Cambridge - There has probably not been another city quite like it on our tour. Tuesday 1st July

I think Prince William and Kate got the good end of the stick when the Queen made them the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and after walking around the town for hours, I can see why.  They are young, as are most of the residents, they are familiar with Universities, and she likes high end shops.  Add to that the magnificent architecture of all the Halls and Colleges, the heritage and the River Cam, and it all adds up to Cambridge!  An old Roman town now something that the tourists flock to see.

Market in the square

Actually at first it was overwhelming.  Regal, and elegant and looks so rich, with so many old buildings, It puzzles me how all the buildings were not only designed, but then built and sculptured, maybe each of the Kings wanted to outdo each other.

One thing a bit different here is there is no Cathedral.   And our hop on hop off bus tour gave us information overload.  I hope I can remember some.  Again William came here in 1068 and built the cathedral, but it is all gone, he must have had foresight, cause they are all on hills with great views.

There are 100,000 people living here, and students living on the campus's are not allowed to bring a car, so there are 30,000 bikes here as well.  Next week there will be a few more because the Cambridge to London stage of the Tour de France starts on the 7th.  They have not embraced the race as much as other towns that we had seen, with the yellow bikes everywhere.

Both our great grandfathers and great grand uncles went to University here, and we saw some of the different colleges.  They are often simply works of art.  Absolutely stunning.

Even Prince Charles attended College here.

Not a bad clock

Later we went on a Punt Tour of the River Cam, and it was an enjoyable way to spend 45 minutes on this very beautiful sunny day.  The punt route is on a man made addition to the weir at the navigable part of the river.  The buildings were built on dry land, and then the water way added.  Some have doors leading to the river and the students tend to play some interesting pranks on the new ones, each year.

There was only one bridge over the river, that survived Cromwell and the Civil War, and others which had been destroyed have been replicated and rebuilt later.  The designs of some are very stunning indeed.

At one stage, there were so many punts in the one spot, and they got between Mother Duck and her babies, did she let everyone know that she was unhappy with that!

Afterwards we went to the Cambridge Folk Museum to see some relics of the past, and if you remember these things then you are showing your age!

The park and ride took us back to the huge park and ride area about 1 klm from where we are staying.  They had a sign on the ticket machine, advising that due to the slow speed of the internet the card reader could not be used.  They summed it up in one sentence!  It is so so slow here.

I met the owner of Anstey Hall this morning, his father invented araldite.  Sir de Bruyn. The fittings inside the place are quite stunning, and the library is huge with countless books.  The chandeliers are stunning, it is a self serve breakfast, cook some scrambled eggs or baked beans.  He only recently opened it for guests, and there are some cosmetic things that should be looked at, but the ambiance of the whole place, is in my opinion enough to forgive the rest.

Some photos of the Hall will follow, cause at the moment Google is having a few issues with the uploading of the photos.