Cambridge, September 2 2007

Today's destination: Cambridge. There was supposed to have a direct train from King's Cross to Cambridge. But the station worker told us we had to do a bus transfer somewhere in the middle. A 1 hour ride turned into 2.5 hours. When we got there, it was noon time already. It was a nice day so we decided to buy food at a grocery store and picnicked. As we walked out of the station, we saw a sign for renting bike. or as they said, bikes for hire. we thought that was a good idea so we went in. 4 hours of renting costs 24 pounds for 4 bikes, not a bad deal so we did it. The bike trail map the stored gave us over-simplified the city a little bit so we got lost right away when we crossed a cyclist's bridge. From there it took us almost an hour to find our way back to the town center.





The town is very nice and packed with tourists. Much more tourists then I have imagined. I thought Cambridge would be a very quite town, but everywhere you go, you see people. Still it is a very beautiful town. The university is probably just an administration entity. It is comprised of many colleges, each college seems to be independent, they have their own campuses and students. Most of the colleges are very old, dated back to the Henry VIII period and earlier. The river Cam ran through the back of many college campuses, all with nice green backs, as the locals called them . A lot of people will try sell you the "punting" ride, sort of like the gondola ride in the river. We really like to do it cause the punting seems fun and it will take you thru many beautiful bridges. But they seemed to only take cash mostly and we already ran out of cash and this was our last day, beside we had to return our bike not long after. So we didn't do it. Instead we rode our bike through many small roads behind the colleges. A very nice way of touring the town. Along the way, we saw St. John's, Trinity, and King's colleges. The bridge of sigh, which is the most famous bridge in Cambridge, is located in St John;s backyard, again we couldn't go in cause every college that's open to public charged $2.75 per person to get in and we didn't have cash! It is really pity we can't do punting and visiting college campus cause we were short of cash. But still Cambridge is very nice, the history, old town feel, nice scenery all makes this short visit worth while.

There is direct train back to London so it only took us an hour. When we got back we realized most of the stores closed on Sunday, the only thing we can find was Indian restaurants, so we ate one more time at Punjab near covent garden. The menu looks like Indian restuarants in Seattle, but tastier.