Cambridge

Made a day trip to Cambridge on Saturday!  Went with a group of 4 other expats - 3 Americans and 1 Scottish.  Should Scottish be classified as expat in London?  I don't know, but I just did!  Cambridge is only about an hour from London by train.  We started at Kings Cross station and I saw the (in)famous Platform 9 3/4 of Harry Potter fame!  I wanted to get a picture, but there was a LINE of probably 20-30 people waiting for pictures and I wasn't willing to wait for it.  Next time!

 

So Cambridge University is actually made up of 31 individual colleges.  Students live and study within their college.  Cambridge is the second oldest university in the UK (after Oxford) and the third oldest surviving in the world,  The oldest is the University of Bologna in Italy, which was surprising to me - I don't know why.  I guess it doesnt get the press that Oxford and Cambridge do?  Anyway. 

 

The most famous college for its architecture is Kings College.  We visited the Chapel and grounds.

 

Ceiling and organ inside the Chapel...

The grounds were really beautiful!!  But they have an extreme concern about people walking on the grass.  These signs were EVERYWHERE - probably every 10-15 yards all along the edges of sidewalks.  We thought it was kinda funny.  Also I now have a life mission to make friends with a Senior Member of the College so I can come back and walk on the grass.  :) 

 

 

 

This is the River Cam that runs through Cambridge.  Apparently the name of the town came from the River and the fact that this was the location of the one of the earliest bridges in the area.  "Cam-bridge" - that felt silly spelling it out, obviously you got it!

 

One of the famous activities is to go "punting" on the River, which is a fancy word for boating in this long, wooden, flat-bottom boats.  They are steered and driven using a long pole, similar to gondolas in Venice. 

Of course we had to take a ride!  We had a nice driver in our boat and he gave us some of the history of the city and University.  Some of the especially picturesque spots on the River...