Cambridge

5th May - Sunday

 Guarding Mum's bag

 Where did all the people come from?

 This clock actually does tell the time

Inside Kings College Chapel

15th Century graffiti? 

 Ruben's painting

 Being good and keeping of the grass!

 The Millpond free-for-all

 Nice structure!

 I was looking at the building - honestly!!!

 Friendly locals

 A college which wishes to remain anonymous

 A bridge - obviously

 A happy chappy

 Proud Canadian geese parents

Kings College

This morning, after breakfast in the orangerie (where else would one have breakfast?), along with what seemed to be half the population of England, we visited the city of Cambridge. The lovely fine weather seemed to bring out even more people! The information centre was extremely difficult to find and we needed the help of a couple of different people to find the elusive building – and then it was shut! To fill in time we walked around the usual Sunday market in the market square and looked at the same beads and pearls, smelly soaps and lotions, hand knits, souvenirs and food that seem to turn up at markets all over the world.


Back to the queue at the information centre and discovered that one has to purchase a map of Cambridge (absolutely necessary for finding one’s way about) – everywhere else they seem to be free. We also booked a walking tour and paid for a punting ride on the River Cam later in the day. The two hour walking tour didn’t really walk a great distance, but we were given lots of information and history about Cambridge, its university and colleges. No living at home and attending uni here – all students must live in a college! Our first stop was outside the Cavendish Laboratory, which not only was the atom first split, but DNA was discovered. A quick visit to the oldest church before heading to a pub – The Eagle – with its resident ghost. Catherine College was next on the itinerary before a look through the railings at the Senate. Then it was into Kings College Chapel for some more history before seeing the original painting by Rubens hanging behind the altar. Cat was very good when we left via the college grounds and didn’t make any effort to walk on the hallowed grass – this is reserved for extra special people.

As the walking tour had concluded, we worked our way through the crowds, the narrow streets, the crowds, the bicycles, the cars and the crowds to the Millpond and the punts. We then discovered we had to join another queue to have our ticket/voucher validated and were then told it would be nearly an hour and a half before we could actually get into a punt! After some more walking around and dodging people and traffic (we are still wondering why anyone would need, let alone want, to drive a car into the centre of Cambridge), we returned to the Millpond and joined another queue and watched the punts on the water and wondered if we really wanted to join them. Not only can one join a chauffeured punt, as we were doing, one can also hire one’s own punt and do one’s own punting – a very large number of people do this. Unfortunately, not many of them actually know how to punt and the skill level certainly wasn’t helped by the warm weather and the beverages obviously needed to avoid dehydration! Once on board, it was like dodgem cars on water and fortunately we had a professional at the stern who only once nearly fell in. We pushed and shoved our way along the river, looking at the colleges from a different angle and hearing about the history of Cambridge, its university and colleges once again.

It was surprising how quickly the day had gone and it was after 5.00pm before we returned to the bus station for the trip back to the park and ride.