UK Beckons Anew

A really lovely day. It started with coffee on Mill Road over the bridge, followed by a quick walk down the opposite direction, to the laundrette to drop off two loads of washing. A good start, don't you think?

The rest of the day ws given over to leisure. A quick conversation and we decied to head back over to the University district and to go to the Fitzwilliam Museum.

The Fitzwilliam Museum is the lead partner of the spectacular collections of the University of Cambridge Museums (UCM) and Botanic Garden.

From antiquity to the present day, the Fitzwilliam houses a world-renowned collection of over half a million beautiful works of art, masterpiece paintings and historical artefacts.

Here's the blurb from the Museum website about its origins.

In 1816, the University of Cambridge acquired an extensive collection of artworks and objects as well as a library which had been left to them by Richard Fitzwilliam (1745–1816), the 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam of Merrion. As a former student of Cambridge’s Trinity Hall College, Fitzwilliam believed that the University should have its own museum and made provisions in his will to donate his collection as well as an enormous sum of money, £100,000, to build an impressive new museum building to house it.

The Fitzwilliam has an imposing frontage complete with massive columns and white stone. Two gigantic stone lions sit off to the side as if in guard of the precious repository inside. The foyer is resplendent in fine orante paintwork, a grand stiarcase that goes either side of the room, filled with statues and artworks. It is a VERY imposing entry, I must say.

Chris and I started in the cafe. Behind the counter was Abraham, as gay and Spanish as you like, and he engaged us in cheerful banter while he made our coffees and fetched our white chocolate chip cookies, one of which was on him. He was fun, and I think he enjoyed talking to us too.

After morning refreshments, we headed into ancient antiquities rooms to look at Egypt, Greece and Rome, Cyprus, and the Ancient Near East. Way too much to take in. There was a group of Year 4 school boys with their two handsome teachers dong a 'find your information' project as they scooted around the millennia old exhibits with their pads and folders. Walking in front of us, it was always, "excuse me". How polite.

I loved these rooms, especially Greece and Rome. I've been reading a lot of Rome lately, and last year a lot of Greek mythology, so this room was especially poignant to me. Of some wonder and real appreciation were the two scultptures of Emperor Marcus Aurelius whose meditations I commenced before coming over here to the UK.

There is an extensive Introduction by a Classical Scholar to the edtion I am reading and having ploughed my way through that fairly slowly so that I took it all in, I am now in the first third of the meditations themselves. So it was with a litle glee and some warmth to see the great man himself, looking for all the world like a handsome ginger, looking down upon me as I gazed at his visage, whose verisimilitude I understand is extremely close, taken as it was from image of the Emperor on coins of the time.

Another bust of Julius Caesar is also said to be of his likeness. And of course, I couldnlt go past one of the greatest gay love stories in the ancient world, Antinous, the young lover of the Emperor Hadrian (117-138 CE). His large bust is there in the Fitzwilliam looking very lifelike.

Poor Antinous drowned in the Nile River while accompanying Hadrian to Egypt in 130 CE. After his death, Hadrian had Antinous declared a god. Being declared a deity in Rome after death was a huge deal, so for this to happen to a same-sex partner (not an official wife) would have set tongues awagging for a while.

After the antiquities rooms, we headed for the gallery where masters from the 15th century all the way to the French impressionists and even modern day artists were exhibited. There were so many and it was an extraordinary collection. Degas, Pizzaro, Monet, Millet, Fra Lippo Lippi, and on. There were so many Virgin and Child and Christ's Crucifixion paintings from previous centuries, they all began to blur for me, but one.

Luis de Morales c.1510/11 - c.1586 painted a Christ brought down from the cross called The Pieta with the Virgin, Mary Magdalene and St John. This is a sixteenth century painting but it looks modern somehow. Its imagery is powerful. Christ looking lifeless and powerless, the very moment Christian theology tells us that he defeated death itself. A cosmic irony. The anguish on the face of the onlookers.

The Fitzwilliam is gem of a museum. By then, we had had enough. I coined a new term, museum legs. We both had them. Pained, wobbly, weak. Ready for a sit down. So sit down we did, in a local pub, downed a half pint, and because their kitchen was not open, left quickly for more eat-inger climes, an American diner no less in the mall where hamburgers and specially seasoned fries did the trick. Museum legs cured.

We had already discussed that we wanted to go inside one of the University Colleges. But which one? There are 31 of them. Ultimately, we decided on Queens' College, actually founded by two queens, hence the positioning of the apostrophe.

£5 each got us an entry through the medieval door and into the confines of its moastic-like cloisters and courts. Queens' College is around 600 years old. It doesn't look a day older than a 102 in my opinion and shapes up very well.

It is stunningly beautiful. The courts (quads) are surrounded by lush and verdant gardens and these in turn are surounded by cloisters around which students, lecturers and Fellows walk to and from their rooms. It would be an easy place to lose yourself in learning. This could be full immersion in your domain if you wanted it to be. It is no wonder that Cambridge is one of the greatest universities in the world.

A quick look through the dining room and we spent some time in the Chapel, smaller than King's Chapel that we saw yesterday, and more sombre looking, but just as beautiful in its own way and not at all oppressive. A young man was seated at the pipe organ above us clearly practising a number of very challenging pieces, so we were treated to having the Chapel to ourselves while we walked around its chamber listneing to the power of the organ and feeling the feel. You just could not do otherwise.

Two really famous alumni of Queens' College are: Desiderius Erasmus (philosopher and theologican) and Stephen Fry (actor, writer). But the list is extensive. I couldn't help but wonder how, if my life had turned out differently, whether I would have enjoyed studying at Cambridge. Who am I kidding? I would have loved it!

It's been a wonderful day soaking up the antiquities, the arts and the atmosphere. I count myself very lucky to be able to have these wonderful experiences.

Tomorrow, it's off to Lincoln.Read more