An Extraordinary Cafe

There are not too many restaurants that can boast of having an authentic Roman column as part of the décor, but this is exactly what the cafe Ai Musei on Via G. Piamarta, 1 in Brescia has to offer.

At Ai Musei the column base is approximately 10 feet below ground level indicating how much the street has been elevated over the past two thousand years. The friendly staff has to maneuver their way around the column to serve customers. The cafe has a highly decorated wood paneled ceiling with beautiful hand painted rosettes in the center of each panel. There is also an elaborately hand carved wooden bar complete with the same rosette design. Besides offering the customer a variety of alcoholic drinks, there are light refreshments as well as the wonderful coffee that is usually drunk standing at the bar.

It is easy to see why the locals appear to take such unusual surroundings for granted as they stop for a coffee on their way to work, because just a short distance along Via dei Musei you’ll find the Tempio Capitolino with its four magnificent Roman columns with Ionic capitals consisting of scrolls above the shaft. A partial inscription can be seen on the top of the building.

Brescia is a beautiful and largely undiscovered city in Lombardy, northern Italy, only about 1 hour’s drive from Milan. Brescia, known as ”Lioness of Italy“, offers an interesting combination of modern urban development mixed with ancient monuments.

Origin: Ring a Ring of Roses

The seemingly innocent nursery rhyme, Ring a Ring of Roses portrays groups of children laughing and dancing as they hold hands and swirl around in circles. However, the nursery rhyme has a more sinister beginning.

In 1665, the Bubonic Plague so prevalent in Europe reached the shores of England, hitting the coastal areas first and then migrating into the English countryside. The transmission method was unknown but later was attributed to the fleas that used rats as their hosts. The rats arrived in the cargo ships from Europe and once the ships were docked, the rats were free to roam the City of London spreading the disease through the densely populated area.

It seemed that nobody escaped the disease noblemen fell victim to the plague along with the average man in the street. It was not until September of 1665 when the Great Fire of London destroyed the city. As the wooden houses burned to the ground, so did the rats and, for a while at least the plague was kept under control.

It was not until centuries later that the rhyme came into being. There are slight differences in the English and American versions – the American version is slightly softer in tone. Following is the English version.

Ring a Ring of Roses
The rash consisted of tiny blisters, which formed a ring similar to that of a rose
A pocket full of posies
People believed that if they held a bouquet of flowers or herbs to their nose or kept a nosegay in their pockets, it would help ward off the disease
Atishoo, atishoo
Final stages of the disease, sneezing, running eyes and nose and congestion in the lungs of victims.
All fall down
Victim has died.

In some villages, only one in four people survived the Great Plague of 1665-6. Some good came from this awful experience. London was rebuilt using brick and stone instead of wood; enterprising men came up with the idea of insurance companies and introduced a new phenomenon, their own firefighter teams. And of course we are left with our very special nursery rhyme that hopefully will continue to be sung by children for centuries to come.

More on Moel-Ty-Uchaf

Thanks to Stuart at DHADM for this link to Stonepages.com where you can look all around Moel-Ty-Uchaf using a QuickTime VR scene.

Old Mother Hubbard

With most nursery rhymes, the origin is often lost in obscurity but we know for sure the origin of Old Mother Hubbard. Sarah Catherine Martin wrote and illustrated the rhyme in 1805 after being told to by her brother-in-law, John Pollexfen Bastard to, “Go away and write one of your silly verses.”



Evidently, Sarah was a frequent visitor to Kitley Manor, the stately home of her brother-in-law Bastard who was a busy Member of Parliament. To keep her nieces and nephews occupied and out of their father’s way as he busied himself with matters of state, she amused them by writing verse. Perhaps the children were noisy or boisterous the particular day that evoked the terse response from her brother-in-law, but one thing is for sure, Old Mother Hubbard would become one of the better-known nursery rhymes in history.

The rhyme was inspired by the housekeeper at Kitley Manor who, when she retired went to live in the cottage on the estate. The cottage is now a restaurant close to Yealmpton in Devon.

Old Mother HubbardWent to the cupboard To fetch her old dog a boneBut when she got thereThe cupboard was bareAnd so the poor dog had none.

After Sarah wrote the rhyme, she took it to a friend, John Harris who typeset and printed the piece. Sarah presented it to her brother-in-law for his birthday on June 1, 1805.

Being an astute businessman and recognizing the value of the nursery rhyme, John Harris printed 10,000 first edition copies, all of which were sold.

Kitley House Hotel >>
Old Mother Hubbard Restaurant >>

Mystical Circles

High above the idyllic village of Llandrillo, set in the fertile countryside of Clwyd, North-East Wales sits the exquisite stone circle of Moel-Ty-Uchaf - the ‘high, bare hill’. Archaeologists classify moel-Ty-Uchaf as a cairn-circle; its 41 low stones surrounding a cist (or simple grave, perhaps of some prehistoric chieftain) originally covered by a mound of stones.



Unlike the enigmatic stone circles of Stonehenge or Callanish, few people come here save the occasional passing hiker en route to the heather-clad Berwyn Mountains. This is a place to sit and feel the mists of time disperse around you, revealing an age where myth and legend was part of everyday life. Yet this is no isolated monument, since the countryside of the British Isles is graced by many more examples. In fact so widespread are they that one may ask who built them, and to what purpose?



