Monday
After a noisy night on the Caledonian sleeper train we were served pikelets in our cabin as breakfast at about 7:00am.
Arrived Euston 7:50am.
This is were we left our SJR friends. They had 60 minutes to catch another train to Porthmadog in Wales.
We however had all day to get ourselves to Cambridge where we had booked for four nights.
We were told to wait for a 'cart' since our carriage was at the end of the train and we had had 16 carriages to walk past to get out of the platform. After a short wait we then travelled in style to the Caledonian Lounge.
Since we had all day it was our intention to wait till a more civilized hour to get us to the Kings Cross station to catch the train to Cambridge.
The lounge was in the bowels of the station there was free tea/coffee some light food. More importantly, there were loos and showers available.
After a couple hours and a freshen up, the staff offered us a cart up to the taxi rank which was accepted since it turned out the rank was at least 5-600m away.
The taxi took us to Kings Cross to catch the train to Cambridge. We had day tickets so we could catch any train.
The station was very busy. The departure board was showing about 15 trains but platforms were only indicated about 15min before the train left. This was no good for me so Leith organised ‘assistance’ which meant we had three men to take us to the right platform for Cambridge, one to push me in a wheelchair, one to carry the luggage and one to lead the way - a good 200 m walk for them.
The train was an express so only took about 60 minutes. The Kings Cross people had alerted Cambridge people that I required 'assistance' so when the train arrived the ‘assistance’ then took us to the taxi rank (only one person helping this time) where we went to the hotel.
We were booked in at the Gonville hotel which I had picked from the web some months earlier.
It is described as boutique but did have two levels of rooms and some even had walk in showers which I like.
By the time we had unpacked it was about 2:00pm but we managed to have a light lunch at the hotel bar.
We didn’t do much in the afternoon, I had a sleep and Leith had a walk.
Dinner was the same menu also at the bar. A really nice meal. Small serves
Tuesday
We noticed that there were two antique Bentley's packed outside the hotel. It turned out these were available for guests. A chauffer/guide could take one out for an hours ride around Cambridge. We booked it up for the next day.
Cambridge, like Oxford has a magnificent museum the Fitzwilliam Museum where we decided to spend the whole day.
A magnificent building purpose built from a legacy from Richard FitzWillian 7th Viscount FitzWilliam . He bequeathed his substantial art collection and £100,000 on his death in 1816 "to cause to be erected a good substantial museum repository".
Very impressed with the Greek and roman collections
Excellent cafe for lunch not to mention loos.
Got back to hotel about 4:00pm
Wednesday
Sunny day
We had our tour of the city in the hotel Bentley at 9:00am, through the old part and then the surrounding country side. Very chatty driver/guide.
We asked to be dropped off at the Hop On/Off bus stop up a block from the hotel
Went around the circuit 1.5 times, we were on the first bus so managed to get the front seat on the top deck. A great view.
Decided to hop off at the FitzWilliam Museum as we know about the loos.
Walked along the street passed Pembrooke College where we could go in and look at the quadrangle. The Colleges only supply accommodation, you are actually taught in lecture halls, in this case about a 10min bike ride away.
We then walked along further and finally got to the Corpus clock a magnificent work of art I urge you to or better still go to a video released by the maker Dr Jon C Taylor, I should have watched the links before hand, certainly was fascinated and watched for 10 minutes or so. Our Bentley Guide told us that Dr Taylor has made three clocks the first for £1m, the second for £2m and the third for £3m, the latter two in private collections.
Walking a little way up the street we went into the Kings College grounds and then to the Chapel.
"The Chapel was built in phases by a succession of kings of England from 1446 to 1515, a period which spanned the Wars of the Roses and three subsequent decades"
A magnificent building and built only for students.
We then walked down to the River Cam to see the tourists having their punt ride.
A taxi back to the hotel.
We decided to have dinner at the Oak Bistro a short walk from the hotel. Good meal and a pleasant walk back in the evening light. We still can't get used to the late sunsets.
Thursday
Another lovely day 25c
Went by taxi to the Museum of Technology.
Taxi was a Tesla! It was very low off the ground, No handle at top of door opening so tricky getting out. Driver didn’t mind the charging time! This was his second!
