At the bottom of this page is a link to photos.  I recommend you read the text first, then check out the photos.

Cambridge

The city of Cambridge may be the world's most perfect town.  It has 31 colleges, over 75 pubs, and at least 25 churches.  This exquisitely balances the essentials in life.  You can go to school during the day to enhance your brain cells, go to the pub in the evening to kill off those brain cells, and end at church the following morning to repent for losing the knowledge and other sins of the night before.

Cambridge has a great reputation but, particularly from a science perspective, it is well-deserved.  First and foremost, Isaac Newton was student at Trinity College.  But Newton is only one of many great Cambridge scientists.  Charles Darwin studied, of all things, religion at Cambridge, but his work with Cambridge geologist Adam Sedgewick, himself a great scientist, spurred Darwin's trip on the Beagle and his eventual development of natural selection.  James Clerk Maxwell is the father of electromagnetism - essential knowledge for you to be reading this on a computer.  And in fact, the first computer with a memory (e.g., a hard drive) was developed by Cambridge researchers - and this being England, its first application was optimizing delivery of tea cakes in London.  Ernest Rutherford was an early pioneer in nuclear physics.  Stephen Hawking is a current faculty member, though he's known mainly for writing only a 'brief' history of time - not like he gave time the in-depth history it deserves.  Finally, Cambridge is home to the lab where James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA.  And how did they announce their momentous discovery to the world?  Well of course they went down to the corner pub and bought everyone a beer.  So, you see that Cambridge has been involved in just about every major scientific advance of the past 350 years.  And it's not just science.  Another proud Cambridge alum is Sacha Baron Cohen, better known as Ali G (and soon to be seen as Borat in a new movie.

The pub where Watson and Crick went to have their hard-earned beer was The Eagle.  It's the most famous pub in Cambridge and as such is somewhat touristy.  However, it does deserve its recognition.  Not only did Watson and Crick frequent the establishment, but during World War II RAF flyers came in from nearby airbases.  Many airmen had the last beer of their lives in The Eagle.  A ceiling in the back is covered notes from airmen.

Cambridge like most non-American cities also is graced with numerous parks and gardens, as well a great variety of ethnic food.  So, it does indeed seem a most perfect town.  Except for one thing:  the weather.  I never catch colds during the summer, but I did in Cambridge (though some might claim it was due more to number of pints of beer I drank).  It was cool, mostly grey, with maddeningly unpredictable rain showers.  We got caught in a downpour walking to dinner one evening.  But this dinner was well worth it.  It was in the dining hall of St. John's College.  Think high ceilings, stained-glass windows, and long tables.  Think of the dining hall at Hogwarts of the Harry Potter stories.  I kept expecting owls to come swooping in through the windows.  The actual hall used in the Harry Potter movies is in Oxford, but this was close enough.

I just mentioned Oxford.  I should not have.  No one at Cambridge mentions Oxford by name.  It is referred to only as "the other school".  There is a definite rivalry that goes well beyond the annual rowing race.  They even argue over their school crests, both of which have a book in the middle; Cambridge's has a closed book, while Oxford's has an open book.  So Cambridge people claim that Oxford folks are always stuck on the same page.  Oxford retorts that Cambridge hasn't even opened their book.  Cambridge rebuts that their book is closed because they've already finished it.  I'm sure if I were in Oxford there'd be a further retort, but since I was at Cambridge, I didn't hear it.  While Cambridge is most notable for its science and engineering, Oxford is better known for liberal arts (except Sacha Baron Cohen) and politics; far more British prime ministers have come from Oxford than from Cambridge.

I actually stayed in one of the colleges, Downing.  This would seem to be a pretty nice experience.  And it was in general, with some notable exceptions.  First, I arrived and read the welcome card telling me to enjoy the bath robe, slippers, television, and clock/radio in my room.  I looked around the room - no robe, no slippers, no television, no clock/radio.  Hmm.  Also, the British apparently haven't yet discovered the technology of the hot and cold water coming out of the same faucet.  So your left hand gets scalded, while your right hand experiences freezing cold.  At Downing, they also haven't mastered supplying drinkable water to the room.  I had to go down the hall to the kitchen to get drinking water.  This was fine until the second day when the hall lights failed and I couldn't see to get down to the kitchen.  The lack of light in the hall also made unlocking my room door rather a challenge.

