Punting the River in Cambridge

Summer in the UK usually doesn't last very long. Now that the weather is heating up, Aaron and I traveled to Cambridge last Saturday to participate in one of Britain's favorite summertime activities: punting the river.

A punt looks similar to a gondola, but has a flat bottom and is made for shallow rivers. The punter stands at the back of the punt and uses a pole to push off the bottom of the river. Then they pull the pole up from the bottom and use it as a rudder to steer the punt in a direction. Punters have to be careful not to try to pull the pole up if it gets stuck in the river bed... otherwise you run the risk of your punt continuing to travel while you hang onto the pole, and *splash* you're in the river : )

Aaron and I booked a guided group tour, but we ended up being the only ones to book it at that time, so we basically got a private tour! We were told ahead of time to bring strawberries and champagne. Good thing we did because we bribed our punt guide with some and he let Aaron try punting for a while (Aaron was an excellent punter by the way!)

Punting was awesome; we basically sipped champagne while floating down the river under the sun. Our guide told us facts about the 31 colleges and pointed out the various buildings along the way. Cambridge was founded in 1209 and is the world's fourth oldest University (behind Oxford, much to their despise! Some serious rivalry between the two). My favorite fact we learned was from the building in the picture on the bottom left. On the front, it's a beautiful, grand building built with huge stones and ornate carvings. But they ran out of money while building it, so they had to finish the back with bricks. They put ivy all over the back to disguise this, but I actually think the ivy is the best feature of the building and much more unique than the front.

After our day of punting, we walked around the town, got lunch and had a pint at a local pub. It was graduation weekend for a few of the colleges, so there were students walking around in their robes with their families trailing along which was fun to see. Our Cambridge visit brought Aaron and I back to our college days!