In an effort to tell you that, yes, Denis and I did enjoy the month we spent in the UK mid-March through mid-April, I thought I'd tell you about the day we spent in Cambridge. (Yes, all the photos are clickable so you can see them in larger sizes in new windows.)
If it hadn't been for the weather, we could've visited Oxford, too, but it didn't cooperate. You still might wonder why I would choose Cambridge over Oxford. After all, I love crime fiction... wouldn't Inspector Morse be the greater draw?
Actually a copper did make the deciding vote, but he was a television copper: Detective Sergeant James Hathaway of the British ITV program,
Lewis. Hathaway was educated in Cambridge, so I gave my vote to him instead of Morse.
As anyone who's traveled in the UK can tell you, exploring its cities is not always a time for rejoicing. The streets tend to be very narrow. Cars are usually parked on one side or the other (or both), putting their side mirrors in mortal danger. Car parks (parking lots) can be few and far between. Oh... and the traffic can be horrendous. There were settlements in the
Cambridge area as long as 3,500 years ago, and the
University of Cambridge (one of the top five universities in the world) was founded in 1209. When places have been settled that many centuries before the combustion engine, they're really not going to be perfect for vehicular travel.
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| Map showing our route around Cambridge |
Fortunately Denis came up with the perfect solution:
City-Sightseeing.com. (This company operates in many cities and countries, not just Cambridge, by the way!) For £14 each, we would get a ticket good for twenty-four hours, and since one of the mottoes of the company is "Hop On, Hop Off," this meant that we could get on and off one of their doubledecker buses as many times as we wanted for an entire twenty-four hours. Even better, one of the stops on their route was right outside a huge Park and Ride lot. Denis and I wouldn't even have to drive into the city. Just park the rental car, walk out to the bus stop on the street, get on the bus, pay for our tickets, take our seats, and be on our way to see Cambridge.
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| Denis's perch on the top of the bus. It was COLD! |
Each passenger could grab a cheap and cheerful set of free headphones to plug in at their seats in order to listen to the recorded travelogue. By this time, I was thoroughly sick and tired of being frozen to the bone, so Denis trekked up the stairs to the top deck of the bus all by his lonesome. As you can see by the way folks are bundled up in the photo to the left, it was
cold. The sun was attempting to shine more than hide, but the wind blowing straight from Scandinavia and Russia went through a body like machetes! In fact, according to the recording I was listening to, the highest ground east of Cambridge is in Russia. No wonder the wind wasn't having any trouble cutting us to ribbons!
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| Think how beautiful this park will be in spring and summer! |
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| Orchard Street |
Just in case you thought I was talking through my hat when I mentioned narrow streets, I thought I'd show you Orchard Street in Cambridge. Thank heavens the bus driver didn't have to turn down that one-- although I had every confidence in him within a few minutes of taking my seat!
The Cambridge streets are not on any sort of grid system. (We folks in the US are very spoiled in most cases.) And those narrow, twisting streets are jam-packed with traffic. The bus driver was incredibly skilled in getting through this traffic. At one point he aimed his unwieldy steed through a gap that left no more than four inches to spare on either side of the bus. Wow! (Not only was he skilled, he was a very nice man, too.)
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| Bicycles everywhere! |
Students are not allowed to have cars. I can't even imagine how horrible the traffic would be if they could. Instead, the vast majority of students get everywhere by bicycle, as you can see in the photo to the left. In the city center, not only do you have to be on the lookout for fellow pedestrians, you also have to dodge bicycles that are parked everywhere.
Now, I'm going to be quiet for a while and let you see some of the sights uninterrupted.
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| Church of Our Lady and the English Martyrs |
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| Cambridge War Memorial |
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| The Round Church, built in 1130 AD |
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| Gate detail, Christ's College, Cambridge |
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| Punts on the River Cam |
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| One of many old houses that caught our eye |
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| Our bus |
We made one complete circuit of the bus route to see everything and to get the lay of the land before we hopped off. We rode past Christ's Pieces where there is a memorial garden for Princess Diana; the ADC Theatre where Emma Thompson, Hugh Laurie and Derek Jacoby (among many others) performed; in front of one of the flats at the Radegund Buildings across from Jesus College (where Samuel Taylor Coleridge studied), there was a plastic crate labeled DIRTY CROCKERY outside one of the blue doors. I wondered if someone would pick up my dirty dishes and wash them for me if I did the same thing at home?
The travelogue through my headphones was informative. Cambridge has a population of about 111, 000. There are approximately 14,000 students-- and 35,000 bicycles. But it was time to get off the bus and walk the streets of the city center. I was hunting for the Waterstone's bookshop in Cambridge!
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| Walking in Cambridge |
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| Cambridge streets |
It wasn 't until Denis and I got off the bus and started walking that I began to feel like an old fart, swimming against a heaving tide of bright young things chattering, laughing, texting. The closer we got to all the shops, the busier the streets became-- until I had to stop gawping at the old buildings surrounding me and start paying attention to where I was going so I wouldn't be mown down.
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| Hardy's Sweetshop across from the Round Church |
The multi-level Waterstone's was a slice of heaven. We ate lunch in their café, and once we were warmed and rejuvenated, we began to look around. I found two books I couldn't live without, as well as three bookmarks, and a notepad to give as a gift. Then I wandered the Architecture and Crafts section, and I saw book after book after glorious book that I would love to have yet didn't have the space for in my luggage. Denis took out his phone and took photos of the ones that made me drool the most so I would have titles and authors to order them once we returned to Phoenix.
Once we'd had our fill of shopping and wandering, we hopped back on the bus for the ride back to the Park and Ride. I looked at the mistletoe hanging off the trees as we passed Churchill College. I'd gotten chills at Jesus College where one of my favorite poets studied (the aforementioned Coleridge), but when we passed Churchill College and I listened to the travelogue telling me that I was where the atom was split for the first time, that I was where DNA was discovered... I got a lump in my throat. Being in the presence of greatness does that to me. I only hoped that most of those 14,000 students realize how truly fortunate they are-- and that they will strive for future greatness.
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| King's College, Cambridge |
There was a short pause at the Cambridge American Cemetery, created during World War II and where Glenn Miller and Joe Kennedy, Jr. are buried. Then in no time at all, we got off the bus at our stop, found our car in the Park and Ride lot, and made our way back to our cottage in Bedfordshire.
We'd been scoured clean by the ferociously cold wind, elbowed aside a time or two by the bright young things, and awed by the ancient buildings and the feeling of the power of knowledge all around us. It was a brilliant day made possible by a red doubledecker bus.
Where will my travel tales take you to next? You'll have to wait and see!
