Cambridge

After ten hectic days in London we were ready for a holiday in the country. So we took a train to Cambridge, where we stayed in the Autumn House B & B. We had a very nice room with a recently remodeled bathroom, so needless to say we enjoyed the roomy shower! We set off right after breakfast to explore Cambridge. It's very pleasant to just walk around and enjoy the beautiful scenery.



The weather was nice, so there were lots of people punting on the Cam river. Punting in Cambridge has nothing to do with football! One person stands on the back of a narrow canoe type boat and propels it with a long stick while other people sit down in the hull of the boat and contemplate the universe. It reminded me of the gondolas in Venice. This bridge is called the Mathematical Bridge, because when it was originally constructed it had no nails. The pressure of each piece of wood upon its neighboring pieces was enough to support the structure.



We visited King's College, which was founded by King Henry VI way back in 1441, and finally completed in 1544 by King Henry VIII. There is an awesome "fan-vaulted" ceiling in the chapel, and an original Rubens painting, "Adoration of the Magi." Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn donated a massive oak organ screen that has their initials on it. This was before Anne's demise, of course. Here's a small but interesting fact: In 1534 King Henry VIII granted Cambridge the privilege of printing a book (a privilege they chose not to use for 50 years). Until then, only the royal printer could legally print Bibles! William Tyndale, the first to translate the Bible directly from Hebrew and Greek into English, was tried for heresy, strangled and burned at the stake in 1536. Later scholars would use his work (without credit) to produce the King James translation.
There are more than 30 colleges associated with Cambridge. Students who want a degree from Cambridge must first apply to one of these colleges. They do not require students to attend lectures, but they must meet once a week with a "supervisor" (we would call them academic advisors), to discuss their progress. Cambridge has produced more than 80 Nobel Prize winners......so they must be doing something right!
Interesting local legend: Cambridge students may be responsible for the term "pub crawl." Students would challenge one another to drink a pint at each pub on King Street, which once had 15 or 20 pubs! By the time they reached the end of the street, they would most likely be crawling.



This is the Round Church, one of the oldest buildings in Cambridge. It is remarkable because it does not follow the traditional cross shape with the altar facing East. It was built by Knights returning from the Crusades around 1130.



Because it is the 400th anniversary of the King James translation of the Bible, the Cambridge University Library had a special exhibit with many of the early attempts at translating, including Martin Luther's, William Tyndale's and Miles Coverdale's, as well as a Gutenberg bible and two copies of the King James first editions! The Protestant Reformation was happening, the printing press had just been invented, and people were starting to wonder why they couldn't just read the word of God for themselves. Some were more successful than others! One early version accidentally left the word "not" out of the 7th commandment, effectively instructing people to commit adultery! The person responsible for this mistake was fined 300 pounds and spent the rest of his life in debtor's prison. King James I of England (Mary Queen of Scots' son) was an author and a scholar himself. He ordered scholars from Westminster, Oxford and Cambridge to work together to produce an authoritative translation of the bible. Each group of scholars was assigned a portion of the text to translate, which they then sent to the other groups for review, and then all three groups met to discuss the final text. This may have been one of the first group projects executed by a committee!
Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536): "I would to God the ploughman would sing a text of the scripture at his ploughbeam, and that the weaver at his loom and with this would drive away the tediousness of time."



Our last day in Cambridge was Mother's Day, and we spent it at Cambridge University's Botanic Garden. There were so many different types of flowering plants and trees there it was awesome! We only had a couple of hours to spend there but if you get a chance plan to spend an entire day. We had left our luggage at the B & B (they laughed when they told us they would have a "boot sale" if we didn't come back and get it by 2 PM) and were scheduled to take the train back to Euston Station in London that afternoon, before travelling to Dublin. During our train ride we saw an actual boot sale: A parking lot with dozens of parked cars, each with their trunk (boot) open. We would call it a garage sale.