Pining for the West

We spent two nights in Cambridge because there’s a lot to see in the area and we had friends to meet too. The first time we actually went into the town it was night time but very busy with students flying all over the place on their bikes. You’re in real danger of getting knocked down by them, I’ve never seen so many cyclists before. The bike is King in Cambridge. There are so many all padlocked up that people often have trouble finding their machine amongst the many and have to give up and walk home! The above photo is of the Senate House, just a few bikes there. There weren’t so many around during the day and there were graduations taking place at this time.

This is Clare College, a very handsome building and lovely setting. The college buildings in Cambridge are very much smaller than I had imagined they would be. I thought that the whole place would be full of Hooray Henrys/Henriettas but it wasn’t, in fact the students at St Andrews are much more inclined to be snooty and loud mouthed.

Below is the entrance to Christ’s College.

And this is what you see when you walk through the doorway, very pretty.

Look in the other direction and you see this side. It’s all very Brideshead Revisited, although that was set in Oxford, but this quad seems really small compared with St Salvator’s at St Andrews. No students were seen wandering around with their teddy bear. Shame!

As you can see this is where you go if you want to go on a punt but it was actually raining quite heavily at this point so the punts were all tied up, nobody being mad enough to want to take a trip on the Cam.

There’s obviously a lot of money in Cambridge and there are lots of privately owned shops and boutiques. Not the sort of shops which you get around most universities. But the natives are very friendly and although people in the south of England are always being slagged off for being cold and stand-offish, they definitely aren’t at The Pickerel Inn anyway. We’ll probably be going back sometime as there’s still plenty to see in the county. Our friend from Yorkshire who lived temporarily in Cambridge says that the people in Yorkshire have a reputation for being warm and friendly but he says that they’re bloody miserable buggers. Well, I suppose he should know. He’s moving to Edinburgh soon. I wonder what he’ll think of Edinburghers!