ENGLAND: A SHORT VISIT TO CAMBRIDGE ON OUR WAY TO SOUTH AFRICA

In May and June, we took a trip to five countries in Southern Africa. Our journey began with two very long flights: a 10 hour 35 minute flight from Los Angeles to London, and an 11 hour 30 minute flight from London to Cape Town, separated by a layover of 11 hours 20 minutes. All told, if you include the two hour drive to LAX and the three hours in the airport before take-off (we always leave early because LA traffic is so unpredictable), we were on the road for 37 hours 25 minutes.

And we hit the ground running.

This is what our trip looked like on a map. First, our flight to Cape Town via London:

And then, from South Africa to Namibia to Botswana to Zimbabwe to Zambia and back to South Africa for our flight home:

 AND we did it all with a 24" duffel bag and a backpack each.

But before we started the African journey, we had that 11+ hour layover in London. We are not good sitters, especially if it is sitting in between two flights that are themselves each 10+ hours of sitting. If we have a long layover, we opt for an excursion away from the airport. (See our seven-hour layover in Hong Kong, for example.) There seemed to be plenty of time on this trip for a side trip to Cambridge, and since I have a niece who lives in London who was willing to meet us at Heathrow and join our adventure, we got ourselves a rental car and headed north to Cambridge, a distance of about 50 or 60 miles. Unfortunately, our plane had come in about an hour late and we had spent forever in a customs line (14 rows in the turning ropes), so we didn't have quite as much time as we had planned for, but it was still more than adequate.

The drive was really pleasant--lots of narrow roads flanked by green, hedgerow-divided fields, and not a ton of traffic.

Until we got to Cambridge itself. Then the traffic was horrendous. 

Bob was hungry and we started out by getting some lunch at a place called Sea Tree. 

We shared some mediocre oysters and my niece had mediocre shrimp, but my main course of fish pie topped with mashed potatoes was yummy, and Bob's fish and chips were excellent:

It was definitely a better choice than this. (Sorry, Colonel.)

After lunch, we spent the next half hour or more driving around in circles trying to find a parking spot. It was a Saturday, and apparently all of England had come to Cambridge to do some punting. (More on that later.)

We eventually parked and walked around the very beautiful campus:

We Americans are so proud of the fact that Harvard University was established in 1636, but Cambridge predates it by more than 400 years, having been granted a charter by King Henry II in 1231.  It is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world and the fourth-oldest surviving university in the world.

King's College Chapel

The University also has a smallish £4.9 billion endowment. In American dollars, that is $6.33 billion. You laugh, but Harvard has a $37.1 billion endowment.

The city of Cambridge has a population of about 125,000, with 1/5 of those being students.

For some reason "Boiled Sweets" don't sound that tasty:

It was a thrill to see the site of Cambridge University Press, although I suspect this is a storefront rather than the actual publishing site:

We peaked into the Church of St. Mary the Great, the official church for the university. One of the university rules is that undergraduates have to live within three miles of this church. The original structure was built in 1205, and the current church was constructed between 1478 and 1519, with the tower not completed until 1608.

One of my favorite things in the church was this very modern sculpture entitled Maternity. It depicts "The Blessed Virgin Mary, infant Jesus and child John the Baptist."

There is also a 1611 copy of the King James Bible on display. I like this photo with the shadow of  modern technology cast on the ancient tome:

Back out on the street to do some more exploring:

I was trying to "feel the history" of the place, I really was, but the crowds were impinging on my imagination:

The driver of this truck thought that he could fit in the alley between the two buildings. After about ten back-and-forths, he gave up:

This is Trinity College, the most famous subdivision of the university and the largest according to the number of undergraduates. Members of Trinity have been awarded 32 of the 98 Nobel Prizes won by members of Cambridge University, five of the six Fields Medals in mathematics won by members of British universities, and one Abel Prize for mathematics.

Six British prime ministers attended here, along with Isaac Newton, Niels Bohr, Lord Byron, Prince Charles, and many other British notables.

Just standing here made me feel smarter.

One of the things on our to-do list was "punting," or taking a ride on the Cam River in one of these square-cut, flat-bottomed, gondolier-propelled boats:

But alas, the lines were long, the crowds were raucous, and time was slipping away, so we had to settle for merely observing punting.

While doing so, it dawned on me how Cambridge got its name. There's the river Cam, there are all the bridges . . . voila! Cambridge!

This wooden footbridge, originally built in 1749 and rebuilt in 1866 and then again in 1905, is known as the "Mathematical Bridge." Although it appears to be an arch, only straight timbers are used:

We managed to find an alternate activity that was quite rewarding in its own way:

It gave us the energy to stroll around the back side of the university:

All too soon it was time to turn back to London and the next leg of our trip from Heathrow to Cape Town. I wish we would have had just one more hour to eat at Jamie Oliver's Italian restaurant:

Maybe next time we're in Cambridge (if that ever happens) we can buy a picnic lunch to take with us as we go punting on the Cam.