10 great places to find a lucky charm

Wednesday might be St. Patrick's Day, but you don't have to be Irish to be favored by fortune. Whether you smooch them, tickle them or jitterbug around them, good-luck monuments can leave you feeling, well, lucky. Frank Nelson, world traveler and author of All You Need is Luck (iUniverse, $13.95), shares some auspicious getaways with Sarah Sekula for USA TODAY.

Hoover Dam
Boulder City, Nev.
Stop by the Nevada side of the Hoover Dam and you'll spot two 30-foot-high statues known as the Winged Figures of the Republic. Rumor has it touching the toes of these giants may lead to a prosperous day. Tip: Use all 10 fingers to rub all 10 toes. While you're there, take in views of Lake Mead, and consider taking a behind-the-scenes guided tour of the dam. 866-730-9097; www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam

Reichsburg Cochem
Cochem, Germany
Peer out the windows of this Middle Age marvel for dreamy vistas of the majestic Mosel Valley. Inside, "there's a touch of the surreal about an unusual chandelier, which appears to be a mermaid with deer antlers sprouting from her back," Nelson says. "However, she's a good luck charm for those who reach up and give her tummy a tickle." After seeing the sights, leave some time for a medieval banquet, complete with costumes and music. reichsburg-cochem.de

Upwey Wishing Well
Dorset, England
Tradition has it that dropping some coins into a pond or fountain can bring good fortune. In the picturesque village of Upwey (in the county of Dorset), this wishing well is a more literal manifestation of that notion. "After tossing in a coin or two, the luck starts almost at once, with the discovery of nearby tearooms serving traditional Dorset cream teas," Nelson says.visitengland.com

Casa di Giulietta
Verona, Italy
"Trust those hot-blooded Italians to get a little, um, hot when it comes to good luck charms," Nelson says. "In Verona is an old house with a balcony, claimed by some to have been the inspiration for the famous balcony scenes in Shakespeare's tale of the star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet." If you wish to be lucky in love, then be sure to stroke the right breast of the statue of Juliet before you leave. italiantourism.com

Lincoln Tomb
Springfield, Ill.
"A large bronze head of the nation's 16th president, who served from 1861 until his assassination four years later, has the nose well-polished by thousands of visitors who give it a quick rub for good luck," Nelson says. 217-782-2717; illinoishistory.gov

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II
Milan
"Standing on a bull's testicles might not sound like the luckiest thing you've ever done, but it can be — in Milan," Nelson says. "Visitors to the city's elegant Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II (a shopping arcade on the Piazza del Duomo) tend to seek out an intricate and colorful mosaic of a bull." That's where the good-luck antics come into play. People place their heel on the mosaic's delicate parts and spin around. Some do a quick single spin, some twirl about a few times, while others engage in elaborate dance routines. visitamilano.it

Pike Place Market
Seattle
"There's something very appealing about pigs, even pig statues," Nelson says. "In search of a little extra luck, it seems, we can't resist rubbing the bronze or brass snouts of pigs as far afield as Florence, Italy, and Sydney, Australia." Back in the USA, go to Seattle to meet Rachel, a 700-pound swine statue that sits among the crowds in this popular market. Rest assured, any coins you donate to the piggy bank go to local non-profits. 206-682-7453; pikeplacemarket.org

Blarney Castle
Blarney, Ireland
When you arrive on the Emerald Isle, locals will no doubt assure you everything you experience will evoke the luck of the Irish. "It's all part of their cheeky, charming blarney, that gift of gab," Nelson says. "But you can win that same silver-tongued gift of eloquence by visiting Blarney Castle and kissing the famous Blarney Stone." blarneycastle.ie

Wayland's Smithy
Oxfordshire, England
This ancient burial place dates to the end of the Stone Age, with tomb sites dating to 3700 B.C. "According to legend, if you left your horse here along with a silver coin, when you returned the horse would mysteriously have been shod," Nelson says. "Not so many people have horses these days, but a silver coin hidden at the site is still said to bring good luck." visitengland.com

Riviera Hotel
Las Vegas
"What better place to find the gentle caress of Lady Luck than Las Vegas, home to all those casinos and slot machines?" Nelson asks. "It's easier than you might think. Standing outside the Riviera Hotel is a line-up of seven, bronze showgirls, cheekily showing their bare backsides to the world." Give them a rub for good luck. 800-634-3420; rivierahotel.com

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The Essence of Charm

Charm is the ultimate weapon, the supreme seduction, against which there are few defenses. If you've got it, you need neither money, looks, nor pedigree. It's a gift, given only to give away, and the more used, the more there is. It is also a climate of behavior set for perpetual summer and thermostatically controlled by taste and tact.

