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The first time I visited Chateau de Chaumont was in the winter of 2003 - a brief visit that lingered in my imagination for years after.  Since the castle was closed to tourists, I wandered the grounds alone in hopes I might encounter the spirits of inhabitants past.   This might seem an unusual pastime unless you pause to consider the castle's rather unusual history.  Chaumont was once the home of Catherine de Medici, queen to Henri II of France.  Catherine practiced what some called "the darker arts" at Chaumont, inviting astronomers, numerologists, and a host of shady characters.   The astrologer  Nostradamus was one of the member's of Catherine's shady squad.  He  visited her at Chaumont on several occasions.  Legend has it Catherine attended ritualistic animal sacrifices in the castle's front hall (this told to me by a groundskeeper I encountered) .   On that first visit, when the wind eerily whispered thro...

Sixteen years ago I visited Mellerstain House , an 18th Century English manor home located in the borders between England and Scotland. I was so taken with the magnificent estate that I flung my arms out and boldly declared, "It's all mine!"   Cindy , my super fun travel pal, snapped a photo of me sitting on the hood of our rented Jaguar with my arms outstretched and the rambling manor home as my backdrop.   Mellerstain House, England Little did I know striking the It's All Mine pose would become one of my travel traditions. Since then, I have posed outside mansions, manor homes, castles, and palaces around the world.   The photos document nearly twenty years of travel to three continents and eighteen countries (and my surprisingly unwavering taste for black garments).  Flipping through the collection today, I realized, though not for the first time, how truly blessed I am to have traveled to so many exotic places (I also  realiz...