Oxbridge

As part of my last weekend in London, I visited both Oxford and Cambridge, to see what all the fuss is about.  

Oxford

Founded: 1096 or earlier

Population: 12,000 undergrads, 10,000 grads

Nobel Prizes: 47

First stop is Museum of Natural History and the Pitt Rivers Museum.  They are connected on the inside so I visited both at the same time.  The museum of Natural History was founded in 1850 and originally housed several science departments.  The Pitt Rivers Museum was founded in 1884 and is dedicated to archaeological and anthropological collections.

The main natural history building:

Pitt Rivers:

Pipes and snuff boxes around the world.  People find creative ways to do drugs:

Seal-gut poncho:

Lutes:

Flutes:

Guns:

Shields:

Spears:

Assorted:

Small horse ancestor:

View from the top:

A live bee farm.  It actually smelled terrible:

The obligatory dinosaur bones:

Shrunken heads.  These are actually monkey heads that are dressed up to resemble enemies that they killed.  Apparently taking the heads of your enemies and humiliating them in death was a popular ritual of many cultures:

Lovely English suburban houses:

The Oxford Bridge of Sighs, supposed to be modeled after the bridge in Venice that I walked across.  You can see it in the previous post about Italy (It's clearly not even close to similar):

Bodleian Library, one of the oldest libraries in Europe:

Radcliffe Camera, a side library:

Christ Church, the most "aristocratic" of Oxford's Colleges and the one where lots of Harry Potter scenes were filmed:

Lots of peaceful greenery:

The busy street:

Keep off the grass:

History of Science Museum:

Seems like lots of buildings were about to fall down:

The overall feel of Oxford (other than that it's overrun by tourists) is one of scholarly secrecy and stuffiness.  Of course, it could be that the rain made it drearier that it really is.

Cambridge:
Founded: 1209
Population: 18,000 undergrads, 12,000 grads
Nobel Prizes: 90

I had the good fortune of visiting Cambridge on a sunny day:

Christ's College, most famous alumnus is Darwin:

Still can't step on the grass:

Dining hall for formal dinners:

Display of Darwin's life:

More beautiful grounds:

Gonville and Caius College, one of the smallest and wealthiest Colleges, claiming Francis Crick, James Watson, James Chadwick, Howard Florey, and Stephen Hawking (post-retirement):

Center of the city:

Senate House, used for degree ceremonies:

King's College:

The corpus clock, a mechanical contraption that is only accurate once every five minutes (intentionally):

Going punting, an activity where you sit in a flat bottomed boat while a person stands on the rear of the boat steering.  Since the river is shallow, the "driver" steers and moves the boat by poking the bottom of the river using a long stick.

The "Mathematical Bridge", a supposedly great feat of engineering:

King's College from the back:

Trinity Hall:

Trinity College (I think):

Trinity College from the front.  This is the largest College and one of the most famous, claiming Isaac Newton, Niels Bohr, James Maxwell, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Charles Babbage, Francis Bacon, Ernest Rutherford, Prince William and Price Charles, etc.:

The Eagle Pub, where Watson and Crick frequented and got their "inspiration":

It's amazing how both Oxford and Cambridge are able to produce so many great people throughout history.  Their ancient buildings and sense of intense scholarship seem to be timeless.  However, I am quite glad I've gotten to study in London, where there is not such a sense of isolation beyond the University.