in a museum, always look up!: Cambridge - the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and the Fitzwilliam Museum

Earlier this week I travelled to Cambridge, enduring three and a half hours each way on the X5 to get there and back. I'd like to say never again, however who knows what's going to happen next year, and there's a distinct likelihood Oxbridge connections are going to be a frequent part of my life as a graduate student. Or so I hope! Maybe.
Although this trip was mostly to check out the colleges and the town itself to make sure that I didn't hate it so much to not want to apply there for my masters (which I didn't, thankfully), I also seized upon the opportunity to go round two museums, boyfriend in tow.

The first was the university museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. I think it's currently going through a semi-renovation (the upstairs archaeology gallery in particular), however anthropology museums are always fun to look around. This was especially true in this case because the eclectic mix of objects combined with the shape of the room and the existence of a gallery, was extremely aesthetically pleasing, in a quirky mismatched sort of way.

We then headed to the Fitzwilliam. I was super excited to go there as I'm a big fan of their Early Medieval Coin Corpus online (yes, I'm that cool), in particular the help it's hopefully going to give me with writing my thesis next term. However, it turns out like most numismatic collections there were very few coins actually on display, so I spent most of my time marvelling at the architecture of the museum! The front facade is currently covered in really unattractive scaffolding, which I actually appreciated, as it meant I really had no idea what to expect when I eventually got inside. I'd never looked at any pictures of the interior of the museum, so was blown away with what I saw. The reception hall is amazing, in a 'the weird Egyptian escalator at Harrod's' sort of way. Looking up was definitely necessary!