The City of Colleges

Mom left a monetary bequest to her UK cousin, Jean, with whom we stayed many times - in both Wiltshire and Budleigh Salterton.  So, one of our responsibilities here in the UK was to visit Jean who now lives in Harlow and fulfill Mom's request.  As Harlow is not far from Cambridge, we decided to make a day of it and go there too.  Besides, Kath was really interested in seeing the famous chapel at King's College and taking in Evensong.  I'd even committed to attend!  So, we took the Tube to Liverpool St. station and were delighted to find out that the return train fare was only 21 pounds each including a stopover in Harlow - much less than what we thought after checking the National Rail website.  So, after our visit with Jean, we went to Cambridge.  I'd never been there before, not sure why except, from what I'd seen on previous trips to Norfolk and Suffolk, that part of England (the Fens) just didn't interest me.  I was very pleasantly surprised with what we found. We walked into town from the station which is a fair distance (1 1/2 miles) rather than in the centre of the city. Later we learned that was done to prevent students from sneaking off to the "temptations" of London while they were attending school there.  We got a map and walked around the centre. Cambridge contains 31 colleges, many of which are some of the oldest in the country.  I still don't quite get the systems of colleges and how they relate to the university here. What I do know is this is a very serious seat of academia!!



Old coach entrance to The Eagle

Inside The Eagle

 



King's College Chapel

We walked to King's College where, to Kathleen's disappointment, we found out there was no Evensong service.  She did visit the chapel anyway. We resisted the urge to go punting (or be punted) on the River Cam; instead, we chose to have lunch at the city's oldest pub, The Eagle.  After wandering around the market, we took the hop on-hop off bus tour. This one had a prerecorded commentary rather than someone putting their own spin on things. It was very informative and we learned and saw a lot.  I didn't know, for example, that the only American military cemetery in the UK is in Cambridge and, among many of the fallen remembered here are Joseph Kennedy (older brother of JFK) and Glen Miller, the band leader.  We also listened to a list of some of the very many famous people who had their educational roots in this place.  It was beyond impressive and included: Samuel Pepys, John Milton, Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton and, more recently, Alan Turing, Stephen Hawking, Prince Charles, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson, and John Cleese, to name a few. We also learned that students are not permitted to have cars while studying here which explained the 35,000 bicycles on the streets - many of which we had to dodge while walking around.  It was also a bit of a challenge for the bus driver!



Some of the many bicycles

I've always loved the atmosphere of a college campus and this entire city has that sort of feel to it. It sure would have been fabulous to study here as a young person.