Cambridge

Old, I presume.

As I mentioned, our second day trip while in the UK was to Cambridge. This is a town none of us, me included, had ever spent time in so it promised to be an interesting visit.

The original inspiration for the trip was that Zosia’s study materials for English are from Cambridge English Language Assessment, which is part of Cambridge University. She’s very excited about the whole idea of taking exams from Cambridge University and so we thought we would show her where it all comes from. Perhaps even light a flame of wanting to study there later.

Thanks to the power of my wife’s Facebook activity we subsequently discovered that old friends from Warsaw are now living in Cambridge so we ended up with a second good reason to be there.

With friends on the first Bridge over the Cam

It was a two hour drive from my parent’s home to Cambridge and we weren’t exactly rushing in the morning so by the time we got there, found the Park & Ride and made it to the centre it was lunchtime and another couple of hours went chatting to our friends. As the sun was shining, time was short and with complaints of “Who goes to Venice and doesn’t go on a Gondola?!” ringing in my ears the next thing I did was book ourselves a punt down The Backs.

About to get cold and wet on a punt

Punting

Listening to the puntsman

Naturally, as soon as we were settled in the boat the clouds formed and the wind picked up. Then on the return leg it started raining as well. The only rain we were exposed to for the whole week and it has to be while we’re on a punt. The seating arrangement was such that any rain that fell on the brolly of the person behind me was neatly directed straight down the back of my shirt so by the time we had finished I was wet, cold and hungry albeit better educated about the Cambridge colleges.

St Johns college version of the Bridge of Sighs

Kings College & chapel from The Backs

Punt over, we wandered down toward the centre and fell into the first decent looking restaurant we saw, which happened to be a pretty good burger joint called Byron.

Anytime is Facebook time @Byron

Warmer, dryer and replete we hit the town. Perfect timing. It was dark and most of the shops were closed! Realising we had nowhere near enough time to take everything in we settled for a short walk along the fronts of the colleges and then headed back to the car park and home.

Looking north along King’s Parade to the Senate House (left) and Great St Mary’s church (right).

Kings all lit up

An interesting “taster” visit that leaves us with plenty of reasons to go back one day.

Advertisements