Blog | Books And Travel

The City Of Life And Death. New Orleans With Laura And Dan Martone

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New Orleans is one of those cities that has a special place in the imagination of a traveler, even if you haven’t been there. It’s famous for loving life — for Mardi Gras parades, a vibrant music scene, drinking and eating and gorgeous architecture in the French Quarter — but it’s also known as the City of the Dead, with cemeteries, Voodoo, ghost stories, vampires, and of course, the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

In today’s episode, native New Orleanian Laura Martone and her husband, Dan, talk about the history of the French Quarter and some of the haunted buildings there, the best cemeteries to visit, vampires, voodoo and Creole cuisine.

Laura and Daniel Martone write fiction in multiple genres including space opera, post-apocalyptic and urban fantasy. They lived in the French Quarter of New Orleans for many years and produced several audio walking guides. Laura has also written a guidebook to the city and they now live in their RV, Serenity, and travel between New Orleans and Michigan, USA.

The various pronunciations of New Orleans
Why the French Quarter has mostly Spanish influenced architecture
Interesting cemeteries in the city
Why vampires are associated with New Orleans
How and why Catholicism and voodoo are so entwined
The importance of music and its influence on the culture in New Orleans
The different parades at Mardi Gras
Seafood boils as social occasions
The beautiful natural ecosystems that surround the city

You can find Dan and Laura Martone at TheMartones.com

10 Ancient Ruined Cities Around the World

Unusual Places

There’s something magical about a lost city. Look at Atlantis, vanished beneath the waves, or the famous jungle city of El Dorado.

Not all lost cities are mythical, though. Others, like Pompeii, keep a firm hold on the public imagination. Ancient ruined cities offer the chance to walk (or swim) into historical settings and it’s easy to dream about the lost treasure or secret artifacts hidden away in these ruins …

This guide highlights 10 breath-taking ancient ruined cities, both above ground, and underwater, some of which I’ve used as settings for my thrillers.

1. Derinkuyu, Turkey

Derinkuyu underground city cave city in Cappadocia Turkey. Photo licensed from BigStockPhoto

Ancient cities don’t always disappear back into the landscape. Sometimes they’re under the landscape. Like the huge underground city of Derinkuyu in Turkey.

A Walk Along The Las Vegas Strip, Nevada, USA

Unusual Places

I visited Las Vegas in late October 2019 for a conference Downtown, but while I was there, I had to walk The Strip. Infamous as the center of Sin City, it certainly delivered in terms of excess. It was bonkers … but fun bonkers! A homage to American decadence and a theme park of entertainment in all its forms. I enjoyed The Strip for what it was and then left for the quieter parts of town! Here are some of my pictures and thoughts as I walked.

You can get Ubers easily and quickly from any part of the city, so I got one to the MGM Grand as a starting point for my walk. I went up onto the overpass to take a picture of New York, New York. Apparently, there are a lot of traffic accidents along the Strip — a combination of drunken pedestrians and drivers looking at the sights, so make sure to use the overpasses to cross the road.

Thriller author Jo Frances Penn in Las Vegas New York New York

I love architecture and The Strip is like a theme park in terms of its brilliant — but fake — buildings. There are some gorgeous aspects — like the upmarket shops at City Center …

The Bellagio lake and dancing fountains …

Ancient City, Modern Life. Beijing With LH Draken

Unusual Places

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China is a rising world power, increasingly challenging the USA in terms of global influence and technological development, especially around artificial intelligence and biotechnology. It’s also an ancient culture with fascinating places to visit, and in this interview, thriller author L.H.Draken shares her thoughts on traveling to Beijing.

LH Draken is the author of The Year of the Rabid Dragon, a medical thriller set in Beijing, China. Lawrence is American but worked as a physicist and engineer in Beijing before moving to Germany.

Ancient historical sites in and around Beijing
Cultural and technological differences between America and China
Recommended hiking guides in China
What travel means to LH Draken’s writing and the concept of home

You can find LH Draken at LHDraken.com and on Twitter @lhdraken.

15 Unusual Crypts, Catacombs And Ossuaries

Dark Travel

Visiting the dead might seem like a macabre thing to do, yet few things make you appreciate life more than seeing thousands of skeletons in one place.

If you want to consider memento mori in quieter places, you need to get off the beaten track, so here are 15 beautiful yet unusual crypts, catacombs, and ossuaries you need to visit.

(1) Sedlec Ossuary, Kutna Hora, near Prague, Czech Republic

Sedlec is definitely one of the weirdest places in Europe. The Ossuary attracts around 200,000 visitors every year, who come to see the bones of 40,000-70,000 people.

The skeletal remains have been transformed into astonishing works of art, including a chandelier, coats of arms, and even the name of the artist himself. It takes a special kind of person to immortalize themselves using the remains of the dead!

Sedlec Ossuary, Kutna Hora. Photo by JFPenn

Click here to view more of my photos from Sedlec on Flickr.

But the Ossuary wasn’t planned to look the way it does. When the cemetery was remodeled in the 16th century, the bones of the exhumed skeletons were simply stacked in the chapel. In 1870, a local woodcarver was employed to make sense of the bones.

Outback Nights And City Days In The Lucky Country. Australia With J.F.Penn

Travel Memoir

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Australia is truly a land of two halves. There is nature in all its diversity — from the vast outback to ancient rainforest, from the coral reef to the desert; and then there are the great international cities, from Sydney’s Harbour Bridge to Melbourne’s coffee culture, where multi-cultural Aussies work and play in the Lucky Country.

It’s also the land of opportunity, with golden-haired surfers riding the waves on white-sand beaches, a rich mining industry and a great standard of living; but it also has a dark history of oppression, resulting in racism and inequality that still pervades the country.

In this episode, I explain my complex relationship with Australia, what I learned from living there for five years, and why I had to leave. It’s hard to encompass such a vast place but I also include some thoughts on where to visit, what to eat and how to navigate some of the Aussie cultural differences.

Australia gave me escape — for a while. Travels in the outback.
The dark side of the Lucky Country
Australia changed my mindset around what I could achieve
Australia taught me about home
Other aspects of culture, food, and drink Down Under
Recommended books