Today Paul's friend Neale came to meet us at the hotel - he lives in England and had kindly volunteered to show us around Cambridge, so we got to see quite a few places we would never have seen, and with the sort of explanations and detail that you never get if you visit a new place by yourself.
If the tour guides on our upcoming coach tours are even half as well informed, and half as good at explaining what we're seeing, we will have an excellent time on those tours!.
King's College
First stop was the chapel at Kings College. The ceiling just soars above you - it's 80 feet high! - and the craftsmanship in it and in everything else is just astounding. Here's a couple of pictures, although they really can't do it justice:
Oliver Cromwell's House
Next stop was Ely, where we first did a tour of Oliver Cromwell's house. It was quite nicely done - no pictures here as we were too busy listening to the guided tour.
Once you've done the tour, you get to vote on whether you think Cromwell was a hero or a villain. Votes are running at about two-thirds hero, but I still can't make up my mind.
Ely Cathedral
A short walk from Oliver Cromwell's house is the Ely Cathedral. Wow. Again. They call this the Ship of the Fens because of the way it appears on the horizon. It's an astounding place (yep, clearly that word is going to be in constant use on this blog for the next 10 weeks, so get used to it!!) - far out of scale of anything you could imagine was needed for a cathedral for the number of people who lived here, then or now actually. To quote their website though, it was always about glorifying god; the church came first and the town of Ely grew up around it.
A few more photos - although again, you really need to be there to see just how huge and glorious it actually is:
Anglesey Abbey
After lunch at Ely, we decided to go to see Anglesey Abbey. As it turned out, half of Cambridgeshire also had the same idea :-) Well, maybe not that bad, but they have a seriously big car park and it was pretty much packed. Anyway, we found a park and went though the house and gardens. The house is interesting - although it's a permanent display it really does look and feel like someone might live there. The gardens have all sorts of contrasts - immaculate lawns with formal flower beds, a herbaceous garden with huge hedges all around, but then some almost overgrown forest areas.
American War Cemetery
Our final stop for the day was the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial. Almost 4,000 american service-men were buried here, although many of their bodies have since been repatriated home. A very formally set out cemetery and memorial, although with some definitely American touches - for example the doors of the chapel are decorated with tanks and other military equipment.
We finished off the evening with dinner at an Italian restaurant - we both ate far too much but it was absolutely delicious.
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