Other sights in North America
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Frye Art Museum
This small museum on First Hill preserves the collection of Charles and Emma Frye. The Fryes collected more than 1000 paintings, mostly 19th- and early-20th-century European and American pieces, and a few Alaskan and Russian artworks. If this inspires a stifled yawn, think again. Since its 1997 expansion, the Frye has gained a hipness that it once lacked; fresh ways of presenting its artwork, music performances, poetry readings and interesting rotating exhibits from traveling painters to local printmakers make the museum a worthwhile stop.
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Stimson-Green Mansion
One of the first homes on First Hill, the baronial Stimson-Green Mansion is an English Tudor-style mansion completed in 1901 by lumber and real-estate developer CD Stimson. Built from brick, stucco and wood, this stately home is now owned by Stimson’s granddaughter and used for private catered events such as weddings and themed dinners. The interior rooms are decorated to reflect the different design styles popular at the turn of the 20th century. To register for a tour, call the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation.
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Illinois Centennial Memorial Column
What’s that giant phallic thing in the middle of the road, causing traffic to swerve every which way? Excellent question. Most locals have no idea. Turns out it’s a monument commemorating the 100th anniversary of Illinois’ statehood, by a gent named Henry Bacon – the same architect who created the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. The eagle atop the Doric column echoes that on the Illinois state flag. The reliefs of Native Americans, explorers, farmers and laborers represent the great changes the state experienced during its first century.
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Brackendale Art Gallery
If you’re in Brackendale in January, drop by the quirky Brackendale Art Gallery, the center of the area’s biggest wildlife claim to fame. The winter feeding ground for thousands of salmon-scoffing bald eagles, the village lures legions of binocular-clad visitors who flock around the gallery’s eccentric owner Thor Froslev as he coordinates the winter bird count. Thor’s rustic gallery is lined with eagle-inspired paintings and photos and has a cozy café that could double as a hobbit hole.
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Carson Pirie Scott & Co
Carson Pirie Scott & Co was originally criticized as being too ornamental to serve as a retail building. You be the judge, as you admire Louis Sullivan’s superb metalwork around the main entrance at State and Madison Sts. Though Sullivan insisted that ‘form follows function,’ it’s hard to see his theory at work in this lavishly flowing cast iron. Amid the flowing botanical and geometric forms, look for Sullivan’s initials, LHS. The century-old department store vacated the building in 2007, and it has become office space.
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Beaty Biodiversity Museum
Only open for public preview visits, UBC's newest attraction showcases the university's wealth of natural history exhibits, including two million specimens that have never before been available for public viewing. Fossil, fish and herbarium galleries are included but the museum's main draw is the 25m blue whale skeleton, artfully displayed in a two-story glass gallery. The whale washed ashore on Canada's eastern coastline and was trucked across the country – to much media curiosity – in 2009.
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Dusable Museum of African American History
This was the first independent museum in the country dedicated to African American art, history and culture. The collection features African American artworks and photography, permanent exhibits that illustrate African Americans’ experiences from slavery through the Civil Rights movement, and rotating exhibits that cover topics such as Chicago blues music or the Black Panther movement. Housed in a 1910 building, the museum takes its name from Chicago’s first permanent settler, Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable, a French Canadian of Haitian descent.
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Willie Dixon's Blues Heaven
From 1957 to 1967 this humble building was the home of the legendary Chess Records, a temple of blues and a spawning ground of rock ’n’ roll. The Chess brothers, two Polish Jews, ran the recording studio that saw – and heard – the likes of Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Koko Taylor and others. Chuck Berry recorded four top-10 singles here, and the Rolling Stones named a song ‘2120 S Michigan Ave’ after a recording session at this spot in 1964. (Rock trivia buffs will know that the Stones named themselves after the Muddy Waters song ‘Rolling Stone.’)
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Cooper Dual Language Academy
Murals are a traditional Mexican art form, and they’re splashed all over Pilsen’s buildings. Check out the exterior wall of the Cooper Dual Language Academy, the canvas for a 1990s tile mosaic that shows a diverse range of Mexican images, from a portrait of farmworker advocate Dolores Huerta to the Virgin of Guadalupe. Each summer, art students add more panels. Local artist Jose Guerrero leads the highly recommended Pilsen Mural Tours where you can learn more about the neighborhood’s images.
