Punting on the River Cam

One of my goals in starting this blog was to share the places that I’ve traveled but it may not always be about travel. Another thing I promised myself was to not make the blogs so long that people quit reading after the first paragraph. I’m horrible about that. If a blog is too long I will get bored and move on. I think I’ve stayed true to the short blogs so far. But, I’ve discovered a new challenge in keeping the blogs short. I have to give you enough information about what is so special about a place that I would write about it.

It’s easy to write a short blog about some places and then there are those places that are so special that it’s impossible to write short blog about them. Cambridge, England is one of those places. I could never begin to tell ya’ll how special Cambridge is if I wrote a hundred blogs on it. It’s a place you have to experience for yourself. It’s for this reason that I will be writing several blogs on different things in Cambridge. It’s one of those towns that if you ever visit once, you find yourself pulled back to it over and over again. At least that is the way it is for me.

So, let me tell you what punting on the River Cam is. A punt is a long flat bottomed wooden boat. There is a person that stands on the back of the boat and pushes down on the river bed with a long pole. These people are called punters. The whole action together is called punting. It’s similar to taking a ride on the gondolas in Venice but totally different boats.

The punts were first used to ferry goods down the river because it was too shallow for bigger boats to navigate. The first punting began sometime around 1860 in Cambridge. And as time moved forward it brought progress with it in the form of motorized boats and vehicles to transport goods and the punts were no longer needed. But, as faith would have it, Pleasure punting began around 1904 and gave the punts a whole new purpose. Pleasure punting is exactly what you would expect. People loved taking a pleasure ride down the River Cam and it still continues until this day 119 years later. It’s become a huge tourist industry now but it’s a favorite thing for students to do and most colleges have their own punts just for students. No trip to Cambridge is complete without punting down the River Cam.

Punting takes about 45 minutes and the punters fill your ears with the history of different places as well as pointing out different architectural details on the old colleges. The river runs behind most all of the colleges so you get to see the back side of the colleges along with some beautiful scenery. It’s very relaxing. There are some iconic sites to see such as Kings College Chapel, the Mathematical Bridge, The Wren Library, and the Bridge of Sighs are just a few of the famous landmarks.

In one of these pictures, you will see a small white door right at the river. That is where goods were received. I’ll be writing blogs about these Ionic sites later. I loved my time in Cambridge and punting on the River Cam. Today, it’s still one of my favorite memories.