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Tags: Maryland Travel / Fall Festivals / Fall Culture Travel / → All Tags

Maryland Ren Faire Welcomes Jousting and Meat on a Stick

Hear ye, hear ye! Time to break out your floral headdress and blouson-sleeved coats, Jaunted readers; 'tis the season for Ren Faire. For a 33rd season, Crownsville, Maryland celebrates everything from jousting to archery at their annual Renaissance Festival. The merry event will be held every weekend, rain or shine, through October 25th, with a full scroll of activities that will take Renaissance enthusiasts back to a time when knights ruled the roost.

Before you don an epic costume and get your Robin Hood on, the official website reminds patrons that no costume or real weapons are allowed by guests. 'Tis a family-friendly event, after all. At the gate, an adult ticket will run you 18 ducats—er, dollars*—while a two-day pass can be purchased for $28. Wee lads and lasses the age of six and under are admitted for free. You also have the option of purchasing a cleverly-titled "Fairever Pass," which is good for the entire festival, will include your photograph, and grants you access to a private entrance to Revel Grove, where the event is being held.

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Tags: Fall Festivals / Fall Travel / Fall Culture Travel / Videos / → All Tags

Fall Culture Travel: Celebrating Your Scottish Side

There's a lot going on this fall in Virginia, mostly because these four will be battling each other there. But if you're looking for something with a little more culture, look no further than the Williamsburg Scottish Festival, complete with more kilts, clans and Celtic music than you can shake a caber at.

The fest starts October 3 and carries on through the weekend. Celtic bands including Albannach and Greenwich Meantime (clever!) will ensure that you get your fill of bagpipe. And of course there will be traditional athletic events that involve people throwing really heavy things as far as they can.

The festival also seeks to assist people in tracing their Scottish roots. Take a trip down "Clan Row" to try to find your link back to the mother country. Last year there were almost 50 groups from across the nation with their own unique lineage, so you're almost guaranteed to find a picture of Grandpa McManus.

Related Stories:
· Williamsburg Scottish Festival [Official Site]
· Fall Travel coverage [Jaunted]

Tags: Fall Culture Travel / Animals / → All Tags

Fall Culture Travel: Run with the Sheep in Idaho

Last year, no one was nuzzled to death: The Trailing of the Sheep festival in Ketchum and Hailey, Idaho (October 10-12) allow our four-legged woolly friends to walk the streets in honor of the region's long history of sheep herding.

Idaho used to be as well known for its mammal population as the Australian outback, but now towns like Sun Valley are better known for their Polarfleece-clad ski denizens than wool production.

Sing sheep-shearing songs with Wyoming poets and Navajo singers, or prove that your sheep dog is a top herder to win $3,000 on Saturday. We'd recommend the lamb tasting fair, too, but don't take your flock to it.

Related Stories:
· Hemingway's Idaho Garden of Eden [Jaunted]
· Spotting Sheep--to the Extreme! [Jaunted]
· Fall Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: cvjanecek]

Tags: Flash Mobs / Improv Everywhere / Fall Culture Travel / Videos / → All Tags

Fall Culture Travel: Act Out with Improv Everywhere

For last year's MP3 Experiment, colorfully dressed masses descended on the park around the World Financial Center to play games and create a bull's-eye formation as directed by a faceless voice. Great fun was had by all! Now the pranksters behind the MP3 experiment, Improv Everywhere, are bringing the internet-driven playtime to three additional cities in the fall.

New York's MP3 Experiment takes place this Saturday afternoon on Governors Island; hipsters in Toronto, San Francisco and Chicago will get their shots September 28 and October 4-5.