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Pacific Spirit Regional Park
This stunning 763-hectare park – the city's largest – cuts a wide swathe across the peninsula. Stretching from Burrard Inlet on one side to the North Arm of the Fraser River on the other, it's a green buffer zone between the campus and the city. A smashing spot to hug some trees and explore (there are 54km of walking, jogging and cycling trails), you'll also find Camosun Bog wetland (accessed by a boardwalk at 19th Ave and Camosun St), a haven for native bird and plant species. Visit the Park Centre for maps and info on the park's many features.
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Hl Hunley
HL Hunley submarine, in a faceless warehouse at a working dockyard north of downtown, rests in a 90,000-gallon tank of water like some strange top-secret science experiment. In 1864 the Confederate Hunley completed the world's first submarine mission by sinking the Union's USS Housatonic, only to vanish immediately afterwards. In 1995 it was discovered off Sullivan's Island and carefully brought to shore. On weekends you can visit the Hunley and see creepy facial reconstructions of her eight crew members.
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Fluvarium
The Fluvarium, a glass-sided cross-section of a 'living' river, is located across the street from the CA Pippy Park's campground. Viewers can peer through large windows to observe the undisturbed goings-on beneath the surface of Nagle's Hill Brook. Numerous brown trout and the occasional eel can be seen. If there has been substantial rain or high winds, all visible life is lost in the murkiness. There's also a demonstration fish hatchery.
Opening times vary, but feeding time is scheduled at 16:00, and tours are offered hourly except at 16:00.
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Xpuhil
Xpuhil boasts a surreal skyscraper that is a striking example of the Río Bec style. The three towers (rather than the usual two) of Estructura I rise above a dozen vaulted rooms. The central tower, soaring 53m, is the best preserved. With its banded tiers and impractically steep stairways leading up to a temple that displays traces of a zoomorphic mask, it gives a good idea of what the other two must have looked like back in Xpuhil’s 8th-century heyday. Go around back to see a fierce jaguar mask embedded in the wall below the temple.
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Nordic Heritage Museum
This museum preserves the history of the northern Europeans who settled in Ballard and the Pacific Northwest, as well as bringing in special exhibits of new work by contemporary Scandinavian artists. It’s the only museum in the USA that commemorates the history of settlers from all five Scandinavian countries. A permanent exhibit, with one room for each country, features costumes, photographs and maritime equipment, while a second gallery is devoted to changing exhibitions. The museum also offers Scandinavian language instruction, lectures and films.
To get here, take bus 17 from downtown at 4th Ave and Union St, get off at 32nd Ave NW and walk one block east on NW 67th…
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Institute of Texan Cultures
Thirty cultures, including Native American and Mexican, have made Texas what it is; explore them at the museum of the Institute of Texan Cultures. The Latin-American influence is fairly prominent in San Antonio, so this museum can be an eye-opener to visitors learning about Texas' diverse background. The main exhibit, spread out over an enormous single-floor space, has sections devoted to more than two dozen ethnic and national groups of settlers in Texas, including Anglo-Americans, Germans, European Jews, Irish and African Americans.
Be sure to catch one of the daily shows in the Bluebonnet Puppet Theater or the 360- degree Dome Theater. The Back 40 Area, behind the main…
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River North Galleries
The River North district is the most established of Chicago’s three gallery-rich zones (West Loop and Pilsen are the other two), with art from top international names and price tags to match. It claims to be the largest concentration of private galleries in the US outside Manhattan. Most are very welcoming, and together they open their doors for a festive art hop on the first Thursday of every month (which is held in conjunction with the younger, edgier West Loop galleries). Pick up a gallery map at any of the venues to help find artwork to your liking.
