Yesterday Jingtao, a Chinese colleague at EMBL-EBI (he is a great colleague by the way), and I arranged to visit some museums located at the centre of Cambridge. Neither he or I had already visited the exhibitions before, so everything we would see would be new for both of us. We met at the bus stop at Emmanuel street around 10 am.
A small disclaimer before I start my story. I did not take any pictures myself since I forgot to charge my phone (oops). All pictures are copied from the internet.
We decided to start the day with visiting the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA). However, this museum only opens around 10:30 am. Since we arrived a bit earlier, Jingtao took the opportunity to show me a nearby pub, named ”The Eagle” with an interesting history. That pub was the location where Watson and Crick discussed their first concepts of the structure of DNA. In the pub there was a plaque commemorating this, near the table where they hypothesized their theory.
When we returned to MAA, the museum had opened. This museum consists of three floors. On the ground floor you can find UK artefacts and documents telling the history of the UK. On the two upper floors you get a lot of information about international history. The museum contains ancient relics originating from all over the world : from local Cambridge dig finds to Japanese Samurai armour! Visiting the museum is a must for everyone who loves history and who likes to admire archaeological objects. Although the entrance to the museum was free of charge, both Jingtao and I decided to donate a few pounds, because it certainly is one of the most beautiful museums of history that we had ever visited before.
Our second destination was the University Museum of Zoology, located just across the street from MMA. This museum contains skeletons, fossils and stuffed fauna and flora from all across the globe. I definitely learned to know some new species. In general, it was a nice visit, but there sometimes should have been a bit more explanation or even only a name tag available with some species.
After a short break in the nearby Pizza Hut, we continued our museum exploration with the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences. This museum focuses on fossils of extinct species and the evolution of life on Earth. Although the exhibitions were nicely presented and the interior of the museum gave an impression of an old classical museum from the early 20th century, I found this museum the least fascinating one.
The last place that we visited, was the Museum of Cambridge. The exhibition mainly shows the life of a late medieval citizen of Cambridge until his way of living today. It is a cosy place, with a lot of interesting tools and machines that were used in everyday life throughout history. Although it was a short visit , it was still worth it! At the end of the tour, we decided to call it the day since it was already 5 pm. It had been a nice day, visiting all these interesting places.
Cambridge possesses many interesting museums, too many places to visit all in a single day. I’m sure that I will visit some more during my spare time in one of the next weekends.
See you next week, readers, when my London trip is scheduled!