coincidence is pretty remarkable. There’s no way we could have known ten years ago that we’d return to the same place, by chance, with two children in tow a decade later.

I’m the kind of person who is always conjuring memories of travel moments triggered by seemingly unconnected events. I can be driving down the street in Falls Church, Virginia, and suddenly think of a person I met in Cluj, Romania, or a meal I enjoyed in Uzbekistan.

I don’t know what triggers these memories, but I do know that while at home, time tends to slip past me as days run together in a forgettable blur. But while I’m traveling, I tend to remember the people I meet, the places I stay and the things that I experience more acutely – especially when my wife is groped by a heavily bearded senior citizen.

In case you’re wondering, the Greek gentleman didn’t remember me, or ask where my wife was, but then again he gets his photo taken more often than Brad Pitt does.

517 Channels And Nothing’s On: The World’s Most Bizarre Hotel TV Package

by Dave Seminara on

Have you ever found yourself in a hotel room, searching for a sporting event on TV only to find Arab phone sex line networks, Yemeni soap operas, Russian shopping channels and a host other unwatchable programming?

Two of my life’s passions are travel and sports. There are only a few places in the world I have no interest in visiting and I can watch just about any sporting event, save auto racing, and a few of the more obscure Olympic sports. My sports addiction is so intense that I actually try to avoid traveling during the four grand slam tennis tournaments each year, the World Series, the Stanley Cup and other major sporting events.

But when you plan a big trip, such as the three-month reporting trip I’m on now, you have to come to terms with the fact that you’re going to miss some of the matches and games you want to watch. You can find websites airing sporting events, but have you ever tried following a tennis ball on a computer screen with a slow Internet connection? Good luck.When I lived overseas, I had a Slingbox, which gave me remote access to a friend’s U.S. DVR, but even that is sketchy if your Internet connection is slow. I was OK with missing most of the first week of French Open tennis while in Greece, but as the matches became more important in the second week, I started hunting for a place to stay that might have a channel showing the event.

I found a beautiful, affordable two-bedroom apartment in Samos at a place called Sirena Village and when they told me they had a satellite TV subscription with more than 500 channels, I almost wept in joy. Surely of those 500 channels, one of them would be showing the French Open, and the Euro 2012 soccer tournament, right?

Shortly after checking in one day last week, I started methodically flipping through the channels in search of the Roger Federer-Juan Martin Del Potro match from Paris. The hotel management hadn’t lied – the room did indeed have more than 500 channels – 517 of them to be precise. But it took me a full 90 minutes to flip through all of them and the French Open was nowhere to be found.

What did I find? Dozens of home shopping channels in a variety of languages, scores of religious programming from the Middle East, an evangelical Korean channel, Persian music channels, more than a dozen networks offering phone sex with “Arab women,” an Italian poker channel and a host of unwatchable programs from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Libya, Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Poland, Romania, Syria, Yemen and a host of other countries. Oddly enough, there were almost no Greek channels.

At first, I was just angry. There were 517 channels, but only four I’d actually consider watching: BBC World, France 24 in English, CCTV and Al Jazeera International. But later, when I decided to indulge my curiosity in this truly bizarre satellite TV package, I was able to laugh at the absurdity of it all. I had more channels from Kurdistan than from the U.S. I had the Somali Network, but not CNN. I had Dubai Sports 3, which seems to show no actual sporting events, rather than ESPN or Eurosport.

One of the only American channels listed in my guide was The Pentagon Channel, of all things, but thankfully it didn’t come in. I had a Persian language-shopping network called MI-TV, based in Dubai, that was peddling what looked like a blatant rip-off of the Ab Lounge. I had a channel called Iran Beauty that featured a woman in a chador making what looked like wedding favors, and I had not one but two Afghan channels, both advertising PO boxes in Fremont, California.

I spent a few minutes watching what looked like the Sudanese version of “Meet the Press,” trying in vain to divine what was going on. I had no clue, but I was fascinated by the moderator, who wore what looked like a small Christmas wreath, rakishly on the side of his turban, like a rapper with a Yankees hat worn terribly askew. In fact, there were dozens of channels broadcasting in Arabic and all of them seemed to be airing talk shows or prayer shows.

