My Cambridge Day

Since CJ and our fellow travelers spent today at a conference at Darwin College, I had the day to myself and the run of Cambridge.  I think I put it to good use.

First Idid a little exploring at Christ's College.

Our front door

I am writing this at a desk where, when I raise my eyes, I am looking out the open window above and to the right of the door.  We are in what is known as the Second Court which looks like this:

Second Court

The building in the background is called the Fellows' Building and was built in 1640-1644.

When you come into the College from the street, you do so through the Great Gate which leads to the Porters' Lodge.  That is where we checked in yesterday.

This part of the campus is called First Court and dates to the 15th century.  It was probably here when Columbus sailed.  The inside portion of the Great Gate is shown here:

First Court

More First Court

New Court is thoroughly modern:

New Court

New Court includes the Charles Darwin Sculpture Garden to honor one of the College's more illustrious alumni.

Darwin as an undergraduate

After a bit I sought out G. David Bookseller, which is a wonderful used and antiquarian bookstore.  I couldn't resist buying a copy of American Notes by Charles Dickens which is a beautiful edition printed in 1850.  An indulgence I know, but I'm not sorry.

After lunch, I headed for the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology which, I would say, is moderately interesting.  Among other things there was a display case containing a few Native American artifacts collected by the Cook and Vancouver expeditions on the Northwest coast during the late 18th century.  However, there was nothing telling me WHICH artifacts were collected by Cook or Vancouver.  I found this to be highly unsatisfactory.  There were also several displays labeled something like "displayed storage" featuring several artifacts and sometimes a cardboard box presumably containing more.  Since there were no labels this all seemed pointless to me.

After tiring of that situation, I headed for the Fitzwilliam Museum. Which is very definitely worth visiting.  There are two floors of displays excellently curated and, to me, at least very meaningful.

The imposing front of the Fitzwilliam

The equally imposing ceiling of the lobby

Some of my favorites from the visit (no I didn't take these pictures):

Salisbury Cathedral seen from above the Close Wall
John Constable

Flowers in a Glass Vase
Jan Davidsz de Heem

The Last of England
Ford Madox Brown

Hampstead Heath
John Constable

Julius Ceasar (I did take this picture)

For my third museum of the day, I proceeded to the Whipple Museum of the History of Science.  The Whipple was a delight for the scientifically inclined, in particular those interested in instrumentation (I'm looking at you, B).  For example, here is a telescope made for King George III by the famous astronomer William Herschel in about 1790.

Reflector Telescope by William Herschel

The innards of the same telescope

After getting my fill of scientific instrumentation, I walked back to Christ's College to rest up before the conference banquet.

We walked perhaps a mile or so to what turned out to be a Polish establishment called the Polonia Club.  We wined and we dined, had a lot of shop talk but also interesting non-shop talk.

Afterwards, we walked back to CC in the dark.  It was a beautiful evening, cool but not cold, with Brits on bicycles everywhere.  Apparently, riding after dark is a major pastime with them.