Les Catacombes de Paris

When I was stranded in Paris during the first volcanic eruption, I decided to visit the catacombs at Denfert-Rochereau. I had heard someone mention the ossuary in passing and I only had a vague idea of what it actually was, but I imagined a dark world of secrets beneath the City of Light.

Nature's Museum at the Ringling

The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota presents a wonderful blend of art and story. From its birth in the "roaring twenties", the dream child of John Ringling - circus magnate, art collector, investor, financier - through the Florida land boom and the Great Depression, to Ringling’s bequest of the property to the State of Florida on his death in 1936; the history of this place contains enough drama, romance, and intrigue to fill an epic novel.