Oman TV featured a rotating slideshow; an Iraqi channel called Al-Iraqia featured a cooking program with an obese chef who made omelets but mostly just pontificated; a channel called Al-Mustakillah featured a blurry image of a wailing cleric with the URL for the channel’s Facebook page; Deejay TV showed grainy footage of the Eagles playing “Hotel California”; TV Quran showed pages from the Quran with a narrator reading them; a Persian channel featured an obnoxious puppet show; a channel called Al Fayhaa featured a folk band that reminded me of an Arab version of the Village People; and Yemen TV showed what appeared to be a children’s talent show, where all the little boys wore traditional costumes with big daggers tucked into their belts.

Oh, and there were all kinds of sex channels, but none showed actual nudity or sex, just vaguely Middle Eastern looking women advertising phone sex lines. There was Arab Girls TV, Arab-69 TV, Hot Arab Sex, Arab Jins, Arab XXX, Arab Sex Club, and the Arab Babes channel, to name just a few.

The Italian networks were winners too. One advertised a phone sex line by featuring a young lady in shorts and halter top, dancing, with her backside facing the camera, mostly bent over a hand shaped chair and an Italian shopping network featured a montage of Italian housewives recoiling in horror at the site of rats and other bugs and rodents to sell some sort of pest control product. I had 517 channels and was determined to watch all of them.

Friday brought the start of Euro 2012, but alas, none of my channels were showing the matches. Luckily, soccer is significantly more popular than tennis here, so there was no trouble finding the match at a bar. I know that I shouldn’t be trying to watch sporting events while traveling, so I’m ready to be roundly condemned in the comments section. But it’s easy to cut yourself off from the world of sports for a week or two, but three months is another story. My name is Dave and I’m an addict.

Luckily, I found a wonderful Brit named Wendy, who runs the Rendezvous Café in Kampos, Samos, and has been allowing me to watch the French Open on Eurosport. God bless Wendy and my 517 obscure channels from around the world. Thankfully, I have both the God Network and Church TV to help me give praise.

Vampire Graves Dug Up In Bulgaria

by Sean McLachlan on


Bulgarian archaeologists have discovered two vampire graves in the city of Sozopol on the Black Sea. The burials, which are about 700 years old, were each held down with a massive iron stake through the chest. One vampire was buried in the apse of a church – a spot usually reserved for aristocrats – and showed evidence of multiple stab wounds.

Bozhidar Dimitrov, head of the Bulgarian National Museum of History, says more than a hundred vampire graves have been found in Bulgaria. He says that most suspected vampires were aristocrats or clergy. Interestingly, none were women.

One possible explanation for the vampire myth comes from anthropologist Paul Barber in his book “Vampires, Burial, and Death.” He posits the vampire legend started because people didn’t know how bodies decomposed. Rigor mortis is only temporary. After a few days the muscles ease up and expanding gases in the body will actually shift it within the coffin. Blood seeps out of the mouth and the face and belly get a flushed and puffy look. So. . .a guy dies, they bury him, and shortly thereafter several more people die. The villagers decide the first guy is a vampire, and when they open up his grave they find he’s moved, looks fat and flush with life, and has bloody teeth. When you drive a stake through a body filled with corpse gas it lets out a shriek.

There are several good vampire attractions in Europe, such as Dracula’s Castle in Romania, the Vampire Museum in Paris and Highgate Cemetery in London, scene of a wave of vampire sightings in the 1970s.

Vampires have long captured the imagination. Vampire stories were popular in the nineteenth century and some of the best early horror films are vampire tales. “Nosferatu” (1922), a still of which is shown here in the Wikimedia Commons image, sticks close to the Bram Stoker novel. A different take can be found in the film “Vampyr” (1932). Both monsters are spooky, kick-ass killers, not the angsty pretty-boy teens of today’s vampire craze. As Bart Simpson once said, “Girls ruin everything, even vampires!”

The World’s 10 Scariest Haunted Castles

by Justin Delaney on

From a Czech forest castle reported to house the gates of hell to a gargantuan castle right here in the United States, the world’s most haunted castles boast histories rich with frightening details. Specters haunt the halls of these old castles and travelers visit to experience brushes with the paranormal. Some of these castles possess secrets darker than a moonless night, and when darkness comes, the spirits stir.

These are the ten places to go and meet ghosts. Covering nine countries, each of these castles has a past that may just try and make a ghostly impression on your present.


%Gallery-155791%

Edinburgh Castle
Country: Scotland
Built: 12th century
Haunting: Do you believe in ghosts? Edinburgh is one of those places where skeptics cross the threshold and start saying yes. A few years ago, Time Magazine set out to name the ten most haunted places in the world and included Edinburgh Castle on that list. For starters, a headless drummer has been seen and heard in the castle halls beginning around 1650. Lady Glamis, accused of witchcraft in 1537 and burned at the stake while her young son watched, is also known to prowl the dark halls. A ghost dog has even been seen delicately prancing through the misty graveyard.

