Checking Out Cambridge

August 30 – September 2, 2016:
Cambridge, England, not Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I stayed last year. I had booked the Milton Keynes to Cambridge leg with National Express, the coach company, but noticed that the ride would actually be provided by Stagecoach. When my sister dropped me at the Milton Keynes Coachway stop, my bus was not on the departure board, and when I finally got a word with the ticket clerk, I was told they didn’t list other companies. Great. The clerk was besieged, as the ticket machines weren’t working. I was more than ever glad I had bought my ticket ahead of time. The ride was slow, as the bus morphed into a local after Bedford, but it dropped me in the center of town, quite close to Sydney Sussex, where I was staying.
Sydney Sussex, which I had picked because it was small, and likely to be less popular with tourists, turned out to be a disappointment. It’s true that there was a gratifying shortage of tourists, but the chapel was closed for repairs, and I found the dining hall rather plain after Christ Church and Keble (the college’s website claims it is “one of the great Rococo interiors of Cambridge”). Worse, my room was in a modern block, and the walk to the back of the site at night, dark. Whoever designed the block had some strange ideas, as all the rooms featured an unnecessary tall, thin, window, which in my case was opposite the bed and not curtained. A complaint to the porter did produce two men with a roll of black plastic and some tape, which fixed the problem, but why would anyone design it that way? The main,window was perfectly adequate. I also had issues with the mattress, which should have been retired some years back.

Another time I would put up with the tourists and book with one of the colleges with “backs” (i.e. grounds running down to the river Cam), as the backs turned out to be off limits when I first wanted to visit. I did get to spend some time enjoying the river and the views after I bought my ticket for a guided tour of King’s College Chapel. This is arguably the premier sight in Cambridge, with possibly the best fan vaulting in England. The product of the patronage of several kings, principally Henry VI, Richard III (yes, that Richard) and Henry VII, it was begun in 1441 but took nearly 100 years to complete. The fan vaulting, however, was completed in just three years, 1512 to 1515. Although the tour was delayed when the guide failed to turn up, it was worth waiting for. I would have liked to attend choral Evensong in the Chapel, but as with the four cathedrals I had visited, the choir was spending the summer elsewhere and there was no substitute the days I was in town.

Having visited the Ashmolean Museum and the Botanical Gardens in Oxford, I now proceeded to visit the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Botanical Gardens in Cambridge. The Fitzwilliam featured a great deal of china, both Japanese and European, a number of attractive fans, and a temporary exhibition on illuminated manuscripts, but on balance I think I would recommend the Ashmolean. However, there was no question but that Cambridge’s Botanical Gardens were bigger and better, with more varied and educational plantings.

Cambridge’s train station was inconveniently situated out of the center, but the town had a good bus system. I ate a not very good dinner at Bill’s – the chicken initially arrived undercooked – a quite good curry at Vedanta – for which a reservation is recommended – and a filling and delicious appetizer with a side of chips (fries) at Senate. I also drank quite a lot of coffee at various Caffe Nero’s, a chain that knows how to make a proper macchiato (although I have since been informed that I should boycott them because of tax evasion).