An hour on the river Cam

It is fairly true: we were here for 4 months but we never did the most touristic attraction of the city : punting on the river Cam. In fact, the city is built around this river and most of the world famous colleges have a side on the river. When we are on these little boats, we can admire the hidden side of these colleges listening to the stories the boatman is telling. The rumour says that each boatman has to say 3 lies minimum to the tourists so I do not really know if what he told us is true... But I hope!

Cambridge's library

The library of Cambridge would have been flooded one century ago further to an overflowing of the river. Henceforth all the books are placed in the floor of the building and includes the thesis of Keynes, Friedman or Darwin, students of the University.

Bridge of Sights 

The Bridge of Sights is a property of St John's College and refers to Venice's famous bridge. A commom myth states tgat it was the students who named this bridge "Bridge of the Sight" because it is situated inside the college grounds and goes to the exam rooms and library. The "sights" are those of pre-exam students. It is one of the famous bridge of the city with the Matematical Bridge.

King's Chapel and Clare College

This is a view of Kings chapel (left) and the main building (oldest one) of Clare College (right). We can see the oldest building of the college: Clare Old's Court. The story of this college is particular because Elizabeth de Clare was on of the granddaughter of Edward I. She divorced from all its husbands and because she has no children, she decided to give its heritage to the University of Cambridge funding one of the most famous college.


I did not take any picture of the Matematical Bridge but I have to speak about this bridge because it is the most famous. It is a part of Queen's College. A popular fable is that the bridge was designed and built by Sir Isaac Newton (graduated in Queen's college) without the use of nuts and bolts. Various stories relates how at some point in the past, either students or fellows of the University attempted to take the Bridge apart and put it back together, but were unable to work out how to hold the structure together, and were obliged to resort to adding nuts and bolts.

Matematical Bridge

During the visit, we also went next to the famous tree from which the Newton's apple fell.


This makes me remind that Cambridge is a world famous center for Sciences researches. Mathematics, astronomy and life sciences are the University specialities. Until now, graduates of the University have won a total of 61 Nobel Prizes, the most of any university in the World.