London, almost done

Well, on the Thursday of our London week, we were ready to get out of London for awhile and decided to take a trip to Cambridge. We wanted a destination that was relatively close (around a hour or less) and didn't cost too much and was also an interesting place to visit. Cambridge fit that bill, so we made our way to King's Cross railroad station which was a few tube stops from the Great Portland Underground Station (the one near our hotel). Once at King's Cross we were overwhelmed by the size of the station. It really reminded me of an airport with all the white, wide corridors and queuing partitions, except that the final destination was not an airport gate, but a wide, open space where a dozen or so trains were parked, ready to depart at their appointed time. After arriving at the ticket office and purchasing roundtrip tickets to Cambridge for 23 pounds (a one-way ticket was 22 pounds, which we had to have repeated to us like 3 times), we boarded a nice train which headed northeast to Cambridge.

Rapeseed fields viewed from the American Cemetery

Our train ride was an hour and made a few stops along the way. It was nice to see the outskirts of London and some of the hilly countryside. I was surprised to find that overall, the houses remained close together (even in small villages) and yards remained small. We saw lots of horses out to pasture and some flocks of sheep. It was quite quaint and lovely. The fields were often filled with tiny yellow flowers which I later learned were crops of rapeseed (used in cooking oils).

We arrived in Cambridge around 11AM and purchased tickets for an open-top hop on/hop off bus tour right outside the train station. Since we had little idea of how to get around in Cambridge, it seemed like a good way to see a lot of the city and colleges within it. Our tour took us around the city, and pointed out the various historic colleges that together make up the University of Cambridge. We also ended up at the Cambridge American Cemetery on the outskirts of town which is the burial site for a large number of WWII airmen who were based in Cambridge. The memorial building was under construction (see the picture to the right) but it had a beautiful map showing the main air bases in the war and where missions launched from those sites went.

After a short visit at the Cemetery, we rejoined the bus tour for a look at some more of Cambridge. As with London, the it was quite interesting to see the architecture and detail of the buildings which were hundreds of years old. They were just so lovely and picturesque.

 We exited the bus again after viewing some more of the city and proceeded to walk around Cambridge for the duration of our visit. At one point, we ended up within the campus of one of the smaller colleges and found ourselves surrounded by small, but stately looking campus buildings. It was like the buildings on an older US campus, but much smaller, like only a story or two, but faced with roman columns and other aspects of elegant architecture. The bottom picture was taken from the college and is of a nearby cathedral.  

We had a late lunch at a local pub and enjoyed people watching the obviously academic patrons around us. Wow, those people oozed "I am from academia" if anyone ever did. However, the city did not feel like you were on one big campus, as it was quite bustling and full of shops and had a nice sized mall. I was ready for some shopping, and stopped in a few places to look at clothing. I felt much more "at home" in Cambridge than in London. Although there were a lot of people, it had a much less urban feel (for obvious reasons) and I enjoyed the green spaces and trees and the bright blue sky and fresh air.  We walked around a bit more, before heading back to the train station and catching the 4:30 train back to London. That was our visit to the countryside and was a nice way to end our UK trip. After a light dinner, some packing and sleep, we were off the next morning to retrace our steps back to Minnesota. An uneventful ride on the underground to Paddington Station, then a train to Heathrow, some time at the airport, a  9 hour flight back to Minneapolis and we were back where we belonged and glad to be home.