Man is believed to have first reached what is now known as the British Isles some 500,000 years ago, a time when much of the northern landscape was glacial. These first humans were ‘hunter-gatherers’, following a nomadic way of life governed by the seasonal migrations of the animals they hunted and the periodic advance and retreat of the ice. By 6,000 BC climate change had caused the glaciers to melt and sea levels to rise, isolating Britain from mainland Europe. Gradually the island inhabitants began to adopt the concept of farming originated in the Middle East, constructing permanent settlements and adopting embryonic socio-political structures to adapt to the new stability inherent in such agrarian societies. Massive communal tombs were erected and later, the first stone circles. It is believed these fulfilled a religious function, possibly linked to lunar and solar cults and may have been so shaped in mimicry of natural crop circles formed by spiral vortexes – events sure to have a profound effect on a prehistoric farmer tilling his soil.



This then was the dawn of civilization. The rest, as they say, is history and Moel-Ty-Uchaf still stands overlooking its valley – a monument to Nature itself.

CONTRIBUTED BY Robert Gladstone

Quiet Seclusion in the Caribbean

Puerto Rico and the surrounding islands Culebra and Vieques have been in our crosshairs for some time and a recent visit confirmed some of the advertised beauty of the area. Our trip needed to include free diving, snorkeling, lots quiet time on the beaches reading and of course sightseeing.

We arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico at around 8:00 PM and decided to stay at the Best Western, which is literally part of the airport, so it’s well positioned and convenient for travelers. The following morning we took a taxi for the 45-minute journey to Fajardo for the ferry to Culebra.

I was fascinated to watch the kinds of items the locals were taking on board that included everything imaginable from chairs and tables, food, clothes, etc. Since most items are brought in from the mainland, it was easy to see why the locals made the most of their visit to the "Big Island" (Puerto Rico). By the way, the cost for walk-on passengers was about $7.00 each for the one hour and twenty minutes ride to Dewey, the only town on Culebra.

When we docked at Culebra, our driver met us with our rental car-- a "Thing". For those who don’t know what this is, it’s a Jeep-like vehicle built on a VW bug chassis—in the ‘70s! We drove the driver back to his home and then took off for our rental cottage. A FWD is highly recommended on the island because of the potholes and terrain, and we should have rented a regular Jeep because the Thing was difficult to drive, had no shock absorbers, and a difficult clutch.

It is easy to see why Conde Nast rated Flamenco Beach one of the top ten beaches in the world. It’s truly a beautiful wide sandy beach that ranks up there with anything I’ve seen. It also has the advantage of being only beach on Culebra that has refreshments and toilets. We saw the island in its entirety but as it’s roughly seven by four miles, that didn’t take too long. We enjoyed several days visiting every beach and hiked to Resaca on the Atlantic side. We found the best snorkeling and shore diving at Carlos Rosario, which is a 35-minute hike from the parking lot at Flamenco beach.


Photo: L to R Flamenco Beach, San Cristobal Fort, & ferry arriving at Dewey

Heading back home, we caught the first ferry out in the morning so that we could spend the whole day in Puerto Rico. What a delight! The old town is full of cobbled streets with elegant buildings painted the most beautiful pastels. Row after row of spectacular shops and there, in full view was the magnificent San Cristobal Fort. We walked around the perimeter of the fort and noticed the abundance of cats in every color imaginable running in and around the fort. The old town of Puerto Rico reminded us of similar towns and villages in Spain and Italy. It is well worth a visit!

Altogether we had a fantastic week of relaxation on Culebra even if the cockerels woke us early every morning.

Links: General Info Ferry Timetable Club Seabourne Hotel

Dancing the Maypole

Dancing the maypole has been a tradition in Europe for many centuries. Perhaps it originated from the Roman ritual of celebrating the beginning of Spring and “wearing of the green.” During this time, flowers of the season used with garlands of green were used to adorn the pagan festival that included dancing, drinking and much merry making.




The tradition of Spring festivals continued for centuries and took on many different forms. During the Middle Ages, the custom of recognizing the onset of Spring played an important part of village life in England. Men from the village cut down a young tree, usually a birch because of their tall, straight stature. The tree would be stripped of all limbs, placed in a hole on the village green, and painted green and white. Then young couples from the village decorated the pole using spring flowers and the Hawthorn bush (Crataegus oxacantha), which was believed to hold mystical powers. On May Day, the couples came together to kiss and dance around the maypole, which they believed to be a fertility symbol. After the dance, some couples went into the surrounding woods where a ‘minister’ performed a ‘marriage.’ The offspring of such a union were called Merry-begats and were not formally recognized by their natural fathers, but were instead considered gifts from God.

It was not until the early 1800s that the maypole as we know it today came into existence. The pole was still painted green and white, but now ribbons or streamers were anchored atop the pole. Special attention was given to the length of the ribbons used in the ceremony to ensure the dancers had enough to weave the intricate patterns created as the dancers performed the ritual dance. Music played as the gentlemen dropped to one knee as their partners skipped past, swooping in, under and around other dancers. As s result of the dance movements, the ribbons made a colorful, plaited design on the maypole. At the end of the celebrations a May Queen was appointed.

Perhaps the first evidence the tradition of dancing the may pole in America can be seen in May of 1622. William Bradford, governor of the Plymouth Colony (1620-1647) writes that a settler called Thomas Morton erected a may pole “…they also set up a May-pole, drinking and dancing aboute it many days together, inviting the Indian women, for their consorts, dancing and frisking together, (like so many fairies, or furies rather,) and worse practises.” Morton later returned to England and Mr. John Indecott, arrived who “…caused that Maypole to be cut downe, and rebuked them for their profannes, and admonished them…”

Seen in this photograph circa 1908, ladies only perform the ceremonial dance in their beautiful white or off white dresses. The photograph was kindly supplied by the Colorado College, Special Collections Dept.