Related Stories:
· Instructions for New York's MP3 Experiment [Official Site]
· One Of Last Year's Missions: Frozen Swarm Takes Over Grand Central [Jaunted]
· Hipster Swarm Engulfs New York City Park [Jaunted]

Tags: Fall Culture Travel / Literary Travel / Twilight Travel / Stephenie Meyer / → All Tags

Fall Culture Travel: Take a Bite out of Rural Washington

It's that flavor you can't resist: Take the teenage girl in your household to Forks, Washington, home of the fictional vampires of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. Forks, a former logging town, is taking its place in the spotlight ahead of the big fall release of "Twilight," in which the new girl in town discovers that (spoiler!) one friend is a vampire and one is a werewolf.

To accommodate visitors to this Olympic Peninsula destination--picked by the author, who had never been there at the time, because its climate was so far from her Arizona house--locals have started offering impromptu tours and wry in-jokes like signs for fake blood drives.

While the Summit Entertainment film, out November 21 and starring Kristen Stewart (the teenage girl in "Into the Wild"), was not shot in Forks, a road trip to this misty metropolis may just give you the insuppressible urge to do a little reading. Just not while you're driving!

Related Stories:
· Visitors Flock to Timber Town for Twilight Magic [AP via Yahoo]
· HBO's "True Blood" Is For Suckers [Jaunted]

[Photo: wwworks]

Tags: Fall Culture Travel / National Book Festival / Reading / Laura Bush / Frommer's / → All Tags

Fall into Reading at the National Book Festival

The National Mall becomes an open-air library on Saturday for the National Book Festival, co-hosted by First Librarian Laura Bush. Get psyched for a full day of book shopping, signings and activities by checking out Library of Congress podcasts featuring authors from the fest.

After the click, our picks for a day on the Mall:

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Tags: Fall Culture Travel / Active Travel / Yoga / → All Tags

Fall Culture Travel: Bend It Like Gandhi

Never doubt that a small group of committed, exceedingly flexible individuals can change the world: Sunday's Yoga for Peace will unite nine countries in sun salutations dedicated to global harmony.

Organized by Global Mala, a nonprofit dedicated to "uniting the global yoga community," the stretchy among us will be taking over public parks from Pocatello, Idaho to Zagreb, Croatia.

Even if the solstice-oriented event doesn't achieve world peace in our time, you could do worse than getting a little fresh air, say in Madrid's famous Parque del Retiro, and working out those computer-related kinks.

Related Stories:
· Participating Cities [Yoga for Peace Official Site]
· Standard Miami's Friday Night Yoga Nights [HC]
· Back of the Envelope Guide: Woodstock Film Festival [Jaunted]

[Photo: banno]

Tags: Fall Culture Travel / Broadway Shows / Celeb Travel / Katie Holmes / → All Tags

Fall Culture Travel: On Broadway, Unhappy Families Are All Alike

The Arthur Miller revival "All My Sons" begins previews on Broadway today, starring John Lithgow and Dianne Wiest as patriarch and matriarch of a clan wrecked by the aftermath of World War II.

Patrick Wilson ("Little Children" and Friday's "Lakeview Terrace") is their son, a vet in love with his MIA brother's girlfriend, played by that one TV actress who was on the WB in the '90s... what's her name? Surely it will come to us...

You can also put the "fun" back into "dysfunction" on Broadway this fall with Chekhov's "The Seagull," in which a famous actress (Kristin Scott Thomas) neglects her son in favor of her new lover (Peter Sarsgaard) and brand-new blockbuster musical "A Tale Of Two Cities," in which the French Revolution threatens to tear a young couple apart. If Mum and Dad can't handle it, take 'em to "Shrek"--as far as we know, he's an orphan.

Related Stories:
· Can Shrek Sing? Broadway Finds Out This Fall [Jaunted]
· Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes Feed Each Other at Wynn Las Vegas [HC]
· Celeb Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: JustJared]

Tags: Fall Culture Travel / Colombia Travel / Videos / → All Tags

Fall Culture Travel: Dig the Colombian Beats

Daddy Yankee may have endorsed John McCain a few weeks ago, but reggaeton is *so* 2005. Find out what the latest beats sound like at Bogotá's Hip Hop Al Parque.

