The weekend of June 25/26 was a very very tired one but enjoyable and memorable. 25th I was in London and had fun with friends and on 26th had been to Cambridge.
26th morning left for Liverpool st station where I met Yash, Sapna and Smita (my pals from Reading). We then took the One railway to the University town of Cambridge. As soon as we reached we hopped on to a hop-on-hop-off bus which takes a tour of the city. First stop we got off near the Scudamore Punting Company in order to try our hand at punting. A punt is a square-ended boat which has a flat bottom with no keel and is usually propelled using a long pole. The method of propelling the boat forward like this is known as Punting. We took a self-hire boat and set off. Initially it was pretty difficult to steer but ultimately we managed to steer it albeit for a short distance !!! We passed through two bridges - a normal one and another one known as Mathematical Bridge. This bridge was built in 1749 by James Essex the Younger (1722-1784) to the design of William Etheridge (1707-1776). It has subsequently been rebuilt to the same design in 1866 and 1905. The guides do say a story that ’Isaac Newton built this bridge without nuts and bolts but the students and fellows of Cambridge unfastened it and could not put it back again . Hence the version now contains nuts and bolts !!!’. This seems to be baseless as Isaac Newton died in 1727 and therefore cannot possibly have had anything to do with this Bridge, much before this bridge was first built.
Well, after the punting expedition we headed to the American Cemetry. Graves all around gives me a real eerie feeling but then I always wanted to visit a war grave. Then had a submarine at a Subway and went around seeing some colleges. Most of the colleges at Cambridge and at Oxford have same names - Kings College, Queens College, St Johns College, Magadelene College, Trinity College. Once through with all the colleges, had a look at the souvenirs shop and the senate hall before calling it a day. The journey back to Reading from Cambridge was long - around 3.5 Hrs but then once in UK a visit to Cambridge is a must and of course - Everyone should try punting at least once in their life !!! Any Cambridge student will vouch for that ...