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Last week we called to reserve a couple spots for today to do a self-guided tour of the King’s College Grounds and Chapel. We should note that during the time when students are in session access to the 31 colleges associated with Cambridge University is generally limited or not open to the public.

The tour cost 10£ online for each of us, and if space was available, 11£ at the door. The college and chapel was about a 25 minute walk from the house.

King’s College has been in existence for over 550 years and was established by King Henry VI, who also established Eton College. Both colleges were originally intended to admit a maximum of 70 scholars from poor backgrounds. The chapel, which was the only building we could enter, took over a century to complete. Below are pics from our tour.

Bob and I had tickets today for an 11:00 am tour of the Pepys Library at Magdalene College (pronounced maudlin, so I’m glad we didn’t have to ask for directions). This college is located just on the other side of the River Cam, so it was about a 35-40 minute walk from the house.

The library comprises the personal collection of Samuel Pepys (pronounced peeps, that one I knew, and now, so does Bob) that he left to his alma mater at his death in 1703. Apparently, Mr. Pepys was a Member of Parliament and worked as an Administrator for the Royal Navy. He also served as Secretary to the Admiralty under King Charles II and King James II. However, I was only familiar with him because of his diary which was published after his death. We read parts of it in my English Lit class, as it provides a good overview of the times in which he lived, not only of everyday life but also descriptions of the great London fire and the Black Plague.

No photos were allowed in the library, but we ended up as the only guests so had a personal tour. There are 3,000 books displayed in 12 lovely bookcases, and per his wishes, his collection has not been added to. It was great to see the old volumes and admire some handwritten ones as well as some beautifully typeset ones. Apparently, at that time when you bought a book, you only bought the printed pages and then paid to have it bound with a cover. Mr. Pepys always chose to place his seal on the front cover, the title on the spine, and his photo on the inside cover.

Today’s excursion was made even more interesting as it turns out it was Graduation Day for some of the graduate students. A few pics from the day.

Today has been a rainy day, so we thought it might be a good day to check out one of Cambridge University’s free museums. The Polar Museum is fairly close to the house, so we headed there about mid-day for a visit. The museum presents information on the history of arctic and Antarctic exploration as well as polar artefacts, photographs, and written materials.

We weren’t the only ones who had the idea to spend a rainy day in a museum as the relatively small site was fairly busy.

The Scott Polar Institute, where the museum is based was formed in memory of Robert Scott who led two expeditions to Antarctica. On the first one, he set a record for going as far south as anyone had until that time. On the 2nd one, he missed being the first team to reach the South Pole by 35 days to Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian. He and his men never made it back.

Our adventure today was biking a trail next to a second Guided Busway. Bob had seen it on Google Maps, and we were near it when we biked the River Cam to Waterbeach. The busway began at the Cambridge North Rail Station, and we rode it until a small village called Oakington, although it appeared that it would continue on for about 8 more miles to St. Ives. It was an amazing, very wide off-road trail. Below are pics from the 14 mile trip.

We biked from the house to the Cambridge Rail Station, then through town (both on street and paths) before joining up with the trail near the water and then onto Cambridge North Rail Station and the Guided Busway Path #2 (at least to us).

Bob and I braved the town center of Cambridge on Saturday, and it was hopping. We had avoided it last Saturday so don’t know if we were dealing with a normal weekend crowd or if it was larger due to Sunday’s Town and Gown 10K race.

We had a set route of things to explore but also popped into a couple of the shopping arcades while we were in the area.

First things first, planner Bob has found us a bus we can take from Cambridge all the way to Heathrow for when we leave the middle of next month. We decided we’d walk to the bus stop to see how the walk might be for us to catch the bus. The walk wasn’t bad at all, took us in the direction of the town center, and on the way Bob saw this.

After the slight detour for the bus stop recon, we toddled on into the town center to see what was up (sometimes literally).

While Bob (and his cane and unfortunately sore hip) waited outside, Beth climbed the 123 steps to ascend 35 meters to the top and see Cambridge from above.

Bob has been researching bike rides and had seen a couple suggested on an area hotel’s website. One was to Waterbeach, a small community north of Cambridge. He led us there today. The majority of the route was on a path along the River Cam. It was an enjoyable 15 mile round trip. Below are pics from the journey.

We turned around at the rail station car park in Waterbeach and made our way back. Bob’s hip has been doing better than we expected since we got here.

