Hello, again, Blogonauts! What happens when ecclesiastical excess intertwines with municipal mania? Well, I mean aside from the Spanish Inquisition, the Thirty-Years War, the Crusades, the Salem Witch Trials, Islamic State, Utah, etc. More aesthetic outcomes include the occasional Colossal Cathedral! And in medieval England, all the necessary elements cross-pollinated repeatedly. And I went to see a pair of the biggest fruits, each growing on relatively small ...

Hello, again, Blogonauts. While there is a lot we do not yet know about prehistoric residents of England, one thing is repeatedly demonstrated: They were nuts about circles! And without that bit of info, the story of Stonehenge or the older, larger Avebury Henge makes little sense. What stands out most immediately to everyone is the presence of vertical stones set in a circle. They are as hard to miss as they are to explain. But in both monuments, as well as d...

Hello, again, Blogonauts! Let's keep the scribbles brief for a few days ... just so I can catch up. More pictures mean I don't have to spend so many words, according to the old adage. Right, Love? The city of Bath has bubbled up from near obscurity several times over the centuries. There is no record of how the prehistoric locals treated these, the only natural hot springs in all of Britain. The Romans, however, acted as if, in Bath's three steamy water sources...

Hello, again, Blogonauts! You may be getting 2-for-1 blog entries today. Be certain to check out my Sunday visit to Oxford's museums, too. So, on Monday, I headed from Oxford to a delightful little family cottage in the Oxfordshire countryside. The home is owned and occupied by the humble Duke of Marlborough, and christened with the difficult-to-pronounce name of Blenheim (BLEN-hm) Palace. They are so humble that they only charge £23 (about $35) per visi...

Hello again, Blogonauts! On Sunday, I wandered through the collections found in a triumvirate of treasure troves, i.e., three of the many museums found in Oxford. Universities are often endowed with semiprecious or memorable objects. Most often these bits of historic paraphernalia were discovered, invented, constructed, or just as often, pilfered by their graduates and patrons. The Louvre, the Prada, the Uffizi, the Rijksmuseum, even the Vatican Museum would b...