Bringing up the past

The extra (building) was taken by our daughter in 2008 - it's me in the hat, of course. MrsM and I compared memories, and we are pretty sure these neglected and barely curated ruins are Roman. A precious jewel, you might think, but this is Crete, where ruins are ten-a-penny, and anything as recent as Roman isn't even worth asking an entrance fee for (we didn't pay one) 

A lightbulb came on when I took the main picture today. I'm happy I found the old one and that some bits of my memory still have the lights on. We spent a couple of hours taking pleasure in the plessure-gardens of a country house. It was built both before the Civil War and after the restoration (the dovecote is dated in the year of Charles II's death), by aristocratic, royalist men who made money by fighting on the side that ultimately triumphed, along with some judicious marriages to wealthy heiresses

It is a beautiful garden and it's possible to enjoy the peace and the eccentric design, and appreciate the vast sum being spent on maintenance and management, while wondering about the justice of one family having exclusive control over such a place for 400 years. It is open to the 'public', of course - that is those who can afford £10 to enter and who do not want to bring their dog, their child under 16 or a pushchair (a tautologous list, I'd say) 

The structure is a folly, and a colonade for sitting in the shade and enjoying the view over the garden, lakes and river Cherwell. It is called 'Praeneste', an ancient name for a city near Rome, now called Palestrina (famous as the birthplace of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, composer of the most beautiful music ever written - now hand me back my shoe-horn). Praeneste housed the Temple of Fortuna Primigenia - a temple to which you take your first born to enlist divine help in getting them through infancy. The folly is based on the temple (but see restrictions, above) 

So a link between the pictures exists, if you accept the leap from Roman ruins in Greece to Roman-pastiche follies in Oxfordshire, and that a classic, perspective-defining shot is always worth lining up