Cambridge

We drove to Cambridge yesterday, which is about an hour northeast of London..or at least from where we are staying in Northeast London. We found a lovely pub a few miles out of town on the river Cam and had a lovely lunch of pizza, potato/leek soup, super-food salad, baked Brie with a lovely tomato chutney sauce, and cheese souffle' for Ellie and Chris. I think English pub food has been underrated, as it was a really nice meal for all..except Kat said the pizza was less than perfect.

We then had a nice leisurely cruise down the river Cam into Cambridge town and a stroll through the town. It was bustling with tourists and we heard lots of German, French and Japanese being spoken. One of our first stops was in a souvenir shop as each of us is collecting things. Kat has a key chain collection that is almost two meters long by now. Ellie is collecting charms for her necklace, Chris is collecting fridge magnets which she plans to stick to either the fridge or to a framed metal sheet when we get home, and I am collecting car stickers. I plan to buy an old steamer trunk and stick them to that when we get home..so every town we go to, we are all looking for souvenir shops to extend our collections.

This shop had a tee shirt with the names of all the colleges in Cambridge on it. We had just come from a film that outlined the history of the city and how the colleges had been started. We noticed that "Cambridge" was not one of the colleges listed on the shirt, and when we asked the clerk, she said there is no "Cambridge College." That was unsettling to me, as I have seen tee shirts with "Cambridge University" on them, and an established date in the 1200's. After further review, I found that "Cambridge University" is actually a small administration for all of the colleges in Cambridge. Each of the colleges are separate and distinct entities. This is much like having the "college of nursing" and the "college of medicine" which each fall under the umbrella of the "University of Utah." What a relief!

There are 16 colleges that were founded in the 1200-1500 era, and there have been 15 additional colleges founded from the 1800's on, and they all fall under the umbrella of Cambridge University. It was wonderful to see the huge number of students throughout the town. It would have been a great place to spend more time, but we had to catch our boat back to the Plough pub by 5:30 as that was the last run of the day for our cruise.

Cambridge is named after the Cam River and the bridge that crosses it--hence, "Cambridge." Our cruise down the river was very peaceful and idyllic. It was an unusually beautiful and sunny day in England and the parks along the river were filled with people walking dogs, sunning, and picnicking. One slide near the end shows a bunch of students sitting around some very smokey pits. They were pit smoking some food that we couldn't identify--perhaps potatoes or corn. They were having a lovely time. The river is full of swans. Our tour guide said they are the Queen's swans. He said the Queen owns all the swans in England. You'll also see a lot of rowers. Each of the colleges has a rowing team with their boat houses along the river. There were many rowers out practicing on this pleasant afternoon. This part of the river was also lined with "narrow boats," many of which are used as houses.

Here is a slide show of this adventure.