When we arrived there a guide met us and took us on a walking tour of the major sites in the town, such as Kings Chapel one of the most ornate buildings with the best example of fan vaulting on the ceiling I’ve seen yet.
Apparently during WWII they took out all the stained glass because of bombing raids, but they forgot to label where to put it back, and it took them three years to put it back in place after the war. even then there is still a window that is messed up with a mans head on a woman’s body.
I thought that there was just one main campus and one college, but apparently there are thirty or more small colleges all with the name of Cambridge located throughout the town, they just offer different areas of study. We took a break to have lunch at a local pub that still had graffiti on the walls from American soldiers in WWII. After the tour we were taken to go punting. Most of us assumed this was some sort of sport, but it is actually quite a bit like gondola rides. We had about 12 of us in our boat, and a young college student was our guide, who stood on one end of the boat with a long pole and pushed us through the canal.
It was beautiful, and we were even provided some free entertainment when a handful of drunk college students dressed as pirates swam by on inflatable pirate ships, quite entertaining.
After the punting we spent some time shopping at the open market then headed back to the train. It had been drizzling while we were shopping, but on the mile walk back to the train it poured, and because of my silliness and a stupid souvenir I was drenched by the time we reached the train station. All in all it was still a good day and I throughly enjoy the town of Cambridge.
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