Cambridge

Fast train up to Cambridge Saturday morning, arriving at 9.30. Seemed a quiet town for the first hour, and we had a walk around Christs College in silence.

This being C. Darwin's 200th birthday year, Christs was an appropriate place to start. Christs makes a big fuss that C. Darwin was here as an undergraduate, preserving his name on the room allocations and recently creating a garden with his young image in situ.

Shortly after, the crowds descended upon Cambridge like a flock of pigeons, making our walk something of a disaster compared to the quiet ramble Rob and Tess seem to have had. Why? 

1) Saturday 2) warm 3) early July rather than May. For whatever of these reasons, there were thousands of punters and noisy ramblers, which rather detracted from the expected old-world charm.

Quiet punting on the Cam has been made a money-spinner, and too much of this good thing has destroyed itself. This shot has 13 punts in it, 3 of which have just collided, and was taken when we were on a small un-named bridge behind Trinity, viewing to the South. The stone bridge visible is Garret Hostel Lane, so I think Clare is beyond the bridge. That's a frame from a video taken with my still camera. I've taken too much video over the last few days. Means I've missed out on a lot of possible scenery images because the video res is too low for later still enjoyment.

Had a quieter time in the Darwin Endless Forms Exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, after we found that two Greek/Roman museums Bev wanted to visit were both undergoing renovations. Still, the closure notice on one advised us of its website URL, (http://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/museum) so we can follow that up now we're back online. Bev also scored a lovely William Morris wallpaper print wrapped on an aluminium waterbottle, and later tracked down the CUP Bookshop for further research and expenditure.