True charm is an aura, an invisible musk in the air; if you see it working, the spell is broken. Charm is dynamic, and cannot be turned on and off at will. As to its ingredients, there is no fixed formula. A whole range of mysteries goes into the caldron, but the magic it offers must be absolute-one cannot be "almost" or "partly" charmed.

In a woman, charm is probably more exacting than in a man, requiring a wider array of subtleties. It is a light in the face, an air of exclusive welcome, an almost impossibly sustained note of satisfaction in one's company, and regret without fuss at parting. A woman with charm finds no man dull; indeed, in her presence he becomes not just a different person but the person he most wants to be. Such a woman gives life to his deep-held fantasies by adding the necessary conviction to his long suspicion that he is king.

Of those women who have most successfully charmed me I remember chiefly their voices and eyes. Their voices were intimate and enveloping. The listening eyes, supreme charm in a woman, betrayed no concern with any other world than this, warmly wrapping one round with total attention and turning one's lightest words to gold. Theirs was a charm that must have continued to exist, like the flower in the desert, even when there was nobody there to see it.

A woman's charm spreads round her that particular glow of well-being for which any man will want to seek her out and, by making full use of her nature, celebrates the fact of his maleness and so gives him an extra shot of life. Her charm lies also in that air of timeless maternalism, that calm and pacifying presence, which can dispel a man's moments of frustration and anger and restore his failures of will.

Charm in a man, I suppose, is his ability to capture the complicity of a woman by a single-minded acknowledgment of her uniqueness. Here again it is a question of being totally absorbed, of really forgetting that anyone else exists, for nothing more fatally betrays than the suggestion of a wandering eye. Silent devotion is fine, but seldom sufficient; it is what a man says that counts, the bold declarations, the flights of fancy, the uncovering of secret virtues. A man is charmed through his eyes, a woman by what she hears, so no man need to be too anxious about his age: As wizened Voltaire once said: "Give me a few minutes to talk away my face and I can seduce the Queen of France."

But charm isn't exclusively sexual; it comes in a variety of cooler flavors. Most children have it--till they are told they have it--and so do old people with nothing to lose; animals, too, of course. With children and smaller animals, it is often in the shape of the head and in the chaste unaccusing stare; with young girls and ponies, a certain stumbling awkwardness, a leggy inability to control their bodies. But all these are passive and appeal by capturing one's protective instincts.

You know who has charm. But can you acquire it? Properly, you can't, because it's an originality of touch you have to be born with. Or it's something that grows naturally out of another quality, like the simple desire to make people happy. Certainly, charm is not a question of learning palpable tricks, like wrinkling your nose, or having a laugh in your voice. On the other hand, there is an antenna, a built-in awareness of others, which most people have, and which care can nourish.

But in a study of charm, what else does one look for? Apart from the ability to listen--rarest of all human virtues--apart from warmth, sensitivity, and the power to please, there is a generosity which makes no demands. Charm spends itself willingly on young and old alike, on the poor, the ugly, the dim, the boring, on the last fat man in the corner. It reveals itself also in a sense of ease, in casual but perfect manners, and often in a physical grace which springs less from an accident of youth than from a confident serenity of mind. Any person with this is more than just a popular fellow; he is also a social healer.

Charm, in the end, is a most potent act of behavior, the laying down of a carpet by one person for another to give his existence a moment of honor. It is close to love in that it moves without force, bearing gifts like the growth of daylight. It snares completely, but is never punitive. It disarms by being itself disarmed, strikes without wounds, wins wars without casualties--though not, of course, without victims.

In the armory of man, charm is the enchanted dart, light and subtle as a hummingbird. But it is deceptive in one thing--like a sense of humor, if you think you've got it, you probably haven't.