The activity for the day was a quick trip to a small town north of Cambridge called Ely. Ely is known for its cathedral. We saw the cathedral from the outside but didn’t go in (saving it for a possible 2nd visit). We did a pretty good walk around town and saw Jubilee Gardens, the River Great Ouse filled with canal boats, Oliver Cromwell’s house, an active High Street, and finished with a great lunch in a quaint tea house recommended by our homeowners.

A fun fact fact about Ely (pronounced eely) is that it’s name is said to come from a word meaning Eel Island, and taxes in the area were once payable in eels. We didn’t see any eels, but they live and feed in their river. Below are pictures from our trip, a quick 16 minute train ride in each direction.

Oliver Cromwell is a famous English Statesman. In fact, Wikipedia states that he was selected 10th in a BBC poll of the 100 greatest Britons. He was educated at Cambridge, served as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth during a pause in the monarchy, but most importantly for today, lived in Ely for 10 years.

Bob and I have had a quiet day in Cambridge, catching up on laundry, getting the recycling and compost collected for tomorrow’s pick up, and getting train tickets for a quick, 16 minute ride to Ely tomorrow.

But, we did get out for a short bike ride to the end of the bike path along the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway, and then over by the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, and along the art trail to its junction with the national cycling route #11. It’s pretty great when there are so many national cycling routes that you have to number them.

The Cambridgeshire Guided Busway connects Cambridge, Huntington, and St. Ives. At 16 miles, it is the longest guided busway in the world. A guided bus is a normal bus that also has small wheels attached to the front wheels of the bus, allowing it to connect to a track. These wheels steer the bus while it’s on the track.

The Art bike path has colored stripes down the middle of the path and double helices on each end. There are 10,000 stripes, one for each mile of the National Cycle Network as it was in September 2005. The stripes also represent the bases of a vital human gene, called BRCA2, which was decoded at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinton. The double helices at each end represent the double helix shape of DNA.

This morning Bob and I had our own personal walking tour of Cambridge, very generously provided by our homeowners. It was two hours of non-stop information on Cambridge (both the town and the university) provided in an entertaining manner by Tony Rogers, a Cambridge University alum.

Some fun facts about Cambridge University. 1209 is claimed as the start date for the university, as this is the year when some Oxford students fled to Cambridge when Oxford was closed. The university is made up of 31 colleges, the oldest of which is Peterhouse. It has produced an incredible number of Nobel prize winners — 121 individuals. It is built on the monastic tradition of caring for one’s mind, body, and soul and so colleges provided a library, cafeteria, and chapel.

The following photos are some of what we learned about the university. The city-related photos follow.

One of the newer features of Cambridge is the Corpus Clock which is behind leaded glass on the outside of the Taylor Library at Corpus Christi College. It was conceived and funded by John Taylor, an alumnus of the college. It is 24 carat gold plated stainless steel. The outer ring shows the seconds, the middle ring minutes, and the inner ring the hour via a blue light. The animal on the top, which didn’t photo well due to movement, looks a bit like an evil grasshopper, but is actually a chronophage, or time eater. The whole work is to remind us of the constant passage of time and to live life while we can.

We also learned some history about the city of Cambridge.

We enjoyed another biking adventure today. The day was sunny and the weather mild, so we biked 4.5 miles to the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial. We weren’t sure what to expect, though the site was recommended by our homeowners.

The Google Map’s bike directions took us on some great bike/pedestrian trails. As we’ve said previously, Cambridge is a great biking town, which we really like. Great off-road trails makes the biking so much easier, and we only needed to be on the road for a short part of our route.

The cemetery exceeded our expectations. It is beautifully maintained. It had an impressive visitor center, chapel, and cemetery grounds. The land was donated by the University of Cambridge, and the US finished the site in 1954. My understanding is that the cemetery and memorial (and many others in Europe) is maintained by a US government agency, the American Battle Monuments Commission.

There are 3,812 gravesites for those whose remains were found and identified, and there is a wall of remembrance containing 5,127 names of individuals whose remains are not found/identified. As we walked the cemetery, we entered a row of tombstones, and the very first one was for a Charles Peck of California. No relation that we’re aware of.

Two of the more famous individuals listed on the Wall of Remembrance are Glenn Miller and Joseph P. Kennedy, who were both lost at sea.