Interesting Facts

Cambridge is home to one of Britain's ancient universities, Cambridge University, which is made up of thirty colleges but has no campus. Instead, the colleges are scattered throughout the city. Many famous people, including Isaac Newton, John Milton, and Virginia Woolf, have graduated from Cambridge. The university has also been the school for more than sixty Nobel Prize winners.
In the 1990's, Cambridge became known as a high-tech center station. Numerous high-tech ventures have set up office here in order to produce new software. In fact, start-up companies numbering in the thousands are producing $3 billion a year in revenues. In 1997, Bill Gates financed an $80 million research center here because he claimed that Cambridge was becoming "a world center of advanced technology."
In order to punt, you don't need to be a football player but a skilled boater! A punt is a wooden, flat-bottomed boat that resembles a Venetian gondola. It is the traditional transportation method of students and visitors to Cambridge. While traveling downstream on the Cam, be sure to check out the ivy-laden "Backs" of the colleges.
Granchester lies about two miles up the Cam. The city is famous as being immortalized by Rupert Brooke. In 1985, the town clock was stopped for repair. The hands were left still "for all time" at 2:50 in honor of Brooke's famous sonnet, "The Soldier," which reads, "Stands the church clock still at 10 to three, And is there honey still left for tea?"
The Fitzwilliam museum is, without a doubt, one of the finest museums in Britain. Although the museum features temporary exhibits of grand acclaim, it's the museum's permanent collection that makes the trip worthwhile! Exhibits include relics from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. The museum also houses a fine collection of paintings by noted artists Titian, Rubens, Monet, Degas, Renoir, and Picasso just to name a few!
Great St. Mary's is Cambridge's central church and the church of the university. It was built on the site of an eleventh century church. However, the present building dates back to 1478 and was closely associated with events of the Reformation. The cloth that draped the hearse of King Henry VII is on display.
King's College Chapel is one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in England and is comparable with Chartres in France. Conceived as an act of piety by young Henry VI, the chapel was dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
The fens were strange marshlands that stretched from Cambridge north to the Wash, and beyond into Lincolnshire. In the seventeenth century, the Duke of Bedford brought in Cornelius Vermuyden to drain the fens, after which the flat open plains with their rich black soil were created. However, as the weather pattern of the world changes, the fens are once again being submerged. It is estimated that within 30 years over 900,000 acres could be lost!
Because Cambridge is home to a large population of students, decent restaurants are often full or hard to come by. One of your best bets is Italian, thanks to the large Italian population in Cambridge!
Wimpole Hall lies ten miles southwest of Cambridge. This huge eighteenth century Georgian house was once the home to Rudyard Kipling's daughter. The interior and the grounds should not be missed.