After the warm museum the outside world seemed particularly cold so I hot footed it to the Arts Picture House Cafe where Grahame was ensconced and indulged in a warming beverage. Nice though that was the real excitement came about 7pm when the snow that was promised arrived. Wearing heels and skirts Lucy and I set off to the Punter and arrived without any problems. We sat all evening our noses pressed against the glass watching the layers of powdery snow building up amazed that the weather forecast was so right. We were confident that this would present no problems for our return journey. We stayed. We had another drink. We were the last to leave. Our baskets were full of snow and the wheels half buried. Cycling it transpired was nigh on impossible. We pushed our bikes through the snow along the river for 100 yards then gave up and when onto the road. It was simply impossible to stay up on the bikes. We gave up and tottering on inappropriate shoes made it all the way home but only just. There is something about snow that makes you gleeful and so fuelled with wine generally snowy joy we half dragged ourselves half praded home in what we believed was the spirit of Dionysus on Scott’s expedition.

Sunday dawned and the memory of our heroic feats seemed somewhat dimmed so Lucy and I set off for the Fort St George for nourishment and company and a good look at all the snow fun. Snowmen abounded, snow balls whizzed around and there was liberal sprinkling of bonhomie. Outside the Fort someone has painstaking constructed an igloo. Everyone was keen to get inside and have a look but being British we were all content to wait in line patiently. Another group had built a wall out of snow bricks and my favourite was a snow man perched on a bench a pipe in his mouth and his feet swinging nonchalant.

After such a sleepy start to the day you can’t really be expected to leave the house much before 2pm and several cups of hot strong tea. It was, I admit, a nice day when I finally left the house and the cycle ride into town was marred only by the constant rattle of my dilapidated bike. This spurred me into action and I made my way straight to Station Cycles to get it fixed. Two weeks is long enough to put up with any such persistent clattering. Such nice people in there – a few moments and a few quid later and the bike has stopped groaning and moaning and was good to go again. Ahh it was so peacefully riding after that.

Met up with Kate and popped into Fitzbillies for a nice cup of hot choc. So great to see the place back in business and given a nice brush up! Read more about the revamp here.

After Fitzbillies you feel almost honour bound to pop to the Fitzwilliam so I did nip in to have a quick gawp at the Lacemaker. Very nice it is to on the third viewing.

As the Church of St Mary the Less was open I stuck my head round the door and then walked out of town past the evensong at Church of St Mary the Great. For some extraordinary reason it started raining unexpectedly on the way home and I was only just in time to save my washing and get myself inside before it pelted it down.

There is nothing as good as the smug feeling of getting out of the rain after a cycle ride home. It’s almost as good as a lie-in.

The current exhibitions at the Fitzwilliam are a must – Vermeer’s Women: Secrets and Silence and Flower Drawings: Redouté and his Pupils. The Vermeer exhibition has the The Lacemaker on loan to the UK for the first time ever. The painting has a dream like quality to it – so clear and yet when you look again it seems the lines and features are elusively slipping from distinctness.

Designed by the architects, Bernard Tschumi and Michael Photiadis, the building is a rather clever feat of engineering. Not only is it a very modern building using light and motion cleverly, it is also built in an earthquake zone and on top of that it wasn’t possible to allow it to have normal foundations.

When clearing the site, ancient ruins were uncovered. It would have been a sad state of affairs if these had just been concreted over, so they were incorporated into the building. This led to the tricky problem of foundations. Huge pillars were sunk into areas that archaeologists had excavated to ensure there were no remains. I guess it was lucky that part of the site had previously had military bunkers on, so no remains were found there, and this area at least offered a solid base for the foundations.

The museum is an interesting synthesis of the ancient and modern. It sits on an ancient road that led up to, affords wonderful views of and houses priceless ancient sculpture from the Acropolis. But it is a state-of-the-art modern building with a modern take on museology. As the Makrygianni excavations so elegantly demonstrate – its foundations are ancient but its approach is modern.

And like many modern things it’s controversial. Perhaps the most controversy it has caused is that it is a monument to a request the Greek government has been making for many years. They haven’t just built the museum to house their collection but also to try to convince the British government to return the Elgin Marbles – portions of a sculptured frieze that comes from the Parthenon temple. The top floor of the new museum, the part with the giant glass walls that give you the most fantastic views of the Acropolis, is home to an exact replica of the 160m-long frieze. 36 panels are originals – the rest are paster casts – a glaring challenge to the British government. The panels that the British Government have now have an interesting new home. The only question is will they get to see it?

I spent the rest of the week working, cycling to work, cycling home from work, reading the Harry Potter series for the first time and finding I had nothing in the fridge to eat because I’d been too busy working and reading. The most culturally noble thing I did all week was go to to New Hall to look at their collection of women’s art and that was mainly because Mum was here to encourage that sort of after work activity.

Meanwhile K has been on the shortest ferry ride in Sweden and couldn’t resist making a video of it. You can’t see on the video but there is a woman in the small hut on the ferry pulling on a rope that pulls them across. Powered by rope! I’m loving it!.

About a month ago a large steel structure appeared. It looked like a silver circle with a cross in it. Then little coloured boxes filled in the circle to make it look like a giant setting sun. It dawned on me that this was the ‘swift tower’ that I’ve heard rumours about. So today being a lovely day for a walk – instead of continuing along Riverside – I finally crossed over the river on the dream of a bridge to have a closer look.