There have been so many hauntings for so long that Edinburgh Castle attracted one of the most thorough paranormal investigations ever. In 2001, an English doctor enlisted roughly 240 volunteers to spend 10 days in and around the castle. The volunteers were all screened to insure that none of them knew anything about the castle. The findings? The place is a paranormal hot spot. Many of the volunteer experiences were consistent with past sightings at the castle. There were burning sensations, phantom gropes, shadowy figures and a specter in a leather apron seen in the same spot he was seen by unrelated individuals before the study. Its ancient dungeons and cobbled corridors are home to some serious creepiness.

Visiting: Fly to Edinburgh from London for under $100 round trip. Buy tickets to visit the castle here.

Chillingham Castle
Country: England
Built: 12th century
Haunting: The appropriately named Chillingham Castle is located in the northern corner of England and has been haunting guests for a very long time. The castle served as a fortress to repel attacks from the Scots in the north and has thus seen a great deal of bloodshed. Chillingham has been featured on at least six ghost-related shows, and the webs are rife with strange pictures of its ghosts and orby videos.

So what haunts this medieval castle that appears to be plucked from Westeros? Most notably a childlike ghost, called the blue boy. The blue boy is seen regularly in the pink room as a flash of blue light and also above guests’ beds as a blue halo following a loud cry. Perhaps most creepy is one of the castle’s ghostly apparitions who wanders the dank halls late at night – John Sage. John Sage has a terrifyingly ridiculous backstory and was hung by Longshanks during the war with the Scots. He can be heard dragging bodies here and there.

Visiting: The Chillingham homepage states, “Tours last about 2 hours, depending on psychic activity.” The castle also accepts brave overnight guests. To get there, fly into Newcastle or Edinburgh and travel 70 miles to reach the castle.

Houska Castle
Country: Czech Republic
Built: 13th century
Haunting: Located in the forests north of Prague, Houska castle was never a strategic battle location. It also appears to have no function of outside fortification. It was not built to repel attacks or to keep things out. It was built to hold something in. It was built to close the gateway to hell.

The castle is built upon a fabled bottomless pit from which winged creatures and half-man-half-beasts allegedly exited. Demonic activity persisted at this site and eventually, Bohemian rulers decided to seal up the gateway with a castle. Before sealing off Hell’s realm, it is said that nearby prisoners were granted pardons if they would agree to be lowered by a rope into the hole. The story goes that the first lowered prisoner let out a yell after entering the hole. When he was raised up, he appeared to have aged over 30 years. He died of unknown causes just days later.

Wait, it gets stranger. During the 1930s, the Nazis took over the castle to conduct occult experiments with dimensional portals. Hitler, a paranormal enthusiast, was known to dabble in the occult, and it is uncertain what the scientists learned from Housksa Castle. Years later, during renovations, several Nazi officer skeletons were found, and it appeared they were killed execution style.

The recurring ghosts at Houska are plentiful, and include a giant bulldog/frog/human, a headless black horse and a woman in an old dress who is frequently seen peaking out of the top floor windows. Beneath the cellar there is said to be some nonhuman remains of the beasts that emerged from the hole.

Visiting: Houska Castle is just north of Prague and day trips to this spot are easy.

Belcourt Castle
Country: United States
Built: 1894
Haunting: In adjusted today dollars, Belcourt Castle cost its owner over $100 million back in the 19th century. Oliver Belmont, namesake of the Belmont stakes, heir to the Belmont family empire and poster child for turn of the century trustfund champions, built this behemoth. On its completion, Oliver chose to instead travel the world, collecting artifacts for the castle, which sounds like a pretty cool thing to do after building a gigantic home. The years were not kind to the castle and disrepair plagued it for much of the 20th century. In 1956, the mansion was sold to the Tinney family for $25,000 ($200,000 in today dollars), or about a fifth of a penny on the dollar (adjusted for inflation).

The Tinneys got a beat-up fading mansion with massive infrastructural needs – and a few ghosts. The strangest thing about Belcourt is that the hauntings allegedly come from the vast assortment of artifacts rather than the actual house. There is a haunted 15th century set of armor that lets out a blood-curdling scream every March, said to be the time that its medieval owner took a spear through the eye. In the Gothic ballroom there are haunted chairs that many claim to have been pushed out of while sitting by unknown forces.

