Harry Potter went to school in a castle, but we all know that is fiction. In real life nobody goes to school in a castle do they? I didn’t think so until I visited the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England.
Walking down the streets of Cambridge, I was totally blown away by the architecture of the different colleges. In fact, I’m sure my jaw was touching the ground most of the time. I’ve never seen anything like it before in my life. As I’ve mentioned before, I visited England while on a school trip with my oldest son, but while in Cambridge I was like the errant student because I was taking so many photos that I kept lagging behind the group, and one of the teachers kept having to come back and make sure I didn’t get lost. Even my son, Bryan, who is not much into photography, took tons of pictures that day.
Over the next couple of days I am going to show you some of my favourite shots from that day and try and throw in some of the history of the university as well because it’s quite fascinating.
The University of Cambridge is the second oldest university in the English-speaking world (after the University of Oxford), and the seventh oldest globally. It celebrated its 800th anniversary in 2009! Wow, 800 years old – that’s truly amazing don’t you think? The colleges of Cambridge University were founded in the Middle Ages, the first in 1284. However, my favourite of all the colleges, King’s College, was founded by Henry VI in 1441. It is one of 31 colleges in the University of Cambridge. Once of Henry’s biggest concerns was the chapel for the college, and he wanted to ensure that it would be without equal in size and beauty. He succeeded because King’s College Chapel is one of the most iconic buildings in the world. This picture doesn’t show the entire chapel, but I like it because you can see the details in the architecture.
photos from the loonybin 
Beautiful! (My old university…)
Wow, you actually went there? Are the colleges as gorgeous inside as they are outside?
I wish that I had! I probably wouldn’t have paid enough attention in class, though… 🙂
I totally agree!
I have to agree with this. I would just stare!
Oh my word….. I would NEVER be able to concentrate in such beautiful place…. My mind would be in 70000000000 other places!!!! It is soooooooooooooooo gorgeous!!!! 🙂 **
So, my jaw constantly hitting the ground makes sense doesn’t it? It is a beautiful place! Glad you liked it – there’s more to come in the next few days, so stay tuned. 🙂
Wow what a lovely photograph! The closest I’ve ever seen to anything like that was when I went to Syracuse, NY but that is just stunning!
It was gorgeous – glad you liked it!
I love it when people post about visiting England, makes me realise how lucky I am to live here, great photos!
Thank you, and you are very lucky to live there. It’s beautiful! Canada is very beautiful too (have you ever been here?), but I found that the architecture in England fascinated me because everything is so much older there. The history goes much further back than it does here. Having never been off this continent before (except one trip to the Dominican Republic years ago), I found it interesting to see the differences between our two countries.