Day 24-26 - Cambridge

Monday

The first thing, the very first thing were had to do before we'd left Kings Lynn was more laundry. Fortunately Kings Lynn's laundromats were much less desultory than Oxford's. We tried for the local museum before we left (to see Seahenge) but it was closed. There was nothing for it but to press on to Cambridge.

However we made a small detour. Our route to Cambridge took us past the town of Ely. I'd never heard of Ely, but L had. This is why she'd heard of Ely:

The inside is just as remarkable. One of the most beautiful cathedrals we'd seen, along with Chartres.

We finally made it to Cambridge, and found a hotel with both proximity to the town centre and a car space. And a price to match. It was then considered prudent to actually book our accommodation ahead of time, rather then show up and just take what's available.

After we'd settled in (and our hearts had recovered from the tariff) we walked into the heart of Cambridge. Which proved difficult, because it was clogged with cyclists. It also didn't help that we had arrived at the start of "fresher's week".

Nonetheless, we found the Round Church after blithely walking past it, found dinner, and found our way back to our hotel.

Also we found the Corpus Clock just hanging off the side of one of the colleges - though it was difficult to get a proper shot of it - that blur at the top is a grasshopper type thingy that's the actual mechanism of the clock.

We had dinner in what turned out to be a member of a chain of rather ordinary gastropubs called the All Bar One and retired to the luxury of our hotel room.

Tuesday

Our first full day in Cambridge, and we decided to spend some of it on a bus. We'd done a Hop On Hop Off touring Singapore, so we decided to try the one in Cambridge. And then, maybe, we could have the bus plow through all the bikes instead.

Our first stop was the Fitzwilliam Museum that was hosting an exhibition of Han Dynasty artifacts related to burial. It was more extensive then we imagined, even displaying two full burial suits.

As with the Ashmolean, there was more than enough to warrant a second visit.

Lunch was at The Eagle - the pub frequented by Crick and Watson where they discussed their theory of DNA. In fact the local beer was called Eagle DNA - but sadly it didn't give me wings.

After lunch - it was off to another sacred sight: the Samuel Pepys library. The library is only open for one hour each day, and doesn't advertise its presence.

You cannot take photos inside, but it was a lovely space with the books in their original shelves, arranged by height.

The rest of the day was spent on the Hop On Hop Off bus, filling in more bits of Cambridge's past.


Wednesday

Back to more of the Fitzwilliam Museum, and to check out the Cambridge markets.


Then off to Bletchley Park via Linford Stables .

Day 22-23 - Kings Lynn

The weekend was spent with my nephew, for the most part. On the Saturday he had soccer and on Sunday he had rugby - a well rounded English education.

(photos available to family members on request)

After the soccer game we took him to The Muckleburgh Military Collection.

Janice first decided to show us who was truly boss by dropping us in a car park, miles from our true destination, no doubt still annoyed by our failure to appreciate her instructions the day before.

A reset of her instructions and we were back on our way.

The Muckleburgh Military Collection is a museum in a disused military base on the coast of Norfolk. During school holidays you can ride on tanks and other military vehicles. However we were there in the off session, so the rides were unavailable. The collection itself was still pretty amazing.

We took him back to Kings Lynn for dinner, finally having to settle for the very same hotel we'd had dinner in the night before. There's not a huge range of options in Kings Lynn.

The next day we watched my nephew play rugby, then it was off to the pub for a family lunch and to say our goodbyes. Instead of going directly home we went for a walk in the woods.

A brief note to readers

Sorry for the lack of content, but we have been having a wonderful time.

Massive update of our English adventures tonight (our time.)

Day 21 - Oxford / King's Lynn

This was the day our UK holiday really started.

We spent the morning poking around the covered market at Oxford and discovered a certain pub  where a certain ex-Prime Minister had set a certain record:

Then we checked out of the hotel (fortunately one of the staff could carry the suitcases down those *#$#! stairs) and cabbed out to the hire car company.

