Day Twelve - Cambridge - 22 May

Today was the best weather we have experienced since arriving in the UK seven weeks ago. It was both sunny and warm. We have had sunshine on a couple of days but it was cold. We walked from our B&B into the centre of Cambridge to get some exercise. It took thirty-five minutes and we then spent all day walking. We made the most of the sunshine and caught a punt on the River Cam which runs through Cambridge.

It’s a small tributary of the River Great Ouse which we came across in Norfolk. We decided to hire a punt with a guide rather than try and do the punting ourselves. The tour covers 1.6kms of the River Cam known as the College Backs as you pass the backs of the colleges.

Our guide was very good covering the history of the buildings and bridges as we passed them. We probably saw the Cam Backs on one of the best days of the year; we couldn’t stop taking photos.

The Bridge of Sighs and King’s College Chapel were the standouts along the way. The Bridge of Sighs is a very pretty little bridge completed in 1831. We had a late lunch with good views of King’s College Chapel and then moved onto the Cambridge University Botanic Garden which was about a ten minute walk from the city centre. It was a much larger garden than we expected sitting on forty acres and our brochure said it had over eight thousand species.

It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon and ideal to walk around the gardens. Once again we couldn’t stop taking photos of the lovely flowers and gardens.

We decided to go to the King’s College Chapel for Evensong at five thirty and we had an hour to kill before lining up to go in. We were feeling quite hot and ventured into a coffee house to cool down. We had an interesting time listening to a Chinese lady being tutored in English at the next table. The Chinese lady was practising English for an exam and had to describe photos placed in front of her. She couldn’t say “squirrel” and kept saying “squarell”. After ten minutes the tutor said it wasn’t important and she may not have to use the word very often. I think the next time Henk and I see a “squarell” we will think of the Chinese lady. Evensong was a service of forty-five minutes and the choirboys sang beautifully. Some were so tiny they could hardly see over the choir stalls. Following the service and thanks to a taxi driver we found the biggest UK Wetherspoons pub in an ex-cinema in Cambridge and had a great salmon dish for dinner. We love Wetherspoons pubs as they are cheap and cheerful, the standard is always good and they have WiFi. We caught the bus home and we were back at the B&B at eight o’clock which gave us time to repack before heading to London tomorrow morning.