Cynthia Collins's Blog

A Christmas Carol, that classic story by Charles Dickens set in 19th-century London about Ebenezer Scrooge and his negative, bah-humbug attitude toward Christmas, needs no introduction. It is a well-known description of the change that comes over a cold-hearted, selfish miser after he experiences ghostly visitors on Christmas Eve. The ghosts his former business partner … Continue reading How Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ Depicts the Faces of Poverty

The RMS Queen Mary is a retired, luxury ocean liner with a haunting history. This permanently docked ship in Long Beach, California, is so famous for her ghost crew and passengers that ghost tours are not just for Halloween, but for all year long. Her maritime history is stellar, ranging from the luxurious transatlantic crossings … Continue reading The Queen Mary and her Haunting History

Mission San Antonio de Valero, later known as the Alamo, was the first mission in the San Antonio area and was established in the early 18th century when the region was under Spanish rule. In its 300-year history, it has been a Catholic mission, a fort, a shrine, and a museum.  Its history became an … Continue reading The Alamo: From Mission to Museum

The San Antonio Missions National Historical Park in San Antonio, Texas, consists of four missions built in the early 1700s by Spanish Catholic priests. The purpose was to establish settlements in the territory claimed by Spain. The priests spread Catholicism and established local communities with the indigenous people known as Coahuiltecans. In addition to religious … Continue reading The Historic Importance of the San Antonio Missions

The Irish tradition of kissing the Blarney Stone has been around for centuries. Although there are different stories as to how the legend came about, the end result is the same—those who kiss the stone will have the gift of eloquent speech. The stone’s history ranges from Celtic myth to factual events from the Middle […]

It has been more than 100 years since the publication of the novel, Dracula, by Irish author Bram Stoker, yet the story continues to intrigue readers. Written in 1897, it is set in a castle in Transylvania high in the Carpathian Mountains. A young lawyer, Jonathan Harker, goes there at the request of the owner, […]

The museums in Hohenems, Austria, focus on subjects that relate to the community. Most of those museums deal with classical music, ranging from the composer, Franz Schubert, for whom the annual Schubertiade Festival is named, to various opera singers. Others are about various professions such as shoemaking that were fixtures of everyday life. There is […]

The Schubertiade is back in Hohenems, Austria during mid-July, offering an array of selections by prominent European composers, many of whom were contemporaries of Schubert. Within the Schubertiade Quarter of the small city are several museums. Some highlight the area’s music history and others focus on the local history which includes a shoemaker and his […]

Schwarzenberg, a village in western Austria near Hohenems, is one of the performance locations for the annual music festival, the Schubertiade. It became part of the festival in the 1990s when outings to neighboring locations were arranged, inspired by the travels of Franz Schubert. The village permanently became part of the Schubertiade in 2001 after […]

The small city of Hohenems, in western Austria, is the home of the annual music festival called the Schubertiade, so named because it focuses on the compositions of Franz Schubert. In addition to the music and scenery, there are museums and other historic sites which relate in some way to music history though are not […]