Cambridge

Cambridge (granted city status only in 1951) is of course famous for its university, the second oldest in the English speaking world. About one fifth of the city’s population of over 100,000 are students, the townspeople breathing a sigh of relief no doubt when the university is ‘down’. Established by scholars from Oxford who were being badly treated by the local citizens, the University was founded in 1209. Its origin is ironical because both towns have enjoyed a keen rivalry over the years, despite a association in people’s minds so strong, that the two are often referred to as ‘Oxbridge’. The University consists of a series of colleges endowed by various individuals and trusts throughout its history and most of which have their own chapels and strong cultural links with the Church of England. Many of the buildings, gathered around a grass rectangle, are very beautiful, the most famous being St.John’s College, where every year a Festival of Christmas Carols is broadcast around the world.

But Cambridge is also a centre of research and high tech industry and the several businesses situated in and around the town are often referred to as Silicon Fen. The world famous Cavendish Laboratory has been in existence in Cambridge for a hundred years and of the many luminaries who have taught there, the name of Ernest Rutherford stands out. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1908 he was responsible for the discovery of the atom as a miniature universe in which the mass is concentrated in the nucleus surrounded by planetary electrons. The Laboratory continues to make a major contribution to nuclear physics.

There are several museums in the city, for me the most notable being The Fitzwilliam founded in 1816. Housed in a most beautiful building, here there are world-class examples of art and antiquities spanning centuries and civilisations. Highlights include antiquities from Egypt, Sudan, the Ancient Near East, Greece, Rome and Cyprus, English and European pottery and glass, and paintings and drawings by Domenico Veneziano, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Rembrandt, Rubens and Van Dyck. Outstanding works by great British artists include those by Stubbs, Gainsborough, Reynolds and Constable and there is a fine collection of twentieth century art.

The city also has a number of theological colleges for training clergy for ordination into a number of denominations, with affiliations to both the University of Cambridge and the Anglia Ruskin University. I stayed in one such college for ten weeks during a sabbatical in the 1980’s, and greatly enjoyed pretending to be a mature student in this lovely, lively city.

B.R.

Stockholm

This lively and very beautiful city is built on fourteen islands, part of one of the biggest archipelagos in the Baltic Sea consisting of about 24,000 islands and islets. Approaching it from the North Sea as I did many years ago is to see one of the loveliest scenes imaginable. This of course is the capital of Sweden, and a fifth of the country’s population live here. The city has attracted immigrants from all over the world, and they comprise some 15% of the population. The Old Town is particularly spectacular located on the original small islands of the earliest settlements and still featuring the medieval street layout. Walking around the city's waterways and parks is a glorious way to spend a week-long stretch of European summer, claims the Lonely Planet website. But be warned, it can be very cold in the winter!

It is more than fifty years since I made this my first visit to a foreign city and I have vivid memories of the impressive town centre, especially the magnificent City Hall designed by the architect Ragnar Ostberg and which took twelve years to build. In the latter quarter of the twentieth century many historical buildings were torn down, and replaced with modern architecture inspired by medieval and renaissance styles, though some of the old town still remains.

In 1988 the city was deservedly designated as the European City of Culture, for there are some fine museums here, over 70 of them, visited each year by as many as 9M people. Dating back to the sixteenth century, the National Museum is the most famous and has a vast collection of paintings and art handicraft. Other museums worth seeing are The Museum of Modern Art, the City and Nordic Museums and the open air museum of Skansen, the first of its kind.

Every year since 1901 the Nobel Prize for achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and for peace, has been awarded in Stockholm. Alfred Noble was a renaissance man of his day. The inventor of dynamite, he founded 90 factories in 20 different countries. Victor Hugo called him Europe’s richest vagabond. Despite his chemical and industrial interests, he was committed to social and peace-related issues and wrote poetry and plays. The awarding of the Nobel prizes for which he left his fortune, reflect those interests.

B.R.