Designed by Andrew Merritt to look like a giant African sun it emits the sound of swifts calling from a solar powered bird scarer that has been modified. I couldn’t actually see any swifts darting in and out but there are certainly swifts in the area. I see them playfully swooping up and down the river whenever I cycle along it. I would have preferred to see a ramshackle picturesque cottage with lots of good old fashioned eves for the swifts to nest under but if modern art can play the same role then I applaud it. However I should have thought the sounds of fake swifts would have been off putting to the birds but I guess only time will tell that. If I were a swift that had flown all the way from Africa then I think I’d probably like a bit of peace and quiet while I did a spot of neat building!

Still it is all pretty exciting. It’s the first swift tower that any council has commissioned so well done Cambridge City Council! You can read more about it on Action For Swifts or in the Cambridge News and the BBC Cambridgeshire.

The tower is certainly an interesting edition to the area which now has a proper path with benches and litter bins. One of which is one of the new solar powered compressors that made their début in Ireland last summer and on Green End Road Park in Cambridge earlier this year. There is also a bin for recycling! Yea! Finally!

Along Riverside itself to add to the the cycle bridge and the bollards that were put in a few years ago to prevent cars shooting along the length of the road, there is the new walkway that will hopefully prioritise pedestrians and cyclists over cars and make the walk from Midsummer Common to Stourbridge Common just that bit nicer. To encourage cars off the road Streetcar are planning to put a car on Riverside. The already have one in the Vie Development. It looks like the whole area will soon be a haven for the environmentally conscious Cambridge cyclists. What fun!

We then moved on to the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica in the Barberini Palace which had some nice stuff including three Caravaggios, two El Grecos and a portrait by Raphael. The sun was beautifully hot so after admiring the ceiling fresco of the last huge room I escaped to soak up some sun by the fountain.

On the way to the fourth museum we spotted the Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Venezia so we popped in there to have a look. It’s a nice little museum and had a special Caravaggio exhibition on at the moment that we didn’t have time to go in and see.

Last by by no means least we went to the Museo Nazionale Romano di Palazzo Altemps. The collection is housed in a lovely Renaissance Palace which has an atmospheric courtyard with a fountain and statues dotted about. They are digging up the left of the courtyard to reveal Medieval remains of buildings that once stood on the spot. The collection itself is remarkably odd – it’s mostly ancient statues that have been fixed up or had the wrong heads stuck on the wrong body. It was a gentle end to a busy day and we stood on the balcony underneath some lovely fescos and breathed in the scent of orange blossom.

Of course a day in Rome wouldn’t be complete with a visit to a church or two and as we’d done four museums it seemed only fair to visit four churches. Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri is a converted Roman baths and the designs for it were done by Michelangelo. Sadly only his plan for the vaulted ceilings were used. Chiesa di San Luigi dei francesi houses three Caravaggios in St Matthew’s Chapel but we had to fight through the crowds to see them. Basilica di Sant’Agostino in Campo Marzio has the Madonna of the Pilgrims by Caravaggio which is really splendid and a Rapheal fresco on one of the pillar. Chiesa di Sant’Agnese in Agone is a hugh Baroque construction and was designed by Borromini. It overlooks the Piazza Navona and a fountain designed by rival architect Bernini. The Plazza at seven was full of artists, street musicians and entertainers. Tourists sit out on tiny tables with glasses of wine and drink in the atmosphere. Handsome policemen in blue uniforms stand about but it doesn’t stop the men selling their somewhat suspicious handbags and sunglasses from the pavement to anyone who has a few Euros burning a hole in their pocket.

The queues outside St Peter’s Basilica were too much for my feet and I sought refuge in Castroni – where I stood by the bar and had an un-classy and childish 1pm cappuccino. The shop is delightful grotto of edible treasures.

You can hardly miss the Mausoleo di Adriano or the Castel S. Angelo la Mole next to Vatican City – a 2nd century Rome mausoleum for Hadrian – him of the wall. It was converted into a papal fortress and boasts beautiful 15th century frescos, fantastic views of Rome and my favourite a room with the hugest chest I have ever seen – one can only imagine it stuffed full of papal gold. Apparently there is a secret passageway that leads back to the Pope’s digs. Nowadays I guess he keeps his treasures in the Vatican or a Swiss bank account.

We passed through a metal detector and smiled at the museum staff with their Italian flag trainers to walk around the an exhibition at the Piazza del Tribunali – it was all in Italian so for us it was all in pictures.

We headed across the river to see the Mausoleo di Augusto – a mini version of Adrian’s Mole that you can’t yet go in and walk around and we stumbled across the Museo dell’Ara Pacis. It’s a beautiful marble and glass modern sort of building which houses the incredible Ara Pacis – an alter of peace constructed by the emperor Augustus. It’s quite extraordinary to think that the carvings of beautiful white marble are about 2000 years old.

On the way to see the Caravaggios at the church of Santa Maria Del Popolo we passed by three other churches and the delightful identical twin churches (spot the little differences) in the Piazza Del Popolo. The Piazza Del Popolo was a popular dropping off point for those on their Grand Tours of the C19th and that made us think of home and dinner.