Punting down the River Cam

One of the must-do activities in England, and particularly for any visitor to Cambridge, is to go punting.  Which is really a funny word that means “using a long pole to push a flat boat slowly through the water”.  What you don’t realize until you actually get in the river is that it is CROWDED with punters.  There are two options for punting:  you can do it yourself with a smaller boat or you can join a group and leave the punting to the professionals (or at least someone who looks less foolish doing then you would).  Thankfully, we chose the latter and let someone else do all the work.  Trust me, it looks easy, but after seeing so many first-time punters out there twirling in circles, I was happy just to sit back and enjoy the ride.

Oh, and here’s just one more reason to leave the punting to someone else, especially if you wait until the afternoon.  The traffic is terrible, and although there are supposed to be rules (stay to the right, etc) the first-timers don’t know them (or can’t follow them because they don’t know how to steer).  And just in case you are wondering, there are no brakes on a punt.  No oars, no rudder either.  The long pole does everything (except stop the boat).  So basically we would just plow right through the mess, bouncing off other punts.  Trust me, this is way better than bumper boats.

There are several different routes along the river depending on where you launch.  We “chose” the College Tour, where the river winds itself through the many colleges that make Cambridge University.  I say “chose” because we just put in a random punting company in the GPS and drove there.  Lucky too.  It turned out to be fantastic. 

Now I’ll do my best to identify the some of the sites along the way. 

Here’s St. John’s College.   Ivy league for sure.

Here’s the Bridge of Sighs, where the condemned would walk from the dungeons to the gallows (hence the name).  Now it links the dormatories to the testing center (hence the name still).

Of course, Katya, our almost-teenager, enjoying the view.

There’s Kings College Chapel on the left and maybe that’s Kings College on the right. 

I can’t figure out which college to which this building belongs.  I just liked it because of the history.  This building is hundreds of years old and the tiny window on the right has an interesting story.  There used to be taxes on just about everything in Britain, and once there was a “light tax” levied on everyone based on the size of their windows or the amount of light they allowed into their homes.  So people started bricking up their windows like this one here so they wouldn’t have to pay as much. 

Here is Mathematical Bridge.  When built, held up by physics alone.  Now there are a few modern bolts and such to help it out.

This is New Court St. Johns.

Here we have An Old Red Brick Building.  (don’t know the real name of it so I made it up).

Punting down the River Cam lasted about 45 minutes.  Just long enough for one’s tush to go completely numb, but not so long that it gets boring.  Next time, I might just try to do the punting myself.  Who wants to join me?  (mostly so I’m not the only one making a fool of myself out there.)

After the punting, we went for a stroll in the area.  Turns out it’s a very popular shopping area. 

Here we have three little monkeys enjoying ice cream from the street vendor.  What can I say?  Ice cream is a grand tradition for road trips.  

We turned down an alley and found ‘The Haunted Bookshop’.  We didn’t stick around long enough to find out if it really was, but judging by the 900 year old cemetery across from it, I’d say there’s a good chance it is.

And finally, here we are at last, happy to be in Cambridge.  Well, at least Lyana’s happy.  Can’t say the same for the sad trio surrounding her.

Cheers

Rob