By Alexander Erny, Spring 2017
Recently, I traveled with some of my fellow student’s to
Cambridge, England, for the chance to explore the town and to see what the
historic home of intellectual thought had to offer for a traveler like me. Before our group arrived at Cambridge,
however, we first stopped at the Cambridge American Cemetery, kept in pristine
condition by the American Battle Monuments Commission.
Our tour of the cemetery was short, due to the freezing
conditions outside. However, our tour
was not hampered, nor was its effect diminished, as the tour and pictures we
were shown was truly humbling and made me personally feel extremely sad for the
loss of many great and gallant American crews and servicemen. After our tour of the Cemetery, we had but a
short trip to the actual town of Cambridge itself. We were dropped off by one of the bigger
streets on the outskirts of the town, and proceeded to wander through the city
to discover what Cambridge had to offer.
On our way into the town, we were pleasantly surprised to see the
Mathematical Bridge, a wonder in the town reported to be completely free of
nails, screws, or anything else that would normally be used to fabricate
bridges.
Moving past this architectural wonder, we made our way into
the town to sample the marketplace. One
of the bigger attractions to Cambridge, the marketplace was filled with trinkets,
food stalls from foreign places, and even an outdoor bookstore. Personally, the marketplace was one of my
favorites, and a great way for our group to start the day. After that, we made our way through many of
the museums and attractions in the area.
While most of the colleges themselves were unfortunately closed, there
were still plenty of other things that were highly interesting. We traveled to multiple museums scattered
around the campus. A couple museums that
were located next to each other were the Sedgwick Museum of Geology, and the
Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology.
The Sedgwick Museum was great for all geologists, and contained many different
rocks and other minerals within its walls.
The Museum of Archaeology was also excellent, containing
rare artifacts such as a three-story tall totem pole, canoes, and even human
remains found throughout history.
A block away from the geology and archaeology museums was
the Fitzwilliam Museum, filled with different artifacts, stories, and even an
entire room dedicated to medieval armor and weaponry (my personal favorite).
In conclusion, I thought that Cambridge was an excellent
place to visit for intellectuals, and general tourism. Even after the rather sobering experience of
visiting the Cambridge American Cemetery, I was still able to pull back and
enjoy the experience of Cambridge. I
highly recommend visiting the marketplace, and if you have any form of
intellectual interests there is something there to see for just about everyone.
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