Such an awesomely bizarre attraction. Photo by London looks via Creative Commons.

Having made several trips to Atlanta from Aiken and Augusta as a kid/teen, I always saw the exit signs for the Cyclorama and thought it was some bike track from the Olympics or something.  Nope.  The Cyclorama is a panoramic painting depicting the Battle of Atlanta during the Civil War.  It doesn’t stop there, however.  There’s a diorama in front of the panorama to give it more depth.  At times, you can barely tell where one stops and the other begins.  To view it, the seats in the center of the building rotate while the history is narrated.  It’s quirky, a little cheesy, but incredibly unique.

Just a part of the almost 400 feet of painting with the diorama in the foreground. Photo by London looks via Creative Commons.

The painting itself currently measures 42 by 358 feet, which is a reduction from the original 50 by 400 feet.  About 12 painters worked on it for one year, with the painting completed in 1886.  The painters were mostly German with experience painting smaller panoramas, and it was executed in Milwaukee by a company that specialized in panoramic paintings.  After traveling across various parts of the US, it was purchased by an Atlantan in 1893.  The owner asked the city of Atlanta to construct a building to house it, and they chose Grant Park.  The current building is fireproof to protect the painting.  The last update to the  Cyclorama experience was in the 80s which adds to the quirky factor.

Do yourself a favor and check it out the next time you’re in Atlanta.  It’s right next to the Atlanta Zoo so you can’t miss it.  I’m not a Civil War buff, but I found the experience to be entertaining and unique.  Plus, if you’re from Atlanta, you’ll recognize a few sites in the painting such as Copen Hill (where the Carter Center is now located).  Want to see the entire painting?  The Cyclorama’s official website links to two videos that you can watch here.

What is ArtSmart?  A couple fellow travel bloggers with an interest in art and I decided to do a roundtable series focused on making our readers “art smart”, e.g. understanding why certain works of art are famous and worth the visit while traveling.  At the end of this post are links to the other ArtSmart posts by participating bloggers.  Interested in joining the Roundtable?  Check out our Facebook page or email me.

Photos by London looks.

This Month’s Fellow ArtSmart Roundtable Articles:

Leslie of CG Travels: coming soon!

Jeff of EuroTravelogue: ArtSmart Roundtable: Raphael’s “School of Athens” in the Vatican Museum

Jenna of This Is My Happiness: ArtSmart Roundtable: Frescoes in Florence, Italy

Kelly of Travellious: Artsmart Roundtable: Frescoes, Wall Art, and the Test of Time

The mausoleum dates from 28 BC, and it is no longer open to the public.

If you find yourself wandering around the Ara Pacis in Rome, you might stumble upon this ruin of bricks with little signage.  It’s the Mausoleum of the Emperor Augustus from 28 BC.  Pillaged by the Goths, used as a fort by medieval Romans, and scavenged for its obelisks (now located on the Esquiline and Quirinal hills), the mausoleum was excavated under Mussolini.  Today, it lies open to the elements but not the public.

Loved seeing the menu items in Chinese. The characters always looks so beautiful.

Beer. It's what's for dinner.

Pan-fried pork dumplings. I think, we had a boozy night.

Beef with thin, dry pancakes and a green apple-like accompaniment with scallions.

The never-ending plate of sauteed pea shoots. This is the only thing I can recreate in my kitchen.

What’s #FriFotos? It’s a weekly Twitter event, with a different theme each week, founded by @EpsteinTravels where people from all over the world share their favorite pics. Search #FriFotos on Twitter to see everyone’s submissions.

I cracked up that my Pharmacy Burger kind of resembled a crab.

The Pharmacy Burger Parlor and Beer Garden is the latest project from the owners of Holland House Bar & Refuge in East Nashville.  I was eager to try it out since the opening had been postponed due to beer license issues (oh Tennessee…), so I was stoked to try it out with my friend and her husband after Christmas.  I usually hold off a bit to let a new restaurant work out their kinks, but I only had 2 or 3 weeks lefts in Nashville so it was now or never.

Mmm, Benton's bacon or a fried egg...

The menu has 8 specialty burgers or you can build your own with curry ketchup, beer gravy, a fried egg, etc.  They also give you a choice between regular fries or tots.  Or you can go for a house-made brat, currywurst, or other pork product on a bun or a chicken sandwich if you’re feeling unadventurous.  As for drinks, they have a great list of craft beers with descriptions of the ones on draft.  There are also milkshakes and minerals (what you call pop/soda/Coke in Ireland, by the way) that are made to order.

I chose the Pharmacy Burger that comes with cheddar, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle and mustard, but I added some Benton’s bacon to mine.  I also opted for the crispy fries with curry ketchup and a Saranac Caramel Porter.  By the way, that caramel porter is life-changing.  It has the flavor of caramel without being sweet or syrupy, and I could probably drink it all day.  Since they were still getting into a groove in the kitchen, my burger wasn’t very juicy whereas a few friends who dined there a couple days earlier needed a ton of napkins for their juicy burgers.  This is also where I think they might hit a snag.  All burgers are cooked to a certain temperature.  Like your burger still moo-ing? Can’t get it rare here.  I personally prefer my burger medium well so it isn’t a problem for me.  Yet I can see many people who are particular about their doneness, or lack thereof, getting frustrated that you can’t get your burger cooked to your liking.