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San Antonio Botanical Gardens
This expertly tended, 33-acre garden complex, northeast of downtown, showcases native Texas flora. There's also a fragrance garden and a wonderful conservatory, with a bit of everything from equatorial rainforest to alpine flowers to a tropical lagoon. The strolling garden was designed and created by a 26th-generation gardener and one of Japan's living national treasures from the island of Kyūshū, specifically the city of Kumamoto, which is also home to one of Japan's most revered traditional gardens, Suizenji-kōen. A few of that famous garden's elements appear here. Call or go online for a calendar of special events, anything from concerts under the stars to bonsai…
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Dr Evermor's Sculpture Park
Dr Evermor’s Sculpture Park sprawls 11 miles northwest of Madison on US 12. The doc welds old pipes, carburetors and other salvaged metal into a hallucinatory world of futuristic creatures and structures. The crowning glory is the giant, egg-domed Forevertron, cited by Guinness as the world’s largest scrap-metal sculpture. The good doctor himself – aka Tom Every – is often around and happy to chat about his birds, dragons and other pieces of folk art. Look for sculptures along the highway marking the entrance.
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Occidental Square
Occidental Square, with its cobblestone plaza flanked by unusually handsome Victorian buildings, is one of the nicest places in this area. Visit Glasshouse Studio to see local artists’ impressive works of blown, cast and lamp-worked glass. If you need a shot of caffeine or a chance to catch your breath, make the pilgrimage to Zeitgeist. This coffeehouse is a local haunt of artists and architects. Along S Jackson St you’ll find an excellent concentration of antique stores and some of the city’s most prestigious galleries.
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Tingambato
Stroll through luscious avocado groves to the beautiful ruins of this ceremonial site, which predates the Tarascan empire and thrived from about AD 450 to 900. They are located outside of Tingambato village, about 30km from Uruapan on the road to Pátzcuaro. The ruins, which include two plazas, three altars and a ball court (rare in western Mexico), have a Teotihuacán influence. There’s also an 8m-high stepped pyramid and an underground tomb where a skeleton and 32 scattered skulls were found – hinting at beheading or trophy-skull rituals.
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Ringling Museum Complex
Really, don’t miss the 66-acre winter estate of railroad, real-estate and circus baron John Ringling and his wife, Mable. This excellent museum complex, with exotic plantings and a rose garden, is easily worth at least a half-day of your holiday. Avid art collectors, over the years they amassed an exceptional collection of works by Rubens, Hals, Van Dyck and others. Ringling began work on a fine art museum in the early 1920s, which was donated to the state after his death in 1936. You can also tour Ringling’s home, Cà d’Zan, and the enormous Circus Museum.
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Ontario Science Centre
Climb a rock wall, journey to the center of a human heart, catch a criminal with DNA fingerprinting and race an Olympic bobsled at the excellent, interactive Ontario Science Centre. Over 800 high-tech exhibits and live demonstrations wow the kids (and the adults at the back, pretending not to be interested). Also here is the giant domed Omnimax Cinema. Check the website for family events, including theme-night sleepovers ($54, reservations required). Parking is $8. To get here, take the subway to Eglinton then bus 34, or Pape then bus 25.
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Museo Arocena
The bright, contemporarily designed Museo Arocena, just off the Plaza de Armas, has galleries of Mexican and Spanish art and a local history section, but the best part is the outer walkway on the third level, which traces Mexico’s history through its arts and technology, from the ancient Olmecs to the 1940s golden age of Mexican cinema, with the aid of interactive screens. In front of the museum is an entrance to Canal de la Perla, an underground aqueduct recently rediscovered by accident and sometimes used for exhibitions.
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Palace of the Governors
This is one of the oldest public buildings in the country. Built in 1610 by Spanish officials, it housed thousands of villagers when the Indians revolted in 1680 and was home to the territorial governors after 1846. It displays a handful of regional relics, but most of its holdings are now shown in an adjacent exhibition space called the New Mexico History Museum, a glossy, 96,000-sq-ft expansion that opened in 2009. Volunteers lead free, highly recommended palace tours throughout the day; call for exact times.
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Golden Spike National Historic Site
On May 10, 1869, the westward Union Pacific Railroad and eastward Central Pacific Railroad met at Promontory Summit. With the completion of the transcontinental railroad, the face of the American West changed forever. Golden Spike National Historic Site, 32 miles northwest of Brigham City on Hwy 83, has an interesting museum and films, auto tours and several interpretive trails. Steam engine demonstrations take place June through August. Aside from Golden Spike National Historic Site, few people visit Utah’s desolate northwest corner.
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