Over 30 MCs from around the world will compete in the 11th edition of this year's fest, held October 18 and 19 in the Parque Simon Bolívar. Expect break-dancing performances, graffiti displays and DJ battles to surround the main stage at this free event, where some 100,000 fans will be on hand to cheer on their favorites.

Think that guy up there has a shot this year?

Related Stories:
· For Colombia's Angry Youth, Hip-Hop Helps Keep It Real [NYT]
· Hip Hop al Parque 2008 [Official Site]
· More Travel Videos [Jaunted]

Tags: Fall Culture Travel / Wine / Wine Travel / → All Tags

Fall Culture Travel: Drink (Wine) to Your Health

Not all of us want to be clanking steins with our fellow men in Germany this fall: For the discriminating palate, why not visit the northeastern city of Logroño, Spain September 21-28 for the first fruits of the Rioja region?

The Festival of the Vendimia Riojana consecrates the wine produced by this temperate region that's also home to the Camino de Santiago. On September 21, the patron virgin is offered juice from the first harvested batch of grapes before it goes into bottles. Dancing, parades and cork-popping ensue!

And in case you miss the mellifluous sounds of polka, the German band Trachtenkapelle plays Monday, September 22. Just don't ask for the local beer.

Related Stories:
· Straight Lines Are for Losers [Jaunted]
· Tourism Board Travel: Cheap Wine in Philly [Jaunted]
· Wine Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo of the Bodega de Herederos del Marqués de Riscal: tecnorrante]

Tags: Fall Travel / Fall Culture Travel / Art / Art Galleries / → All Tags

Fall Culture Travel: San Francisco's Open Studios

Although we hate to admit it, the summer does eventually come to an end. Come October, the place to be will be San Francisco, as the city welcomes Open Studios '08, a free four-week public art event hosted by ArtSpan.

Running strong for more than 30 years, the Open Studios program is one of the longest running and largest events of its kind in the nation. In fact, other major cities worldwide have used this event as a model to create their own. The 2007 edition brought over 60,000 visitors and nearly $1.7 million in art was sold.

The festivities offer a wide range of work representing the many differences in the city's art scene as well as a wide ranges of prices--so you can bring home a piece of the action to hang over your couch.

Related Stories:
· ArtSpan [Official Site]
· Fall Culture Travel coverage [Jaunted]
· San Francisco coverage [Jaunted]

[Photos: headexplodie]

Tags: Fall Culture Travel / Fall-Culture-Travel-Map / Museums / Art / → All Tags

Fall Culture Travel :: The Whitney Gets Wordy

Epigrams and snippets of sentences replace the Whitney Museum of American Art's usual contemporary and postmodern visuals this winter. The words, which are painted and printed directly on the walls of the museum, are part of a career-spanning exhibit of the work of US conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner. Though well known and respected in Europe, this is the first retrospective for 65-year-old Weiner held in his home country.

While staring at phrases on white-washed walls might seem like an odd museum experience, Weiner's works exude the type of optimism inherent to the conceptual artists working in the '60s. The exhibit's title, "As Far As the Eye Can See," takes its name from the opening phrase of Weiner's exhibit, and sets the tone for the rest of the work, which also includes the occasional poster and small object.

If you're still hesitant about paying the museum's $15 general admission to stare at semi-haikus, take a cue from Time Out New York art critic Howard Halle, who wrote this in the magazine's most recent issue:

'The occasion of receivership'--i.e., how and why we look at art, what we get out of it by looking at it, and what it may ultimately mean or not mean--has been the focal point of Weiner's ouevre for more than 40 years

Got it? Now go get conceptual.

Related Links:
· Lawrence Weiner: As Far As the Eye Can See [Official Site]
· Fall Culture Travel coverage [Jaunted]
· Fall Culture Travel Map [Jaunted]

[Photo: Whitney Museum]