We left London on August 1 by rental car and drove first to
Cambridge for a couple of days. As soon as we arrived we decided to go punting
on the River Cam. This is a wonderful way to begin to see the city because you
pass under many interesting bridges and along the backs of most of the best-known of
the 31 colleges in Cambridge. Here are a few photos:
The wooden Mathematical Bridge
Calm and not raining - yet!
Beautiful willows all along the river
I think this was part of King's College
Sweeping under the willows
The Bridge of Sighs, modeled on the Venetian bridge of the same name
Cambridge draws both students and visitors from all parts of the world
The following day we walked a lot, visiting several colleges from Magdalene at the north end of the center of town to Peterhouse at the south end. Unfortunately in the summer there are no students about, save foreign students there for summer classes, so it doesn’t feel or look like it would when regular classes are in session. Trinity College was probably the most impressive college that we visited; it is certainly the largest and best-endowed. Trinity College has produced 32 Nobel Prize winners, 6 Prime Ministers and numerous philosophers, scientists, poets and other famous graduates. We saw lots of churches and chapels along the way too. This first church had stenciled walls and ceiling - a bit unusual.
The stenciled wooden ceiling
Cambridge was spared to a large extent during WWII, unlike many other cities. So churches, colleges and other buildings often have original or very old features.
This is a rare round church
I think this is part of Magdalene College
Trinity College
I must admit they all blurred together after a while, but if this is Trinity, it is the site of the Great Court Run. Students try to run around the perimeter of the Great Court (400 yards) before the clock strikes 12 (43 seconds). I don't recall it, but apparently this was made famous in the 1981 film "Chariots of Fire".
Another college...
I think this was part of Peterhouse College
A couple and their dog slowly crossing a park called Christ's Piece
One day we had lunch at The Eagle, the pub where Watson and
Crick often met in the 1950s to discuss their theories about DNA over mugs of ale. One part of the pub is called the RAF Bar; its ceiling is covered with the names and squadron numbers of WWII RAF and USAF airmen.
Two cute little kids roaming about town
When we left Cambridge it was a very rainy day, so rather
than walk in the rain in Oxford (our next Airbnb destination) we stopped at
Bletchley Park, halfway between Cambridge and Oxford. If you’ve seen the film
“Imitation Game” you know that it was at Bletchley Park that Alan Turing and scores of others developed the Bombe, the precursor of modern computers that
eventually broke the Enigma-coded messages sent by Germans during WWII.
We spent several hours there – a
fascinating place and well worth the stop. This is the mansion at Bletchley, with a large pond in front. People stationed at Bletchley skated on the frozen pond in the winter - one of the limited number of diversions available from their mentally grueling work.
A beutiful glass ceiling in one of the rooms in the mansion
Note from a cryptanalyst working in one of the many "huts" constructed on the property to shelter workers. We had an audio tour which included fascinating interviews with people who had taken part in the top-secret work at Bletchley Park.
Important documents and messages were transported by Dispatch Riders on motorcycles, at all times of the day and night, all year round. This was difficult not just due to the weather, but to the fact that all directional signs had been removed to confuse the enemy if the country were invaded. This guy recalls that he could read his closely-guarded map about 20 miles outside London by the reflected light of bombed, burning buildings.
Our next 3 days were in the Cotswolds. First, we decided to go to Stratford-upon-Avon to meet up with some dear cruising friends, Anne and Michael, who we met two years ago in Florida.
They have lived on their boat for at least 9 years now and have sailed so far from the UK to British Columbia in Canada. The intent is to complete a circumnavigation. They're back in the UK tending to some family issues right now, so we met them for lunch to catch up. It was such a treat to see them again!
Our stop in Stratford was short but fun. Although there were no plays of interest to us at that moment at the
Royal Shakespeare Theater, we would have liked to take a backstage tour of the
building. No such luck – there were matinees and other events and the theater
was closed for those types of tours.
But there were lots of other things to see and do there. The streets are full of tourists and the architecture is striking - what you've probably seen in lots of photos and films.
These rowboats were for hire on the Avon River near the Royal Stratford Theater. Each had a name like "Hamlet" or "Romeo"
We saw a couple of boats going through the small, manually-controlled lock, people feeding dozens of swans on the Avon, and kids playing in a fountain that had had soap dumped into it and was overflowing with bubbles.
This fellow was watching the world go by at the boat lock.
Here is the lock mechanism at work as a boat goes through.
Our AIrbnb studio was a few miles south of Stratford and was
lovely! Here is a photo of it. Nice to spend a bit of quiet time in the country
after city life.
So far using Airbnb in England has worked out pretty well.
Right next door to our studio near Mickleton in the Cotswolds was this hotel and restaurant, famous for what it calls its "Pudding Club". On Friday evenings people come from far and wide for a light main course dinner followed by a 7-course pudding dessert contest. Essentially, 7 types of cake ("pudding") are served with a thin, warm, vanilla custard that you pour over the cake. Then you vote on which you like best and you get a certificate saying you have survived the pudding club experience. We didn't sign up for the dinner, but tried sharing samples of 3 puddings. We can say we did it but perhaps puddings are an acquired taste...
This fellow's response to our comment that he had a beautiful car was a little smile and "Yes, we're so lucky, aren't we?"
There was a vintage sports car race nearby and we got to see a lot of impeccably kept vehicles
This one had a wicker picnic basket buckled on the back. More of these to come in the next post...
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