Cambridge Information Orientation
CAMBRIDGE INFORMATION Cambridge is a charming town replete with cobblestone streets and attractive lanes whose profound historical ambiance was the setting of much of the last years of C.S. Lewis’ life. While Oxford resented Lewis’ Christianity and popularity, Cambridge offered the newly created position of Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English to him. In fact, J.R.R. Tolkien was influential in his appointment. Although hesitant at first to leave the Kilns, Warnie, and Joy, Lewis eventually took the position. Each week he commuted between Oxford and Cambridge, sleeping and studying on the train. Lewis grew to love Cambridge deeply. Of his college there, he once wrote: “I think I shall like Magdalene (Cambridge) better than Magdalen (Oxford). It’s a tiny college (a perfect cameo architecturally), and they’re all so old fashioned, and pious, and gentle, and conservative – unlike this leftist, atheist, cynical, hardboiled, huge Magdalen.” After a stay in Cambridge, you will no doubt delight in its many splendours as well. It is smaller and more rustic than Oxford; even if the locals own a car, most prefer to bicycle. Still, one cannot escape the grandeur of King’s College, the magnificence of St. John’s Chapel, and the weight of its intellectual history. In addition to C.S. Lewis, Cambridge was home to Erasmus, John Harvard, Isaac Newton, John Milton, William Wilberforce, Charles Spurgeon, James Dewey Watson, Francis Crick, and many others. ORIENTATION The Romans built the first of the city’s towns along the River Cam. The “straight” roads left by the Romans provide cyclists with some of the best touring routes available, and certain portions of the roads provide a glimpse of the original surface.
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