Turku, Finland – The star attraction of Turku is the 1280 Turun Linna, or Turku Castle. It’s a fantastic medieval fortress (the largest in Finland), with dungeons, banquet halls and plenty of nooks and crannies.
Langinkoski Lodge
Kotka, Finland – Langinkoski Lodge was once the imperial fishing lodge of Tsar Alexander III. Very modest, by tsarist standards, but I’d take it.
Moscow Kremlin & Armory
Moscow, Russia – Daddio has been waiting a long time to take the twins to the Armory in the Moscow Kremlin. Seven years, to be exact. So here we finally are, on a fabulous sunny day in June, introducing the…
Brave Bree Newsome
Somerville, MA – I wrote a story for the religious education class that I teach for four- and five-year-olds at my Unitarian-Universalist church. It’s the story of Bree Newsome, the woman who climbed the flag pole and took down the…
Tulum, Mexico
Tulum, Mexico – This past Halloween, the twins revived their obsession with ancient gods and monsters, which gave me the perfect excuse to plan a family getaway to Mexico. So here we are, celebrating the New Year in the land of…
Minute Man National Historical Park
Lincoln, Mass – For day two of our mini family reunion, we took the troops out to walk along Battle Road, the road from Lexington to Concord that the British regulars followed on the fateful day of April 19, 1775…
Plimoth Plantation & Mayflower II
Plymouth, Mass – After my crisis of conscience that occurred along the Mohawk Trail, I jumped at the chance to give a proper, accurate introduction to local Native American tribes. If the twins are so interested in Native American culture,…
Historic Deerfield
Deerfield, Mass – For Father’s Day weekend, we decided to take the whole family on a working weekend in western Massachusetts. Our first stop was Historic Deerfield, by special request of Daddio. It’s an authentic 18th-century village–back then a frontier settlement–that…
Fruitlands Museum
Harvard, Mass – One of our local heroes–and certainly a hero of the 19th-century Transcendentalist movement–was Bronson Alcott, a teacher, philosopher and reformer (and incidentally the father of the famous author Louisa May Alcott). As a transcendentalist, he believed that…
Witch City
Salem, Mass – It’s a strange thing, how the city of Salem has turned something so horrific into something so fun. In total, 20 people were executed for practicing witchcraft, while many more were accused and saved themselves by confessing and…