The Ham Nomads

31 Oct 2014. <GB-ENG> Cambridge, Cambs —

The Bridge of Sighs

The Kitchen Bridge

Traffic jam on the Cam

The Mathematical Bridge

A lone punter and son

Today we went to the Park and Ride at Trumpington — the only one of the five that caters for tall vehicles like ours. The trip into Cambridge is easy and quick — about 15-20 minutes. It lets you off right in the city centre, and there is ample signage to get you wherever you need to go.

Two of our aims today became 1) to go punting on the Cam 2) to visit King's College Chapel. Anything else would be sheer bonus!

We went to the tourist office in the Guildhall, where we bought a map giving a good walking tour of the centre of town — and to the punting station and to Kings! We walked the walk!

We got to the punting station and got onto a 'chauffeured' punting tour round the backs of the colleges. Our 'chauffeur' George was most entertaining — he obviously loves the old buildings and hates the new ones! But we went up as far as the Magdalene Bridge (at the site of the first bridge over the Cam — hence 'Cambridge'. At one stage there was a real traffic jam on the water. Punting is really popular. You can hire punts to take yourself around — and there were a few very inexperienced punters on the water that day!

By the way, just found out that the Kitchen Bridge (built by Robert Grumbold (1639–1720) according to designs by Sir Christopher Wren) is a single piece of limestone, cunningly carved to look like masonry —don't think it will fall down in a hurry!

King's College Chapel

The Rubens altarpiece

The organ pipes sit atop
the rood screen
between nave and choir

After 45 minutes in the Cam, we walked further, eventually getting around to King's College Chapel. This place is absolutely amazing. It's huge, and the fan-vaulted ceiling takes your breath away — it's the world's largest fan vault, estimated to weigh 1,875 tons!

Disaster has struck! 40% of today's photos have been lost, due to corruption of the memory card — but not a total disaster, as we had taken heaps! Never mind — we will reschedule in the next few days to retake what we can! This is one good thing about camper-van holidays — no deadlines!

We could only look into the Great Court at Trinity College
It's open to the public from 2 to 4, and we were too late.

In the market in the middle of town

Distance driven — today, 39 miles ( 63 km ); to date, 9,404 miles ( 15,135 km )