Did you read Intelligent Travel’s post about ‘Foodie Museums’?

Their list of food museums around America sounds like just the thing for a food lover such as myself. Except, that is, for the Spam Museum. That’s a food that brings vivid childhood memories that I thought I’d blocked out. Spam was served with salad and mashed potatos every thursday. And every thursday, I tried to find new and creative ways of getting out of eating it. I simply did not like Spam. I still don’t like Spam. So I guess that’s one museum crossed off my food museum list. But not to worry, there are plenty of others out there to discover.

Such as the Jell-O Musuem in Le Roy, New York. Now that’s one food I have great childhood memories of. Or the Ice Cream Capital of the World in Le Mars, Iowa.

But why not look further afield to the rest of the world? There are plenty of food museums to choose from.

Here’s five that caught my eye…

The Museum of Bread Culture in Ulm, Germany.

The National Asparagus and Mushroom Museum in Limberg, Holland.

The National Museum of Pasta in Rome, Italy.

The Martini Museum in Chieri, Italy.

The Cured Ham Museum and Ibérico Pig Interpretation Center in Aracena, Spain.

Traveling around cyberspace this week, I came across two articles that reminded me that there’s a lot of weird out there worth exploring.

The first article, 7 Bizarre Tours You’d Actually Sign Up for … Maybe highlighted some truly interesting tours that you never would have thought existed. For example, how about the Illegal Border Crossing Tour in Mexico, a ‘night-time guided hike and you’ll be chased in the dark, shot at by (fake) police and you may or may not make it under the fence’. Sounds like something the PC police might have a problem with but I’ve just added it to my list of things to do on my road trip next year. (note to self: make sure I pack some old clothes). Other intriguing tours include the Karaoke Ghost Tour of Sydney and the Scandal Tour of Washington DC.

The second article, Top 10 weird attractions around the globe, offers a list of ‘one of a kind’ events and places. From the Cockroach Race in Brisbane, Australia to the Hakone Kowakien Yunessun Wine Spa in Hakone, Japan, there’s enough weird here for everyone. If I had to choose one, I’d definitely be heading for the wine spa.

And if that’s not enough weird, just yesterday I was reading a short article in the recent Wanderlust magazine that listed ’sewer tours worth a visit’ ranging from the sewers to Paris to New Dehli.

It sure is a weird, weird world.

This week’s reading included two articles that featured some of my favorite things - coffee, walking, and writing.

USAToday’s article on 10 great places to take a literary hike had me wishing I could just put on my walking shoes and hit the trail. Created by Joni Rendon, author of Novel Destinations, the list highlighted literary places such as Bronte’s Yorkshire Moors, Thoreau’s Walden Pond, and Jack London’s Beauty Ranch Trail.

And then I came across a post at TripHow that focused on current day literary cafes in Los Angeles and San Francisco, as well as a brief look at the tradition of literary cafes in Europe. Turns out you can get a book, The Grand Literary Cafés of Europe by Noel Riley Fitch, profiling 40 historic literary cafes in Europe (all of which are still in business). Cafes such as Le Procope in Paris that first opened it’s doors in 1686. And Café De Oriente in Madrid where Salvador Dali and Federico Garcia Lorca would meet.

Coffee, walking, and writing - sounds like a perfect way to travel.

Have you ever read a book and then started day dreaming about visiting the place where the characters are living?

Or imagined staying at the place or sit in a cafe where an author wrote a certain book?

I know I have.

On a recent trip to Madrid, I was hyped by the idea that I was able to sit and drink a beer in the same cafe that Hemingway once sat and wrote in. And that I could eat in the same restauarant (Cafe Botin) that was a favorite Hemmingway haunt and also the final meeting place of Jake and Brett in the last pages of The Sun Also Rises.

Being able to walk in the footsteps of authors and their characters is the focus of a new book published by National Geographic. Called Novel Destinations, it provides a guide to literary sites, festivals, and tours around the world. After all, not all places are as easily found or known about as Hemmingway’s Madrid.

Novel Destinations travels the world, focusing on classic writers such as the Bronte sisters, Steinbeck, Dostoevsky’s and the like. This is not a book for those looking for the Da Vinci Code.

The book has a companion website where you can find out more about the book and it’s authors.

You can also read an interview with the books authors over at Intelligent Travel.

On the road and looking for something a little different this summer ? Well, if you don’t mind a little ’shock and gore’, head to the nearest medical museums.

From stomach sized hairballs (National Museum of Health and Medicine) to a giant hamster wheel for energetic patients (Glore Psychiatric Museum), medical museums offer the chance to explore the medicines colorful history and discover the bizzare, the offbeat, and the extreme treatments of days gone by.

You’ll be amazed (and relieved) by how far the practice of medicine has come.

1. The Glore Psychiatric Museum is housed in the former ‘State Lunatic Asylum No. 2′ building in St Joseph, Missouri. From medical artifacts such as a tranquilizing chair and a dousing tank to exhibits featuring the ‘1,446 Objects Swallowed by a Patient’ and the ‘television diary’, this museum will leave you speechless, spellbound, and mighty relieved that the days of such barbaric medical treatment is well and truly over.

2. The Mutter Museum in Philadelphia was orginally established as a place where trainee doctors could go to learn about anatomy and human medical anomalies. It’s those anomalies - such as the preserved body of the ‘Soap Lady’ and a cancerous growth removed from President Grover Cleveland - that now draw the public to it’s doors.

3. National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington DC is a goldmine for American history buffs. Here you can see not only the bullet that killed Abraham Lincoln but also the probe used to locate the bullet and the blood stained shirt cuff of the surgeon who attended Lincoln’s autopsy. Other permanent displays include ‘Medicine During the Civil War’ and ‘Battlefied Surgery 101′.

4. International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago offers a diverse collection of surgical memoriabilia and artefacts from around the world. Spread out over four floors, the exhibits include early 20th century X-ray machines, trephining (skull drilling) instruments, and an iron lung. The museums newest exhibit, Beyond Broken Bones, looks at the history of orthopedics and prothestics from the Ancient Egyptians to modern day.

There are medical museums all over the USA open to the public. So next time you are on the road and looking for something different, find out if the city you’re in has one.