Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Smart News / Smart News Travel

Researchers from the the Polytechnic University of Milan are mapping the castle's subterranean structures.

Cool Finds

Secret Passageways Recorded in Leonardo da Vinci’s Sketches Discovered Beneath a Medieval Castle in Milan

Using ground-penetrating radar and laser scanners, researchers identified subterranean structures just a few feet below the ground. The pathways may connect Sforza Castle to a nearby basilica

The statue of Athena had been housed in William Weddell's estate in England since the 1700s.

See the Stunning Ancient Roman Statue of Athena That’s Going on View for the First Time in Nearly 260 Years

After spending centuries on a British aristocrat’s estate in North Yorkshire, the marble masterpiece will be unveiled in Chicago’s Wrightwood 659 gallery later this week

The new Chuckwalla National Monument protects more than 624,000 acres in southern California.

Biden Establishes Two New National Monuments in California

The Chuckwalla National Monument and the Sáttítla Highlands National Monument will protect more than 848,000 acres of public lands

Jean Michel-Basquiat, Brook Bartlett and Bruno Bischofberger in St. Moritz on January 30, 1983

See How Basquiat’s Travels to the Swiss Alps Influenced His Artistic Development

A new exhibition in Switzerland examines the New York City artist’s lesser-known fascination with pine trees and snowy mountain peaks

The weeklong exhibition showcases items submitted by members of the public.

The Museum of Bad Gifts Is a Celebration of Outlandish Objects, From Ceramic Clowns to Cat Nail Clippings

Presented like pieces of fine art, the peculiar presents are mounted on the walls of a gallery in Toronto. Many of them will ultimately be sold at auction

The USS Cobia floats in the Manitowoc River outside the Wisconsin Maritime Museum.

You Can Spend the Night on a Fully Restored World War II Submarine

The Wisconsin Maritime Museum is home to the USS “Cobia,” a 312-foot-long vessel that completed six war patrols during World War II

With its clear, dark skies, Colorado's Browns Canyon National Monument is an ideal spot to admire planets, constellations and the Milky Way.

A New Dark Sky Park in Colorado Offers a Front-Row Seat to the Cosmos

This week, Browns Canyon National Monument, a 21,586-acre protected natural area in central Colorado, achieved International Dark Sky Park certification

Robert Smithson created Spiral Jetty on Utah's Great Salt Lake in 1970.

Utah’s Spellbinding ‘Spiral Jetty’ Has Been Added to the National Register of Historic Places

Robert Smithson constructed the famous 1,500-foot-long land artwork on the shore of the Great Salt Lake in 1970

None

The Ten Best Books About Travel of 2024

These top titles of the year whisk readers away on adventures and remind us of the many wonders in this world

Corfe Castle as seen from the main bridge

Visitors Can See the View From Henry I’s Tower at Corfe Castle for the First Time in Nearly Four Centuries

Located in southern England, the king’s quarters haven’t been open to the public since the castle’s destruction during the English Civil War in the 1640s

Top: Rubble inside Notre-Dame Cathedral in 2019. Bottom: The cathedral's renovated interior (including the tabernacle designed by French artist Guillaume Bardet) in 2024

Trending Today

See Inside Notre-Dame Cathedral in These Breathtaking Images of Its Newly Unveiled Interior

The historic church was devastated by a fire in 2019. After five years of painstaking work, it’s finally scheduled to reopen to the public this weekend

Thessaloniki's Venizelou subway station contains the ruins of a Roman-era thoroughfare.

Cool Finds

A New Subway System in Greece Is Decorated With the Artifacts Unearthed During Its Construction

An ancient marble thoroughfare and shards of classical pottery are on display in the city of Thessaloniki’s new underground “archaeo-stations”

The stone marked with the name "Ebenezer Scrooge" is located in a graveyard at St. Chad’s Church in Shrewsbury, England.

Vandals Destroy Ebenezer Scrooge’s Fictional Tombstone Featured in a Film Adaptation of ‘A Christmas Carol’

Located in an English churchyard, the stone was inscribed with the name “Ebenezer Scrooge” for the 1984 movie. Police are investigating the vandalism, which occurred earlier this month

Lake Tahoe's Emerald Bay is one of the sites where telephone cables were recently removed from.

Crews Remove Miles of Abandoned, Lead-Coated Telephone Cables From the Bottom of Lake Tahoe

The cables have been resting on the lakebed for decades, raising fears from environmentalists and residents about possible lead contamination

The letter inside the glass bottle was dated September 4, 1892.

Cool Finds

Read the 132-Year-Old Message in a Bottle Found Hidden Inside the Walls of a Scottish Lighthouse

Engineers discovered the mysterious missive while working on repairs at Corsewall Lighthouse last month. Now, they plan to write their own note for future generations to find

The team used A.I. algorithms to combine more than 400,000 photos into a comprehensive, three-dimensional model of the Catholic church.

See Every Nook and Cranny of St. Peter’s Basilica With This New, Stunningly Accurate 3D Replica

Microsoft and the Vatican used artificial intelligence to virtually recreate the historic Vatican City church

An illustration of opening of the Suez Canal in 1869

On This Day in History

How the Groundbreaking Suez Canal Forever Transformed the World’s Shipping Routes

The massive global shortcut linking the Mediterranean and Red Seas took ten years to dig through the Isthmus of Suez and was built on the path of an ancient canal

A crowd of tourists gathers on the main street at Pompeii.

Pompeii Introduces New Limits on Daily Visitors to Protect the Ancient City From Overtourism

A maximum of 20,000 people will be allowed to enter each day in an effort to protect the historic site in Italy, where misbehaving tourists are becoming a persistent problem

Three new bells arrived for installation at Notre-Dame on November 7. One of the bells had been used for the Summer Olympics in Paris.

Hear the Bells of Paris’ Notre-Dame Cathedral Ring Out for the First Time in More Than Five Years

The cathedral has been under renovation since 2019, when it was badly damaged in a fire. Crews are testing the bells before the historic structure reopens on December 8

Lake Como has become a popular vacation destination in Italy's northern Lombardy region.

Trending Today

Travelers Can Now Buy a Can of ‘100 Percent Authentic Air’ From Italy’s Lake Como

It’s not the first time savvy entrepreneurs have marketed canned air to tourists. Similar products have been sold at vacation destinations for decades

Page 8 of 118