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I dub thee, Museum town.
I am in Cambridge, home to so many museums for a town of its size. Most of them are interspersed amongst the colleges of Cambridge University and house the collections (many being substantial). Plus there are other museums in general.
Just to be clear, this is the town north of London. Not the town just out of Hamilton in the Waikato. Although both do share a love of antiques.
I had a late start as I had general housekeeping duties to contend with, most importantly WASHING. There are only so many times clothes can pass the 'clean test', which test gets more liberal the harder it is to find a washing machine. And washing clothes in the shower and hoping they dry in time is not always successful and can result in damp smelling clothes. Not to mention the skirt that I spilt garlic mayo on when in Brugge, the situation was getting a bit dire. I got a few things washed in London, but it was only the essentials, rather than the whole lot. I am staying with Bridie and her fiance in Cambridge so have the use of household facilities. This is a nice change as normally washing involves tokens, watching and waiting.
When I finally did get out of the house the first stop was the Fitzwilliam museum. This has a variety of exhibits about Egypt (I guess whatever did not fit in the National Museum), Greek, Roman, Cypriot, Far and Near Eastern artefacts as well as painting from the 17th centuary onwards. The best paintings were the ones by Monet - not necessarily for the artistic talent (they were pretty good artistically though) but because they were acquired by Her Royal Majesty in lieu of inheritance tax. There were a few pieces in the museum like that. Imagine being the lawyer for the estate - 'Inheritance taxes amount to $xxxx, perhaps you could give the crown a Monet or two to call it sqaure'.
The main exhibit was artefacts from China includes suits made entirely of jade squares sewn together. Amazing.
Next stop (after a nice lunch) was the Museum of Zoology. Skeletons galore. Fossils. Stuffed birds. Everything from a whale skeleton, to the life cycle of the malaria parasite. Skeletons of humans next to australopithicenes (ignore the spelling, I have never been able to spell it correctly - I am referring to pre homo sapien species and other ancestors) was like being back at university again. I was lucky in my final year in an anthropology paper to play with skulls from all different homonoids and ancestors and see them side by side.
They also had an 'Owl Parrot' - more appropriately known as a Kakapo (stuffed and mounted that is). That was completely unexpected.
Nearby was the Museum of Earth Sciences. This had a vast range of items varying from rocks, dinosaur skeletons (that was cool), gemstones, meteorites pieces, fossils of all types..... the list goes on. Items Darwin brought back from his voyages were there. Information of rock formation, the earth's crust and volcanos, fossil formation, specicies identification and more could be found there.
Next door to the Earth Sciences museum was the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. This place had a lot of NZ artefacts there (if you are missing any, they are probably here). This includes an oar from a waka that Captain James Cook brought back with him after he 'found' NZ. There are totem poles from North America. Items from Bhutan, India, Thailand, Mexico-virtually everywhere. Some items are old, some are new and show the cultural side of the country.
Sort of ran out of time and steam after this and there are still a heap of museums to do includes the Museum of Classical Archaeology (in case I have not seen enough Greek and Roman statues), History of Science Museum and the Museum of technology. There is also one in the Botanic Garden which could be nice to walk through as there are supposed to be a heap of glasshouses. The list goes on.
And all this without mentioning the town.
I arrived last night, late, a bit tired from the Bath adventure. After a quick dinner of fish and chips supplied by Hugo (thank you!) and a bottle of Rose I was taken to their local bar for a quick drink. Turns out the bartender/proprietor used to live in NZ and owed/ran a number of bars in Auckland - some upstanding places in Parnell, but most noteably, for me anyway, Margharitas (behind Globe Bar). Yes, I was thrown out of there at least once when I was young - it is a right of passage. Small world. He was a good cocktail maker and very knowledgeable about spirits, especially tequila.
Cambridge in the light of day is quaint and full of beautiful buildings, most of them being centred around the old town where many of the colleges are. I will explore the rest of it tomorrow as I only made it as far as Trinity college before I decided it was time to call it a day. There is still so much more to see.
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