Cambridge - the Charles Darwin exhibition

A hop, skip and a jump from our 'home' at the Royal Cambridge Hotel is the Fitzwilliam Museum, which was a favourite haunt of Charles Darwin (yes, that Charles Darwin) in his university days (it seems rather a lot of famous people went to the University of Cambridge!). At the moment the Fitzwilliam is hosting an exhibition about the interaction between science and art, with a focus on the work of Darwin.

Thelma was in seventh heaven – she has been a Darwin groupie for years. What a wonderful exhibition! It's open until October this year, if you're in the area.

There's a lot more to the Fitzwilliam than the Darwin exhibition though. We took a little walk through some of the other galleries – it goes on forever and ever – and we simply didn't do it justice. After looking at ceramics from the Near and Far east, I dragged Thelma to the Ancient Egypt gallery (so exciting!) to check out the sarcophagi and the hieroglyphics.

When I was about 12 my Dad gave me a book about Egyptian Art – full of colour plates of fabulous Egyptian artefacts – and at the Fitzwilliam I kept dragging the long-suffering Thelma from one case to another and practically squealing: “Look, that was in my book! Wow, and that one too! Oooh, look!” It was so weird – things I had been looking at on paper for over 30 years were suddenly right in front of us. Freaky!

Here's a pic of the great stairs leading up to the art galleries and down to the antiquities areas. Wow. I'm still buzzing because I saw a real live Modigliani, a couple of Picassos, a Fra Filippo Lippi, a Sir Joshua Reynolds - more of the same "omigod, this is the Real Deal" feeling...

After that, we hit the shops. I kept watch over Thelma's green bag full of hats while she tried on (and bought) half of Cambridge's fashion offerings. She is a perfect clothes-horse – slim and willowy – and the new season's gear – long dress-like tops with footless tights – looks fabulous on her.

I didn't bother trying on the clothes – they're not the sorts of things I can wear on the bike (which I find myself thinking of rather a lot at the moment...) I did, however, find a Basil Fawlty t-shirt that I simply had to have...

...a shop with my name on it...

...and a funny sign, in amongst all the antiquity...

Our time in Cambridge has been all too brief – there's still so much to see – but Claridge's awaits! Come Wednesday morning we will say goodbye to Cambridge and head to London. Wheeeeeeee!