Unfortunately we got there and walked up to the entrance we found it shut - only open over the weekend - but it had a good coffee shop outside so we sat in the sun and enjoyed a coffee. Leith went for a walk along the river and over a bridge to honour Olaudah Equiano who was sold into slavery age 11 and eventually was able to by his freedom. He wrote books and worked to abolish slavery.
We then had to ask a couple to phone a taxi to get us to our next destination.
While my Airalo was connected and I could have used Skype to make a call it appeared quicker and easier to ask.
We arrived at The Centre for Computing History An excellent display of all types of computer technologies. Spent about an hour or so and even Leith found it interesting.
It was situated in the middle of an industrial estate.
They called a taxi for our next destination, which was
The Polar Museum or Scott Polar Research Institute
This had a number of exhibits mainly concentrating on British exploration of the Arctic but did have a smaller display regarding the Antarctic.
A short walk back to our hotel.
Dinner was booked for 7:00pm in the hotel restaurant 'The Gonville Kitchen' but the maître d' turfed us out since he hadn’t got our name despite our booking three days earlier. We then complained to the duty manager who then talked the maître d.
We were eventually let into an almost empty restaurant. There was apparently an event on later in the evening. Not a good start to the evening.
We had been warned that restaurant had the same menu as the bar food, which it did but the side bread and the linen napkin were nice.
Friday lovely sunny day
Picked up at 09:20am for the 95 min trip to Heathrow. Arrived in plenty of time to catch the 2:20pm flight back to Sydney via Dubai
The plane was an hour late leaving which mean't we only had about 30 minutes to change planes in Dubai. We and the baggage made it.
We arrived into Sydney around 10:00pm which was good since we could straight to bed. Mind you still had a bit of jet lag for the next couple of days.
Another great trip Thanks Owen and Takako for their contribution.
After a noisy night on the Caledonian sleeper train we were served pikelets in our cabin as breakfast at about 7:00am.
Arrived Euston 7:50am.
This is were we left our SJR friends. They had 60 minutes to catch another train to Porthmadog in Wales.
We however had all day to get ourselves to Cambridge where we had booked for four nights.
We were told to wait for a 'cart' since our carriage was at the end of the train and we had had 16 carriages to walk past to get out of the platform. After a short wait we then travelled in style to the Caledonian Lounge.
Since we had all day it was our intention to wait till a more civilized hour to get us to the Kings Cross station to catch the train to Cambridge.
The lounge was in the bowels of the station there was free tea/coffee some light food. More importantly, there were loos and showers available.
After a couple hours and a freshen up, the staff offered us a cart up to the taxi rank which was accepted since it turned out the rank was at least 5-600m away.
The taxi took us to Kings Cross to catch the train to Cambridge. We had day tickets so we could catch any train.
The station was very busy. The departure board was showing about 15 trains but platforms were only indicated about 15min before the train left. This was no good for me so Leith organised ‘assistance’ which meant we had three men to take us to the right platform for Cambridge, one to push me in a wheelchair, one to carry the luggage and one to lead the way - a good 200 m walk for them.
The train was an express so only took about 60 minutes. The Kings Cross people had alerted Cambridge people that I required 'assistance' so when the train arrived the ‘assistance’ then took us to the taxi rank (only one person helping this time) where we went to the hotel.
We were booked in at the Gonville hotel which I had picked from the web some months earlier.
It is described as boutique but did have two levels of rooms and some even had walk in showers which I like.
By the time we had unpacked it was about 2:00pm but we managed to have a light lunch at the hotel bar.
We didn’t do much in the afternoon, I had a sleep and Leith had a walk.
Dinner was the same menu also at the bar. A really nice meal. Small serves
Tuesday
We noticed that there were two antique Bentley's packed outside the hotel. It turned out these were available for guests. A chauffer/guide could take one out for an hours ride around Cambridge. We booked it up for the next day.
Cambridge, like Oxford has a magnificent museum the Fitzwilliam Museum where we decided to spend the whole day.
A magnificent building purpose built from a legacy from Richard FitzWillian 7th Viscount FitzWilliam . He bequeathed his substantial art collection and £100,000 on his death in 1816 "to cause to be erected a good substantial museum repository".
Very impressed with the Greek and roman collections
Excellent cafe for lunch not to mention loos.
Got back to hotel about 4:00pm
Wednesday
Sunny day
We had our tour of the city in the hotel Bentley at 9:00am, through the old part and then the surrounding country side. Very chatty driver/guide.
