On Saturday 6th November I headed off on a day trip to Cambridge organised through the Student Union. Kira, Liz and Maria tagged along also. The day started with an early departure from Leeds and a 2 hour and 45 min bus ride to Cambridge. The weather was perfect!
We finally arrived and headed straight to Kings College. The College was founded by Henry VI in 1441 and is predominantly famous for its Chapel. The Chapel itself contains some of the best stained glass windows in the country.
One of the societies of Kings College had a daredevil amongst them very recently and managed to place an orange traffic cone (witch's hat) on top of one of the spires of the Chapel. No one owned up so the College had to hire scaffolders to climb up and remove it. The workers took a few days to erect the scaffolding and overnight someone from the society climbed up the scaffolding and took down the cone, placing it on the other spire on the opposite side of the Chapel. The scaffolders then had to take everything down and rebuild it on the other side. You'll see in the photos below just how high up that actually was!
After cruising through King's College and making sure we didn't step on the grass, we headed to the Cambridge Markets and checked out the local atmosphere for a bit. We picked up some lunch near the markets and then headed back to King's where we signed up for a punting tour - think gondoliers in Venice but with British accents.
The tour took us along the River Cam whilst our punter talked through the history of the town as we passed by Kings, Queens, Clare, St John's and Trinity Colleges...the whole time the girls were not-so-discretely taking photos of the guys punting.
The Colleges are amazing! Trinity is the oldest and richest College in Cambridge. It has been the College of choice for most of the Royal Family members. Prince Charles studied there doing Archaeology and Anthropology (boring). The Queen had paid for a whole floor of rooms at the College for Charles but eventually he worked her down to just getting three. His bodyguard attended every class with him and was allowed to sit the final exam. However, he ended up with a better grade than Charles so he was not allowed to be recognised as a graduate.
Cambridge University itself is the 3rd largest land owner in the United Kingdom, falling behind the Royal Family and the Church of England. Much of Harry Potter was also filmed throughout the Colleges, just like in Oxford.
After our punt we had a look around some of Trinity College and the backstreets of Cambridge. We did some souvenir shopping then grabbed a bite to eat before racing back to the bus.
 |
| Front gate to King's College |
 |
| Part of Kings and back of the Chapel The steeples where the cone was placed. |
 |
| The Chapel The cone was placed on the top of the steeple on this side at the left. They then climbed up and put it on the other side...just for fun! |
 |
| The Grand Court |
 |
| The punting boats |
 |
| Kira and I |
 |
| Liz and Maria...probably checking out one of the other punters. |
 |
| St John's College |
 |
| Bridge of Sighs Based off the original in Venice, the story at Cambridge is similar to the one at Oxford: accommodation on the left, exam rooms on the right, students sighing as they walk into their exams. Cambridge also has another story for the Bridge of Sighs in Oxford: students cross the bridge and sigh "Why can't we be at Cambridge" |
 |
| A very eager duck...much to Maria's disliking! |
 |
| Trinity College Prince Charles' room was at the top in the middle |
 |
| Main entrance to Kings at dusk |
No comments:
Post a Comment