Week 7: Climbing Through Cambridge

This week I got to climb on the roof of the King’s College Chapel!  To fully appreciate how cool this is, understand that, in order to get a roof tour, I had to know people who know people who know people.

King’s College Chapel was constructed between 1446 and 1515

Interior of the chapel

Before going out on the roof, my friends and I had to sign a form saying that King’s College wasn’t responsible if we plummeted to our deaths.  Then we climbed more than 100 worn, spiraling stone steps to the top of the chapel.  

Before going out on the roof, we visited the dark chamber beneath the roof but above the vaulted ceiling—the chapel’s attic, basically.  The vaulted ceiling is pretty thin, and we found some holes through which we could look down into the chapel below.

View through the hole in the vaulted ceiling.  See the little people way down on the chapel floor?

The vaulted ceiling as seen from the floor of the chapel looking up

Then we climbed just a little higher and stepped out onto the chapel roof.

Climbing from one side of the roof to the other

View from the very top of the roof

View of King's Parade

View of King's College

King’s College Chapel is a famous symbol of Cambridge.  Now every time I look at a painting or picture of it, I can think, I was on the roof of that thing!

Continuing in my desire to climb things, earlier in the week I went to the top of Castle Hill.  The Normans built a castle on the hill in 1068.  No ruins remain, but the hill provides nice views of the city.

Other highlights of the week include:

(1)  The Cambridge Folk Museum.  This neat little museum has exhibits about everyday life in Cambridge since 1700.

(3) Sixth Formal Hall at King’s College.  The menu of the Formal Halls at King’s often includes things that sound bizarre but turn out to be delicious.  Case in point: candied celery, peppered strawberries, artichoke mousse, and cointreau espuma (whatever that is).

(4) Tour of Trinity College and the Wren Library. 

Trinity College is the largest (and wealthiest) of the colleges.  King Henry VIII founded it in 1546, and several members of the royal family have since studied there, including Prince Charles.  Famous alumni include Isaac Newton, Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Byron…I could go on.

As we passed through the grounds of the college, we got to see the site of the annual Great Court Run depicted in the movie Chariots of Fire.

As its name suggests, the Wren Library was designed by the famous architect Christopher Wren.  Inside the library are shelves upon shelves of very old, very beautiful books.  Display cases allowed us a look at some of the library’s treasures, such as the original manuscript of A. A. Milne‘s Winnie-the-Pooh.  We also got to see Isaac Newton’s walking stick, notebook, and copy of the first edition of Principia Mathematica with annotations in his own handwriting.  ALL THE NERDY EMOTIONS.

(5)  Punting again.  I still have yet to fall in the river!

Punting under bridges can be tricky

(6) The Polar Museum at the Scott Polar Research Institute.  The museum contains artifacts, journals, equipment, clothing, and photographs about the exploration of the Arctic and Antarctic.  The displays about the ill-fated mission of Robert Falcon Scott, for whom the museum is named, were very moving.

(7) PKP talent show.  The evening included stand-up comedy, singing, line dancing, guitar and piano, poetry reading, and beatboxing with a harmonica.  I told you PKP students were talented!

Here’s an excellent poem about PKP that one of the students read at the talent show, and here is the beatboxing with a harmonica.

Post about York coming soon!