We asked to be dropped off at the Hop On/Off bus stop up a block from the hotel
Went around the circuit 1.5 times, we were on the first bus so managed to get the front seat on the top deck. A great view.
Decided to hop off at the FitzWilliam Museum as we know about the loos.
Walked along the street passed Pembrooke College where we could go in and look at the quadrangle. The Colleges only supply accommodation, you are actually taught in lecture halls, in this case about a 10min bike ride away.
We then walked along further and finally got to the Corpus clock a magnificent work of art I urge you to or better still go to a video released by the maker Dr Jon C Taylor, I should have watched the links before hand, certainly was fascinated and watched for 10 minutes or so. Our Bentley Guide told us that Dr Taylor has made three clocks the first for £1m, the second for £2m and the third for £3m, the latter two in private collections.
Walking a little way up the street we went into the Kings College grounds and then to the Chapel.
"The Chapel was built in phases by a succession of kings of England from 1446 to 1515, a period which spanned the Wars of the Roses and three subsequent decades"
A magnificent building and built only for students.
We then walked down to the River Cam to see the tourists having their punt ride.
A taxi back to the hotel.
We decided to have dinner at the Oak Bistro a short walk from the hotel. Good meal and a pleasant walk back in the evening light. We still can't get used to the late sunsets.
Thursday
Another lovely day 25c
Went by taxi to the Museum of Technology.
Taxi was a Tesla! It was very low off the ground, No handle at top of door opening so tricky getting out. Driver didn’t mind the charging time! This was his second!
Unfortunately we got there and walked up to the entrance we found it shut - only open over the weekend - but it had a good coffee shop outside so we sat in the sun and enjoyed a coffee. Leith went for a walk along the river and over a bridge to honour Olaudah Equiano who was sold into slavery age 11 and eventually was able to by his freedom. He wrote books and worked to abolish slavery.
We then had to ask a couple to phone a taxi to get us to our next destination.
While my Airalo was connected and I could have used Skype to make a call it appeared quicker and easier to ask.
We arrived at The Centre for Computing History An excellent display of all types of computer technologies. Spent about an hour or so and even Leith found it interesting.
It was situated in the middle of an industrial estate.
They called a taxi for our next destination, which was
The Polar Museum or Scott Polar Research Institute
This had a number of exhibits mainly concentrating on British exploration of the Arctic but did have a smaller display regarding the Antarctic.
A short walk back to our hotel.
Dinner was booked for 7:00pm in the hotel restaurant 'The Gonville Kitchen' but the maître d' turfed us out since he hadn’t got our name despite our booking three days earlier. We then complained to the duty manager who then talked the maître d.
We were eventually let into an almost empty restaurant. There was apparently an event on later in the evening. Not a good start to the evening.
We had been warned that restaurant had the same menu as the bar food, which it did but the side bread and the linen napkin were nice.
Friday lovely sunny day
Picked up at 09:20am for the 95 min trip to Heathrow. Arrived in plenty of time to catch the 2:20pm flight back to Sydney via Dubai
The plane was an hour late leaving which mean't we only had about 30 minutes to change planes in Dubai. We and the baggage made it.
We arrived into Sydney around 10:00pm which was good since we could straight to bed. Mind you still had a bit of jet lag for the next couple of days.
Another great trip Thanks Owen and Takako for their contribution.
WYC
2024-08-18
Amazing photos! Sounds like you had a great time.
Pam
2024-08-18
Really enjoy your descriptions getting to Cambridge and all you did there. Don't think I saw nearly enough on my visit so long ago. Lovely photos David thank you. love Pam
Jo
2024-08-18
What fun ! Love what I'd call the "Locust" :) clock and the Bentley Gorgeous
Lorraine Clarke
2024-08-19
Loved Cambridge myself but did not spend the time you two did exploring it. Would have loved it if the choir had been rehearsing when we were at Kings College Chappel but no such luck. thanks for your great descriptive narrative David. Looking forward to hearing about your next trip.
Louise
2024-08-19
Cambridge is one of my favourite places in England, including the FitzWilliam Museum, King's College and Newton's Apple Tree outside Trinity College, but some of the other places you visited have not been on my agenda. Loved your Bentley flourish!
Guy
2024-08-19
Great trip. Last time I was in Cambridge it was hotter than Narrabri!