The bun, which looked like an English muffin, is from Provence Bakery, and it really stands up to the loaded toppings without getting soggy.  The crispy fries were golden and evenly crispy without mushy bits or burnt ends.  That curry ketchup is a must!  It’s sweet, spicy, and fragrant.  My only suggestion, besides rethinking the burger doneness is seasoning the meat a little more.  With all of the toppings and sauce flavors, the beef disappears a bit.  The Local Burger at Fido stands up to complex flavors from its toppings, and the PM burger has an Asian bent in its seasoning that makes it unique.  Just a thought.

I’m sure The Pharmacy will become a regular for many Nashvillians especially when it’s warm enough to open the beer garden.  Go get that caramel porter, too.

Rather than just relying on apps to add filters, change the look, or add or subtract to the depth of field, now I can physically adjust the way a photo is taken on my phone.  I can’t wait to bust out the telescopic lens for visits to museums or ornate churches, and I SOOO wish I had it for our trip to Istanbul.  The lens has 8x magnification that stays really crisp.  It also came with a tripod to minimize blur from shaky hands.  If you see some weirdo at a restaurant in Cambridge with her phone on a tripod, that’s me.

Here are a few photos that I took with the lens on Christmas Day to see how well it worked.  This post is completely my own view and not sponsored by Photojojo.  Though if they would like to send me stuff to geek out over…just sayin’.

Just pointed up and shot a Southwest plane overhead.

These geese were about 50 or so feet away.

The fountain was also about 50ish feet away, and I could get the rainbow in the mist from the fountain.

Pointed down and focused on the left to get the manhole cover. No additional zoom.

Fun with the fisheye.

I decided the snow falling this morning, on top of the snow from yesterday, would make a good background to play with my new fisheye lens for the iPhone from Photojojo.  We live on a fairly quiet street, so I get to enjoy the snow a bit longer before it gets brown and slushy.  It should all melt on Monday.  Now to master that whole shoveling snow thing…

Things I Learned from an 18 Hour Drive

Virginia is a really LONG state.  Going to Pittsburgh from Aiken, we always drove through the skinny part so I forgot just how wide the eastern side of the state really is in comparison.  That was 6 hours of the 18, with a few pit stops because of the furball.  Including 20 minutes of trying to get her to come out from under my seat when we stopped to let her stretch her legs.  That was fun.  At least we found a Chick-Fil-A before leaving the South.

She was so cute checking out everything before we moved...then the meowing started.

My cat will not take a pill no matter how I try to disguise it or try to shoot it down her throat with a straw.  I had got some sedatives knowing that she’s not a fan of the car.  I tried hiding it in a pill pocket treat, but she turned her nose up at soft treats.  I wrapped it up in some ham, and she snubbed the part with the pill.  She flat out rejected the air dart technique.  My poor furball had never been in the car for more than 30 minutes prior to the trip.  I took her for an hourish long ride when the movers came to load our stuff.  Then it was 12 hours in the car the next day.  Of those 12 hours, I’m pretty sure she meowed for 11.5 of them….  You know that feeling of rocking after spending the day at the beach?  I was hearing meows when there weren’t any.  The next day, I turned the pill into a paste and rubbed it on her nose and paw which bought me THREE golden hours of silence.  In return?  She meowed the whole time in New Jersey and New York.  I wanted to jump off a cliff.

I missed normal TN highways once we got into the Northeast. With simple markings like this and no 50 million merging traffic points.

I-84 in Connecticut makes absolutely no sense.  The exit numbers don’t match up with the mile markers at all.  Since the hubs and I were driving separate cars, we’d call each other periodically to see where we were.  On 84, I might be at exit 6, but that’s mile 12.  Gets confusing when you’re trying to figure out if you’re ahead or behind the other car.  Plus that highway had 7564346899875 ramps with merging traffic and curved back and forth making it probably twice as long.  It’s like they got paid by the mile to build it.

I totally forgot that the Northeast has WAY more toll roads.  I don’t think there’s a single one in Tennessee, and I didn’t have any cash on me, so I had to make sure I was directly behind the hubs in line so he could pay for both.  Dear Google Maps, it sure would be handy if you let me know what highways are toll roads ahead of time.  Just sayin’.

We win at packing.

I’m better at the Tetris packing game than professional movers.  We had several things that I didn’t want to let out of my sight to be packed (like important documents, my wedding dress turned cocktail dress, wedding photos, musical instruments, my art portfolio, etc.), plus some things that we needed before the movers would arrive (sheets, sleeping bags, cleaning supplies), and the giant crate for the furball.  So we fit a boatload of crap into two Toyotas without breaking or scratching anything.  I win.

Anyone else make an epic journey with a cat? Have any moving horror stories?

I ran this through Camera +, using the clarity and Ansel Adams filters.

I took this photo of a retro condo building in Belle Meade before meeting friends for a goodbye lunch at The Picnic (best caramel cake on the planet).  You don’t see much of this style of architecture in Nashville.  Many of the buildings from the 50s-70s seem to have been bulldozed for strip malls and McMansions.  This one survived, but I heard it fell victim to the flood in 2010.  Either way, it’s a beautiful building that you often miss in the bustle of traffic around Belle Meade.

I wanted to give you a feel for such an amazing, overwhelmingly beautiful structure by sharing 12 photos that I took while there.  I took WAY more than 12, but these are my favorites.