The room was supplied with shampoo and soap.  The shampoo ran out after two days.  I expected a refill, but one never came.  So I went to the store to buy a bottle of shampoo since the shampoo they supplied wasn't very good anyway.  A day later the soap ran out.  I went to the Porter's Lodge, which supposedly handles guests' needs.  I went in and asked for soap.  This was apparently a very complicated request for them.  The two porters looked at each with perplexed, apparently trying to figure out if either had heard of this 'soap' I was asking about.  Then they rummaged around, went down in the cellar, and finally came up with a shoe box full of a menagerie of various toiletries two of which, fortunately, were small bars of soap.  At various other times I heard about:  phones not working, showers without hot water, and a lack of alarm clocks.  To each of these, the response was one of befuddlement, as if the guest were asking some obscure request.  It almost felt like Fawlty Towers, but the porters were almost as funny as John Cleese.

Ely

After renting a car, I drove with Todd to Ely, which is home to a famous cathedral.  The cathedral was indeed impressive though I don't remember it all that well because I was in a stupor most of the time.   The cold I had caught a couple days earlier was worse than ever.  And after a two mile walk to pick up the rental car, I was a bit low on energy.  So, it would've been smart to eat when we first got to town around noon.  But instead we went right to the church.  And promptly climbed three hundred steps to the top of the tower.  Then, since we paid for it, we checked out the Stained Glass Museum within the cathedral.  Then it would've made sense to eat.  But first we had to move the car because our 2-hour limit would soon expire.  Then we realized that there was a tour of the cathedral in a few minutes.  Since there were only a few tours a day, this could be the last chance to catch one.  So, we figured that fitting in a quick tour would be worth it. 

Two hours later (yes, two hours) the tour finally finished.  It is without a doubt the most thorough tour of a cathedral I've ever had.  I could write a book about every detail of the Ely Cathedral.  Except that in my haze, I don't know how much actually sunk in and whatever did, I've forgotten.  If you want to know any more about the Ely Cathedral, you'll have to go here.  One reason the tour took so long was that on the hour the tour stopped while the priest led a prayer for everyone in the church.  We sat through two prayers and barely made it out before a third prayer began.  I was starting think that the whole tour thing was a scam to keep us in the church until we all converted to Anglicanism.  Anyway, by this time it was 4 pm and I had walked two miles, climbed 300 steps, endured a two-hour tour, all while suffering from a cold with a granola bar my only nourishment all day.  So it was definitely time to eat.  We went to the nearest pub...and found that they didn't serve food until 5 pm (this isn't uncommon in British pubs - they'll serve food only during standard lunch and dinner hours).  After another mile of walking, we finally found an open restaurant serving food.

But back to the cathedral for one final thing.  In my haze, I do recall the discussion of the unique octagon tower (different from the one we climbed up).  An original, conventional square tower in that location collapsed.  So instead of building it back the way it was, they made it 8-sided hoping that it would hold up better.  And to make it lighter (and even less likely to collapse), the whole tower is made of wood.  So far, those plans have worked - it's still standing.

Stonehenge and Avebury

I had to go to Stonehenge.  The first two times I had gone to England I planned to get to Stonehenge but didn't make it.  So this time a visit was my number one priority.  Whenever I mentioned my plan to anyone who had been to Stonehenge, I was told, "Oh, you don't want to go to Stonehenge; it's very disappointing.  You should really go to Avebury, which is much better."  I think everyone was given a script.  The nice thing about the Avebury stone circles is that the stones literally encircle the town and you can walk all around, including right up to the stones.  Stonehenge, I was told, was closed off behind a fence and you couldn't get very close to the actual stones - hence the disappointment.  So I went to both and, of course, was disappointed in Avebury and surprisingly impressed with Stonehenge.

As it turns out, yes, it is pretty cool to walk around the stones in Avebury.  However, the stones aren't as large and are much more spread out than the stones at Stonehenge.  Also, they are not carved and shaped as skillfully as those at Stonehenge.  Nor are there any lintels - the horizontal stones setting on top of vertical stones - so it's just a series of vertical rocks set into the ground.  Impressive, but in a pedestrian large stone monolith kind of way.

