Bath - Where Classical Architecture Meets the Druids

During my parade of the Circus in Bath, I met Thomas, a historian who leads tours of the ancient Roman city. He was a fountain of information, including the fact that The Circus was meant to represent the sun while The Crescent was representative of the moon. When I got home, I looked it up. Here is what I learned from The Heritage Journal.

Bath is famed for its neo-classical architecture but what underpins the thinking of the 18th century architect John Wood the Elder when he drew the designs for The Circus is a strange mish-mash of legend and myth, this of course is the age of the new ‘druidism’ that took hold when such figures as William Stukeley called such places as Stonehenge the Druidical Temple.

Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Louvre

I recently traveled to Paris with my husband and younger daughter, Kate, to visit the great museums and to walk one of the most beautiful cities in the world. But a funny thing happened on the way to a nighttime view of the Louvre. On May 6, the French went to the polls and elected a new president, Francois Hollande. We were out and about when the election results were announced. Our first hint that something big was about to happen was when car horns started going off. The second was when we were in the Place de la Concorde and found TV camera lights trained on US! We thought, "What a welcome!" But as the crowd grew, we realized that this was not a French welcoming committee. Before you knew it, the three of us were parading with thousands of  Parisians shouting "Vive le France!" We walked merrily along, enjoying the enthusiasm of the crowd, but when the numbers started approaching 10,000, we decided to leave the French to their celebrations. It was quite a night, the merrymaking going on for hours.

Can you find Paul, Kate, and me in the picture? I'll give you a hint. We are center right, just above the white marquee.