Inge cooked up a huge breakfast for us by mistake but did not charge us extra. That fortified us for a long day of searching out the sights of Cambridge. The weather was cool to cold and windy at times with a few light showers. Not pleasant but all right for our purposes.
Our first impression as we walked up Station Street and Hill Street at 9am was that this is a city of buses and bicycles as there was a bus every 10 seconds. We walked past the Catholic Church of Our Lady and the English Martyrs.
We followed signposts through lanes to find King's College, but found that the grounds were closed because exams were on.
We went round the back entrance and were told it was 8 pounds each to see inside the chapel. We decided to come back at 5pm for evensong and make a donation in the plate.
We found Clare's College (who is Clare?)
and Trinity College.
After walking past Little St Mary's Church, we found Great St Mary's, where the punt men were touting for business. We had seen the punts on the river Cam shortly before, and were not buying at 25 pounds for a trip.
The church was impressive and we found inside that it was one of the few churches with two pipe organs, so that duet music can be played there.
The information office was in a back street and we only found it by asking the punt man. We asked for a map of the city and they told us the only maps they had cost 2 pounds (AUSD4). This was the first time we could remember that we came to a city that had no free maps to give tourists. So we decided to use our preferred method of following signposts until we got lost then ask locals for help. There was a park called Christ's Pieces with free entry to the tulip gardens.
We found a road leading to the river and decided to follow it back towards the city centre. Without a map we chose to follow it in the wrong direction and ended up almost to Fen Ditton, where Catherine and John used to live. Along the way we saw dozens of canal boats moored, and a nice one was for sale at 50,000 pounds.
Eventually we found a sign showing it was 2.5 miles to the station (where our B and B was) back the way we had come. A postman was able to tell us a short cut back to the City Centre and we were able to relax over morning tea at Costa. We needed to ask a group of students for directions to get back home at 2pm after walking about 12 km today so far. Along the way we discovered the Polar Museum and had to go in, especially as it was free and a lady guide gave us a five minute introduction to the displays.
There was a big display of the photos taken by Scott on his trek to the South Pole in 1911, and a lot of items about Shackleton, including a replica of his lifeboat.
The guide told us the Scott Antarctic Research Institute was housed upstairs and we wondered whether John had an office there.
At 4:30 we headed back to King's College using google map directions this time, and queued up with the tourists. We got to see the quadrangle on the way into the Chapel. It looks like a big turf farm.
We were very glad we got to hear the "mixed" choir of younger and older boys as it was the highpoint of our stay in England so far. The soprano voices filled the huge space and echoed ever so slightly. The chapel had about 80 big stained glass windows and we cannot put into words the atmosphere that is created by the architecture. No building like this will ever be made again.
The service that seemed quaint on board the QM2 was entirely appropriate for this setting. There was no sermon, but the reading from Matthew warned us not to store up treasures on earth, but store treasures in heaven.
The Fitzwilliam Museum was advertising a display called Store of Treasures which we plan to visit tomorrow.
At 6:30 we crossed the road to the Cambridge Chop House and rewarded ourselves after our day of walking with a 2-course lunch meal for 13.50 ponds. Lyn chose the Duke of Cambridge Tart.
Malcolm had the Sticky Toffee Pudding.
The delightful French waitresses capped off a great day.
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