Punting on the Cam

Today we went punting on the Cam. For the uninitiated:

(After our trip, someone said "I really enjoyed the punt ride today," and Colin responded "I really liked the boat ride!")

The Cam is the river for which the town of Cambridge is named. We started our tour at Magdalen bridge, which is the site of the first Cam bridge, back in the 800's, we were told.

We lazed southward to the end of the city centre, and then back again. We did not do the punting ourselves, but that's a popular thing to do. Also risky: novices are known to lose their balance and fall in the river! We saw the beautiful backs of several colleges, including St. John's:

Going past it, we went under the bridge we had stood on a few weeks ago when touring the college.

We also came upon Trinity College, which we learned is the richest college in Cambridge. It has roughly 2.4 billion pounds in assets. There are less than 2000 students in attendance, so that's a pretty good per capita money to student ratio! Also, it turns out that 31 Nobel prize winners have come from Trinity. Only three countries can boast more.

This is the Trinity College bridge that I often ride over on the way to Microsoft and the Computer Lab (I ride there coming from the left, and ride home coming from the right). The red brick building behind the bridge is meant to look like a ship coming into port.

King's college, which we also visited before, came next. Here's the King's college chapel that we spent much time in:

There were several other colleges we passed before getting to the end, but my camera battery died. Sigh. It was a lovely day for a lovely ride. We hope to try again, but next time I'd like to do the poling!