Hopefulist in Other Places: CAMBRIDGE: 61 Coronation Street, Museums, & Botanic Garden

Hi, all!

Well, I'm home and settling in happily which includes time for sorting photos and sending out more updates - not timely, obviously, but still a way to record my travel joys and to share them with beloveds.

I flew from Edinburgh to Stansted Airport north of London, took a train to Cambridge, and was collected at the rail station by Anneliese, my AirBnB landlord.

I was really pleased to share this charming home at 61 Coronation Street during my week and a half in Cambridge - spotless and well appointed and just 5 minutes from the center of Cambridge on my rented bicycle.

Frightened hedgehog hoping I won't notice - by the gate to the bike alley.

The rest of this post will focus on my visits to some of Cambridge University's phenomenal museums, beginning with the Fitzwilliam which houses an astounding collection of art and antiquities.

Etching: 'Self-portrait in a velvet beret with plume'

Rembrandt van Rijn, 1638

'Virgin and Child enthroned with two attendant angels' (part of a diptych)

Piero di Giovanni, called Lorenzo Monaco, 1370-1426 (purchased in 1893)

'Sketch for a Frieze', Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)

'L'Allée en Automne' (Autumn Landscape), Vincent van Gogh, 1885

A village festival, Pieter Brueghel, the younger (1564-1638)

Detail of same

The Rothschild Bronzes were really interesting to me, in part because they held so many parallels to the art mystery in 1 of my favorite books from childhood, 'From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler' by E.L. Konigsburg.

This statue and a near twin, also on exhibit, have been attributed to Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) but some question remains; the exhibit includes fascinating scans, 3D videos, and research as noted in the description below, which includes this summary: "Certainly, the Rothschild bronzes display particular anatomical features that recur frequently in Michelangelo's work, including the particular arrangement of the pubic hair which is almost identical to that in the marble David and is tantamount to a signature." Who knew?

Detail of Marble Coffin, about AD 150-200

Scavenger hunt!

Next up was the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences

and then the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

I also visited the Cambridge Folk Museum (the only 1 that charged an entrance fee),

the very cool Scott Polar Research Museum (ceiling mural),

and the Whipple Museum of the History of Science.

The Cambridge University Botanic Garden is really beautiful; I visited twice, once on my own and again the next week for a concert with Isaac (final photo).