Thur. June 14th

On Thurs. we took a train to Cambridge and had a great tour of the city. I have never seen so many bikes in my life! It’s very interesting how the town was named, mainly the town is surrounded by the river Cam and the King built a bridge to connect the city. As simple as that. It was one of the neatest towns, it seemed to be all made of old buildings and in some areas you can’t drive a car. There are some 31 or so colleges there. We had a tour guide that took us to the All Saints church that is still being renovated. It was built and decorated by William Morris. We went into King’s Chapel at King’s College, it has the largest “fan vaulting” in the world. We practically ran through the Fitzwilliam Museum and saw some more famous paintings. To top it all off we went “Punting on the Cam”. A cool boat ride kind of like a gondola ride. We got our first drenching on the walk back to the station.

Wed. June 13th

On Wed. we took another train to Chesterfield and took a bus to Hardwick Hall. There’s an older house in ruins and right next door the newer house. It was great fun taking photos of the ruins and climbing the stairs. We weren’t able to take photos inside the newer house though. There is a lot of history in those houses. Afterwards the bus took us to Haddon Hall, definitely one of my favorite places. Parts of Pride and Predigest, Princes Bride and Jane Eyre were filmed there. The gardens were the best gardens I’ve seen yet!

Tues. June 12th

On Tues. we took a train to Salisbury and a bus to the Wilton House, this is one of my favorite places. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos inside. The largest collection of Van Dyck’s paintings! I took some awesome pictures of the outside though, and walked through some secret gardens. After that we went to Salisbury Cathedral. We went on a special tour up the tower. That was scary and fun! We ate at a great Italian restaurant before heading back to London. We actually got on the wrong train and ended up in Bath before we got back to the hotel.

Monday, June 11th

On Monday we went to the design Museum and saw an exhibit by Luigi Colani, very aerodynamic. On our way to the Tate Modern we went into a church that beautiful organ music was coming out of, apparently we weren’t supposed to be in there and got into a little trouble. A couple of girls and I decided to go to the Dali exhibit at the Tate. The man had talent but was crazy, he had a video of himself explaining the benefits of a hallucinatory mushroom. That explains a lot of his work. I don’t like modern art much. We walked by St. Peter’s but didn’t have time to go in. I’m hoping to do that on the weekend.

weekend

On Saturday I went shopping with the group. On Sunday I went to church and revisited the V & A Museum. I found an exhibit on James Steuart, he was an architect, painter and designer from the 1760s.