Lost Dutchman State Park in Apache Junction, Ariz. (Photo by Todd DeFeo/The DeFeo Groupe)
Guidebooks are annoying. Just because some editor who doesn’t know me tells me which restaurant is the best or what attraction is a must-see doesn’t make it a must-see attraction. Sightseers’ Delight is dedicated to the weird, the quirky and the fun. After all, traveling is fun.
If it’s not, you’re doing it wrong.
All of the places highlighted in this ever-growing database are great. Sightseers’ Delight has visited them all. We think you should make a point to see every one of them. But, this is not a guidebook. Just a webpage to help you plan your next adventure.
The Royal Observatory Greenwich is part of Royal Museums Greenwich, which also includes the Cutty Sark. The Royal Observatory Greenwich is home to Greenwich Mean Time and the Prime Meridian and one of the world’s most important historic scientific sites. Since its founding in 1675, Greenwich has been at the center of time and space measurement. Visitors can stand on the historic Prime Meridian line.
The Royal Ontario Museum is part art, part natural history and part world culture museum. The museum, founded in 1914, is home to more than 13 million artifacts, including dinosaur fossils and works of art. The items are displayed in 40 galleries and exhibition spaces. The museum is one of the most visited in North America.
Akron unveiled the 12-foot-tall Rubber Worker cast bronze statue in May 2021. It stands in a roundabout at the intersection of Main and Mill streets. The statue depicts a rubber worker wrapping a tire and is based on the cover image of “Wheels of Fortune: The Story of Rubber in Akron,” a 1999 book by David Giffels and Steve Love. The ceremony included Akron Mayor Dan Horrigan and Zanesville-based sculptor Alan Cottrill.
Salisbury Cathedral was consecrated in 1220 to replace the cathedral in Old Sarum. Today, Salisbury Cathedral, an extraordinary building that remains a leading example of Early English architecture, is the centerpiece of the city. Its central portion of the cathedral took 38 years to complete, from 1220 until 1258. While the structure itself is spectacular, the church is home to one of four surviving original copies of the Magna Carta. A master stonemason present at Runnymede and tasked with distributing copies of the document, Elias of Dereham, brought Salisbury’s version to the cathedral.
Sally Lunn’s is a historical house located in Bath and is known to be the oldest house in the area dating back to 1482. Here, a young Huguenot baker named Solange Luyon, Anglicized as Sally Lunn, invented the first Bath bun in 1680. This regional delicacy, similar to a brioche bun, can be relished with sweet or savory toppings and is popular worldwide. Sally Lunn’s offers a menu based on this famous bun during the day and serves fine English cuisine in the evening. Additionally, visitors can explore the original kitchen used by Sally in the downstairs kitchen museum.
The 17th-century Baroque Sant’Agnese in Agone faces Piazza Navona, the location where the Saint Agnes, an early Christian saint, was martyred in the ancient Stadium of Domitian. Pope Innocent X instigated construction of the church, which began in 1652. Architects Girolamo Rainaldi and his son, Carlo Rainaldi, oversaw construction as did architect Francesco Borromini.
For a uniquely different perspective of the “Eternal City,” head over to the Capuchin Crypt. Located beneath Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini, the crypt is home to skeletal remains of thousands of bodies said to be Capuchin friars buried by their order, which adorn the crypt’s walls as a tribute to how swiftly time on Earth passes and humans’ mortality.
Santa Maria Novella dates to the mid 13th century. A pair of Dominican friars, Fra Sisto da Firenze and Fra Ristoro da Campi, designed the church. It is known as Novella, which means “new” because it was built on the site of the 9th-century oratory of Santa Maria delle Vigne. Leon Battista Alberti completed the church’s façade in 1470. Admittedly, it would be nearly impossible to list every church in Florence that is worth seeing, not to mention how dif-ficult it would be to actually visit each church. Certainly the four aforemen-tioned churches offer a nice overview and can easily be seen in a day or two, or spread out over a longer period of time, depending on how long one plans on spending in Florence.