Stonehenge, on the other hand, is awe-inspiring.  Yes, it looks just like it does in photos, so there's no surprise.  But hey, so does the Great Wall - it's still something different to see it in person and feel the scale.  And that fence thing - it's a myth.  There is a fence around the property but you can go inside that and there's only a low rope fence delineating how close you can approach the monument.   And while you can't walk right up to the stones (it's a 4000-year old treasure of the ancient world - do you really expect them to let teenagers carve "Billy Loves Sally" and worse into the stones?!), you can get quite close - within 20 feet in some places.

Actually, you can only get close if you're not cheap.  As I pulled up, they charged me $4 to park, but he said I could get a refund when I bought my $10 ticket.  I thought this was strange.  Stonehenge is in the middle nowhere - who would want to scam parking here?  Later I realized that you could just go along the road and look at Stonehenge without paying the entry fee, but only through the chain link fence and from a much further distance.  The parking charge made sure they got at least some money from the cheapskates who were willing to pay only $4 instead of $10.  The even cheaper-skates parked farther away along a side road and walked over to the fence without paying anything.  In my opinion, you just don't skimp on a 4000-year old monument.  If it were only 3000 years old, okay, then maybe it's not worth the $10.

Of course, part of the reason my experiences of Stonehenge and Avebury were so contrary to what I'd been told was surely due to the effect of diminished (for Stonehenge) and unreasonably high (for Avebury) expectations.  So, for the best experience if you're going to Stonehenge, let me say:  "Don't go to Stonehenge; it's very disappointing.  Go to Avebury, which is much better."

Bath

Bath is a tourist town, the kind of place that fills to the brim on three-day summer holiday weekends with folks escaping London.  Of course, when I made plans to go to Bath, I didn't realize it was a holiday weekend.  I expected the worst.  So I planned to arrive early.  I wasn't as successful as I had hoped - pulled into Bath around 9:30 am...to find a ghost town.  The parking lot downtown was nearly empty, and there was no one on the street.  What was going on?  Turns out that apparently the Brits are late sleepers.  Actually, most people take the train from London and I presume the first train hadn't yet arrived. 

Later it did get busy, but I got to tour the Roman baths first thing in the morning before the crowds hit.  By the way, you're probably wondering where the town got its name.  I have no idea.  The one thing I can say is that Bath, while nice, is only half the town that Baden-Baden in Germany is (if you don't get it translate 'baden' from German into English here). 

The baths are still there and look in amazingly good shape after 2000 years.  There are even statues of Roman centurions still standing around the baths.  It turns out though that most of what you see, including those centurion sculptures, is from the 18th century.  The baths were built over for many years before being rediscovered and rebuilt.  On the other hand, the water in the baths is decidedly not in amazing shape.  In Roman times there was a roof over the bath, but it has not been rebuilt.  So with the waters now exposed to the open air, algae grow, making the water an unappetizing pea green color.  When you finish the tour, you get a free sample of the bath water.  Despite the looks, I decided it must be safe, so I tried some.  It was pretty awful, but I didn't get sick from it, so I guess it was okay.  Of  course these baths are just for historical purposes and are no longer used.  They have just completed new baths nearby, several years overdue and millions of dollars over budget, though I didn't have time to go there.

Bath is also known as a hot bed of Austen-ania - as in the author Jane Austen.  She lived in town for several years and set a couple of her novels primarily in Bath (Northanger Abbey and Persuasion if you're curious).  You can take a tour of one of Jane Austen's homes.  It turns out however that it isn't actually a house she lived in, but one like the one she lived in.  As it also turns out, while there are many Austen artifacts in the house, they are not the actual artifacts owned by Jane, but are like the artifacts owned by Jane.  The main Jane Austen Center is in Chawton, near the town of her birth several miles away; they got all the good artifacts.  The Bath version is really not much more than a tourist trap.  So my afternoon with Jane was a bit of a disappointment.

Another locale of note in Bath is William Herschel's home.  He is the guy who, from his house in Bath, discovered Uranus (no jokes please!), the 7th of the 8 planets in the solar system (as of August 2006 - sorry Pluto, you've been cut).  I went to visit that, but the fake Jane Austen house took so long that the Herschel house was closed by the time I got there.

Driving in England

Having a rental car allowed me to beat the train crowd into Bath and enjoy the quiet morning.  The car not only gave me more flexibility but also allowed me the adventure of driving in England for the first time.  Everyone assumes that driving on the left is the real difficulty in England.  However, I've driven on the left a couple of times in Australia and New Zealand and haven't had much of a problem.  It wasn't particularly hard in England either.  The challenge was traffic circles and street signs (or lack thereof). 