There we picked up our new companions for the next stage in our journey: Elsie the Kia and Janice the Satnav. Llyn named the satnav after every bossy female she knew. I just bit my lip.

We loaded up the car and threw ourselves in the mercy of the UK road system-

- which appeared to consist solely of connections between roundabouts. We'd been on so many roundabouts on our way to King's Lynn we were in danger of turning into Florence and Dougal.

We were doing fine until we hit the last roundabout and Janice requested that we take the "fifth exit."

This is the last roundabout:

It took four attempts to make it back to our hotel after a short trip into town. L still twitches whenever Janice announces another roundabout.

Day 20 - Oxford

Day 20 - Oxford

The very first thing we intended to do was a tour of the Bodleian Library, but we had to kill some time before the tour started and so, in the way of these things, we stumbled across a market, escaping with our wallets barely intact.

The Bodleian Library itself was astonishing.

I'm pretty much suffering from awe fatigue at the moment and the Bodleian offered no relief. The sheer amount of history encrusted within and without the walls is breathtaking. We were allowed brief, grudging access to the medieval collection, books so rare and dangerous that they were chained to the shelves, lest they start their inexorable journey to the wilds of Ebay.

I remember looking over and seeing an original volume of Samuel Johnson's dictionary. My iphone quailed before its authority.


We weren't allowed to take photos of the books, but over the road from the Bodleian is Blackwell's which, despite having a mere three floors of books, also boasts the infamous Norrington Room. I have tried to give an idea of the scale of the Norrington Room below:

Despite our awe being struck so consistently and comprehensively it had concussion, we dragged it, bruised and protesting, into the Ashmolean. We thought the Edward Lear exhibit would give it a soothing balm. We had underestimated the Ashmolean. Lear was not just a purveyor of nonsense rhymes, he was a talented painter of landscapes and wildlife, which made up the bulk of the exhibition.


The rest of the Ashmolean is staggering. Our awe had now assumed a foetal position.

Here's one example: a Stradivarius

We had just enough cognitive strength to make it to dinner, then back up all those stairs to recharge for the drive tomorrow.

Day 19 - Over the channel

We left early in the morning for the Eurostar to London. The only discernible differences between it and the other trains were; going through customs and the transit lounge at the start of the trip, and the 15 minutes of darkness near the end.

We arrived in St Pancras then caught the tube to Paddington where we encountered our nemesis: stairs. We struggled manfully with the bags and made it in time to catch the train to Oxford.

The train travel was smooth and uneventful, however once we arrived in Oxford, we faced that terror that all long range tourists must face after weeks on the road: the laundromat.

Our avuncular taxi driver admitted that very few laundromats were left in Oxford, so he drove us to the one he used to scam 50p coins from.

So, our first experience of Oxford was sitting in a laundromat that David Lynch would have found too depressing to film. We were joined by Col, an American, also on his 10th wedding anniversary, so he kept us company during the final spin cycle.

A cab to the hotel which was right in the heart of Oxford (good) but up several sets of narrow stairs (bad). Fortunately they had staff to help us with our bags, but the staff were not apparently available to ferry us down to the street and back.

Oxford!

I found a sim for my phone and we somehow stumbled into Waterstones (which was preparing for the launch of the next JK Rowling book) where we, somehow, managed to walk out with just one bag of books.

We were opposite the college that Lord Peter Wimsey attended (along with a lot less fictional luminaries) and we found his regular drinking hole (at the other side of the block.)

L, as can be imagined, was in heaven.

Day 18 - Chartres

One last full day in France and what better way to spend it than visiting another cathedral.

But not just any old cathedral, we'd already seen them after all. This was the big one, the Cathedral at Chartres.

Mindbogglingly ornate on the outside, it is even more spectacular on the inside, as its stained glass windows had even survived the French Revolution. It was built on a Roman site and has multiple layers from the Middle Ages, to the Gothic and Neo Gothic periods.

The Museum of Stained Glass nearby has close-ups of all the windows, so you can make out the finer details.

A train home and now it's our last night in Paris .