Visiting: The owner of Belcourt Castle gives ghost tours and this May, he will be giving them on Friday and Saturday evenings. It is also open for weddings and other events. Belcourt Mansion is roughly an hour-and-a-half drive from Boston down 95 South.

Brissac Castle
Country: France
Built: 11th century
Haunting: The stylish French château is over seven-stories tall with around 200 rooms and is considered the tallest château in all of the Loire Valley. After a rich history, beginning with the Counts of Anjou in the 11th century, the domain was purchased by a noble husband and wife named Jacques and Charlotte. Charlotte enjoyed tormenting her husband by having noisy sex with randoms. She would keep her husband up all night with her lovers and eventually her husband snapped.

The affair ended when both the lover and Charlotte the wife disappeared. Jacques was likely behind it, but after their death, the lovers’ moans did not stop – they grew louder. The moans persisted and Jacques was forced to sell the castle, tormented by the ghosts of his past. Today, it is said that in the early morning the lovers’ moans persist.

Visiting: Château de Brissac is open to tours and even has two suites and two rooms to stay in overnight. The price for the overnight stay is not cheap, starting at 390 Euros with availability from May through September. Reach Brissac from Paris by high-speed train, taking just an hour and a half to reach nearby Angers.

Eltz Castle
Country: Germany
Built: 1157
Haunting: A picturesque castle with one of the richest interiors in all of Deutschland, Eltz rises up out of the surrounding Mosel forest as if boasting its longevity to the surrounding environs. A testament to its strength as a stronghold, Eltz Castle is one of few castles in the region that has never been destroyed. It is also one of just a few German castles that is said to be haunted. Allegedly, the ghosts of medieval knights still patrol the castle, which, 33 generations later, is still owned by the same original family. Imagine living in the same house as your Great X 30 grandmother.

Visiting: Reach Eltz Castle by flying into Frankfurt Hahn airport and traveling by bus or taxi for the final 15 miles to the city of Cochem.

Castle of Bardi (or Landi Castle)
Country: Italy
Built: 900, ish
Haunting: Built on a spur of red jasper, Bardi towers over the Emilia-Romagna valley. Bardi’s etymological impetus began with Hannibal and his cavalry of war elephants. The last elephant, named Bardus, allegedly died here during the march to Rome. Unfortunately, the castle is not haunted by a menacing ghost elephant.

A sad old story explains the real ghosts of this incredible fortress. Instead of Romeo and Juliet, we have a tale of Moroello and Soleste. Soleste was the daughter of the castle’s lord, and she was in love with Moroello, the captain of the knights. During a long battle, Soleste waited for Moroello to return, perched on the edge of her family fortress, eyes locked on the distant horizon. Eventually, she saw riders galloping back from the battlefront. When the soldiers reached her eyesight, she noticed they were riding with enemy colors. She was overcome with grief at the possibility of Moroello’s death and threw herself off of the castle’s edge. In a sad twist of irony, the riders were in fact Moroello and his soldiers, and they were just wearing the enemy colors to boast. Moroello found his love dead on the ground and immediately realized what he had done and killed himself. The ghost of Moroello haunts the castle to his day, wandering the grounds searching for his lost love.

Visiting: Bardi is located in Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy. The easiest way to reach the region is by plane to Parma or by train from nearby Bologna or Milan.

Dragsholm Castle
Country: Denmark
Built: 1215
Haunting: Some places are simply haunted by a ghost or two, but Dragsholm, located on an islet in Denmark, is allegedly home to 100 ghosts. How anyone came to take inventory on the ghosts and find such a round number was likely done with some relation to Dragsholm tourism development, but the place is wicked haunted, having functioned as both a prison and a battle fortification. Some consider it the most haunted castle in the world.

Of the many stories about Dragsholm’s ghosts, perhaps the most terrifying origin ghost tale involves the White Lady. Before she wandered the castle halls as a ghost, the White Lady was just a girl – a girl who was in love with one of the castle laborers. As a member of nobility, her father, and owner of the castle, condemned the relationship, but the affair persisted. Eventually, the father grew so angry about the ongoing affair that he imprisoned his daughter in the walls of the castle. She was not seen again until hundreds of years later. In the 20th century, during some routine castle remodeling, workers found a skeleton in one of the walls. The skeleton was wearing a white gown.

Visiting: Dragsholm Castle is open to overnight visitors, so if you want to stay in a really creepy castle this is probably the one. To get there, take a train from Copenhagen through Hillerød to Odsherred. The castle also has a restaurant.