I am also familiar with how traffic circles work having driven in Australia and New Zealand having lived on the east coast of the U.S. (where such circles are fairly common).  But English traffic circles aren't simple circles at intersections of two cross streets.  No, these are traffic circles on steroids.  There would often be 5 or 6 exits out of these circles.  There wouldn't just one circle, but a series of circles one right after the other.  If you know where you're going, the circles work quite well.  But if you don't know exactly where you're supposed to go and you're trying to read the map, read the signs, and stay in the proper lane of the circle, well, it's a bit harder. 

Another problem is the lack of signage.  This was a particular problem in larger towns such as Cambridge, where many cross streets don't have signs, or if they do, they are in a location not convenient to being seen while driving.  The same is true in traffic circles.  As you approach the circle there'll be a sign with arrows and streets and/or towns listed.  But then you have to remember that Bath is the 3rd exit and not the 2nd exit or the 4th exit out of the circle.  In one town, seemingly far too small to have so many circles, I went through one traffic circle right after another, none with any signage, spinning myself around until I was getting dizzy and had no idea which direction I was going.  Fortunately, while I ended up with a short detour a few times, I never got seriously lost, and I only got honked at in a circle once.

Stratford-upon-Avon

Unlike Austen's Bath, Shakespeare's Stratford is the real deal.  The actual home where he grew up is still standing and you can tour it.  As a resident of Boulder-upon-Boulder Creek it was very nice to see such authentic history in Stratford-upon-Avon.  You can also see where he is buried, at the church just a mile down the road.  So, this guy Shakespeare was born in a small house, lived, died, and then was buried just a mile away.  A whole life and all he accomplished was one mile.  How sad.  If only he had done something that he could be remembered for.

London

I've been to London twice before, so there was not a lot new to do there, but it is my favorite big city, so it was nice to visit again.  One new thing since I was last in town is the London Eye.  It's a cool name and somewhere I thought I heard that you have to go on the Eye.  For those who haven't heard of the Eye it's...well, it's a big ferris wheel.  It is unique because:  (1) its size, and (2) instead of simple ferris wheel seats, it has large British Airways-sponsored plastic bubbles that can fit a dozen or so people each.  The bubbles, I suppose, look like eyes.  You do get a nice view, especially to the west, where the historic London buildings are located.  Of course, if you go in the evening, as I did, and are looking through a hazy sunset, you can't see much of those historic buildings.  And at about $25 for the half hour ride, it really is a lot of money to get a couple photos of the Parliament building and Westminster Abbey.

Another London site I hadn't yet visited but had heard is a must-see is the Cabinet War Rooms.  In this I was not disappointed.  These were the bunkers that Churchill and his cabinet stayed during the Nazi air raids of the Battle of Britain.  The rooms are preserved pretty much as they were during raids.  Quite fascinating to see where such momentous history occurred.  They've also recently added on a Churchill Museum, which is an impressive history of his life and times, including his many famous speeches and quotes (see bottom).

I did revisit a couple places that I've been to before, just for old time's sake.  I went to the British Museum to visit my old friends the Elgin Marbles.  Then it was on to the British Library, which had a great exhibit on newspapers, with many major historical headlines - including one on April 15, 1912 heralding the good news that all had survived and Titanic was being towed into harbor.  Good to know newspapers screwed things up back then as well.

Finally, I went to Westminster Abbey.  One can easily get tired of churches and cathedrals (I also visited cathedrals in Cambridge and Bath, along with the aforementioned Ely).  Sure, the architecture of each can be appreciated, but after awhile they all start to look alike.  The lone exception that I've found is Westminster Abbey.  It is a very impressive structure, but the real reason it is worth seeing over and above other cathedrals is that it's the only church where you can find folks like Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin buried (along with several other scientists, writers, composers, and other artists, not to mention English Kings and Queens).   This makes it far more interesting than your normal church.  It's even a movie start - Sir Isaac's tomb plays a starring role in The Da Vinci Code (though they wouldn't let them film inside, so in the movie it's a fake set).

So I began my tour of England where Newton and Darwin started their careers and ended it where they are buried.  See, every thing is relative.