Cambridge Wanderings

After a busy couple of days with visitors, Fiona and I alternated between having relaxing mornings or afternoons at home and going out for short, local adventures. Our first outing came after sending the Wines family off on their train to London. Just a few blocks from our flat is the Cambridge Botanical Gardens, so we decided to pop in and check it out.

We weren’t there 5 minutes before the learning and googling for answers to Fiona’s questions had begun. One of the first things you come upon after entering the gardens is this apple tree, “descended” from Isaac Newton’s famous tree from which he observed the falling apples that would lead him to develop his theory of gravity.

We learned from reading the accompanying plaque that rather than being descended from Newton’s tree via seed, this tree was given to the botanical garden as a grafted plant. Our reading and googling lead us to understand that Newton’s tree blew down in 1816, but a process know as grafting (taking a cutting from Newton’s tree and quite literally taping it to the root system of another tree until they eventually grow together) allowed Newton’s tree to live on and eventually produce a new graft that was gifted to the gardens.

The gardens were huge and went on and on for acres. The trees were massive and had obviously been growing there for decades. We were in awe of how beautiful they were!

Some of the most impressive trees were some gigantic redwoods which can be seen in the background of this picture (pretty rock garden in the foreground), but it really doesn’t do their size justice.

We learned that the largest redwood in the garden had a very interesting background. Apparently it was rediscovered in 1941 after it was thought to have been extinct. Prior to that, only fossil evidence of its existence had ever been discovered. Even more interesting was the note about how the first seed from the newly rediscovered tree to be planted outside of Asia was one that was planted in Arnold Arboretum in 1948! We’re excited to have a look for it when we get home.

After some more wandering through the gardens, we can across another grafted tree in which the grafting was much more easily recognizable. I was fascinated by this; super impressive that somewhere along the line botanists discovered that some species of trees had weaker root systems and were therefore less stable to things like high winds. Their solution - graft the tree onto one with a stronger root system!

Before completely running out of steam after all our walking, we also visited beautify rose gardens,

Happened upon this interesting tree packed with bricks! (Sadly no explanation was present),

Fiona discovered these birch trees which she immediately dubbed her “favorite trees ever” because they were so “soft!”

We probably spent three hours exploring and still didn’t even see half of the gardens. Hopefully we’ll make it back before we leave.

For our next day of taking it easy, we decided to make our way to the Department of Zoology’s museum. This was a HUGE surprise to me. Ten years ago when we lived and worked here, my office was next door to the building housing the zoology department. Outside the department was a large open-air, covered cycle park where I would lock up my bike every day and suspended from the ceiling was a huge whale skeleton. It always seemed a bit obscure to me - an amazingly impressive whale just dangling above a cycle park, never really to be seen by anyone but employees who happened to work nearby. Anyway, I remembered it and knew Fiona would think it was neat so I decided to take her over to show her. Needless to say, I was shocked when I rounded the corner and saw this in place of my old cycle park!

That now enclosed structure that used to provide some weather protection to my bike has been completely revamped to look like this inside:

This is a much better view of the whale than I ever got before!

Passing under the whale leads you to a small albeit really well done collection of exhibits that ranges from insects to animals and includes a wasps’ next recovered from a Cambridge home that is, no exaggeration here, bigger than Fiona. Terrifying!

I was thrilled to finally, after a decade of wondering, learn a bit more about the whale that had been my parking lot friend for years.

After exploring the museum for a couple hours, we worked up an appetite and decided to search for some lunch. Someone had recommended a local place, Stolen, for their 6GBP any pizza lunch special, so we made our way in that direction. On our way, we spotted this tiny little door on the sidewalk.

Written in even tinier letters were the worlds “dinky door.” A quick google search told us that these have been hidden around Cambridge for the sole purpose of bringing a little joy to those that find them. How fun is that! Online there is a map showing the approximate location of all the doors in Cambridge. Fiona and I can’t wait to hunt for them all!

Eventually we made it to Stolen where we found the pizzas to be delicious and large enough to share! It will definitely become a go-to lunch spot; especially now that we discovered the best part about it:

When we left Milton, I was a little worried about how Fiona was going to get any piano practicing in this summer when we’d be without a piano for two months. A good friend here has kindly offered to let us come over periodically to use her’s, but she’s busy getting ready to move, so we don’t want to be too much of a burden. It would seem we’ve stumbled upon the perfect solution!

Finally, after lunch we decided to check one more college of our list. Since we were passing by anyway, we popped in to check out Jesus college. I loved the entry walk because it was so quintessentially Cambridge, lined with one bike after another.

It’s grounds were expansive and the architecture beautiful. We enjoyed seeing several areas that throughout the college that have been preserved to show it’s history dating back to 1500.

On our way home, we passed Cambridge’s famous “round church.”

Built around 1130, the church has a ton of history, but none that Fiona found particularly interesting, so we took a pass on going in and reading through the historical information provided.
Despite setting out for a relaxed day, we ended up quite tired and ready to head home!