Moosham Castle
Country: Austria
Built: 1208
Haunting: Built by the Prince-Bishops of Salzburg, Moosham Castle has a strange and sinister past. Hundreds of witches were beheaded within the walls of Moosham, and many still haunt the Austrian castle. Due to these hauntings, the castle is known colloquially as the Witches Castle.

In addition to being home to a coven of creepy witch ghosts, Moosham is also allegedly the lair of the werewolf. During the 1800’s, Moosham saw a sudden preponderance of mutilated cattle and deer corpses. As a consequence of this, several Moosham residents were tried and imprisoned as werewolves.

Visiting: Take bus #270 from the Salzburg bus station to reach Moosham. The trip takes about two hours.

Warwick Castle
Country: England
Built: 1068
Haunting: First built in the 11th century by none other than William the Conqueror, Warwick has seen more battles than perhaps any other castle in Europe. It has found peace in recent years, but the spirits still linger. Its eroded walls and faded battlements tell the tale of a long hard life for the spirits that now walk its halls.


The ghost tower is said to be one of the castle’s most haunted areas, as Sir Fulke Greville still wanders its interior. Murdered by his manservant in 1628, he is said to materialize from his portrait late on cold evenings. The castle dungeon, home to all sorts of past torment, also seems to be quite haunted. Many visitors complain of vertigo and nausea upon touching the dungeon apparatuses.

Visiting: Warwick Castle is very tourist accessible and is open every day except Christmas. Warwick Castle is located just 40 minutes from Birmingham airport.

Honorable mention:

Castle Bran or Dracula’s Castle
Country: Romania
Built: 1212
Haunting: In the heart of old Transylvania, deep in the Carpathian wilderness, is a castle named for a ruler from the 15th century – Vlad III Dracul. After Vlad’s father was assassinated and his brother was buried alive, he set out to become more ruthless than anyone in fiction could believably create. He makes pint-sized tyrants like Joffrey Baratheon look like equitable play dates.

It all began at an Easter feast when Vlad asked his nobles how many princes they had survived, insinuating that they conspired against past rulers. The story goes that he arrested all of them. He impaled the older ones and their families and made the younger nobles into slaves for a wave of ambitious improvements to the castle. All told, Vlad impaled tens of thousands of people, earning the nickname Vlad the Impaler, and the tales get so ridiculous that it is difficult to sift the myths from the truth. In fact, Vlad never actually lived in Castle Bran, though the castle has come to be associated with the “Son of the Dragon.”

Visiting: The easiest way to reach the castle is by traveling by train from Bucharest, Romania to Brasov, Romania. Many tour companies in Bucharest can arrange a day trip for well under 100 Euros.

[Top image of Brissac Castle via flickr image user @lain G]

Berkeley’s Edible Cities Guide Leads Urban Foragers To Free Good Eats

by Laurel Miller on

Anyone who’s ever snagged fruit off of their neighbor’s trees or bushes (oh, don’t look at me like that) will appreciate the new online Edible Cities guide from Berkeleyite Cristian Ionescu-Zanetti.

Berkeley is ground zero for the localized food movement, and “urban foraging” has been growing in popularity amongst local chefs as well as home cooks.

As a former resident and recent subletter, I can attest to just how many tasty treats grow in this region, which is composed of many microclimates. All manner of citrus – most notably Meyer lemons – heirloom varieties of plums, cherries, loquats, avocado, raspberries, blackberries, pomegranates, persimmons, rosemary, wild fennel, miner’s lettuce, wild watercress, mustard plants…they all flourish here, sometimes in backyards, but often in public spaces.

Hence, Edible Cities, which uses a Google Maps interface that denotes where specific species are free for the picking. In a recent interview in Berkeleyside, Inoescu-Zanetti, who is originally from Romania, stated that urban foraging’s “most important aspect is education: Kids need to learn where food comes from, and adults need a refresher, as well.” Here, here!

According to its mission statement, Edible Cities’ goal is to promote local food security by “mapping publicly available food sources” and “enable a more sustainable mode of food production that lessens our environmental impact.” In plain English, you can have free fruit and preserves year-round, instead of buying tasteless, imported crap sprayed with God knows what.

Oakland has a similar program, Forage Oakland, which began in 2008. Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle and Tampa also have fruit gleaning projects, which are variously used for residents and to provide fresh food for those in need.

[Photo credit: Flickr user OliBac]