Boutique hotels
-
The Varsity Hotel & Spa
- Style
- First class, with honours
- Setting
- College-lined banks of the Cam
Cambridge Overview
United Kingdom
- Cityscape
- Cobbles and cloisters
- City life
- Books, bikes and boats
A world-renowned academic powerhouse, an architectural history lesson in the shape of a scenic riverside city, and just an hour from London, Cambridge is the textbook weekend escape.
More than Oxford, more than any other UK city, Cambridge is dominated by its university. The semi-independent colleges – 31 of them – own most of the city centre's bricks and mortar, although that's a rather reductive term for the towers, chapels, great halls, labyrinthine libraries and cobbled courts that line the streets. Peek under the hem of the scholar's gown, however, and you find a chic shopper's city, a cluster of fine restaurants, the most cycle-friendly urban centre in England, and an idyllic place to spend a summer afternoon messing around on, or by, the river.
Completely Cambridge
Take a punt – or rather hire one. East Anglia's answer to the gondola – poling yourself along on a flat-bottomed boat – was originally developed as a means of getting around the too-marshy-for-oars Fens, but is now a champagne-swilling, strawberry-noshing Cambridge tradition. Pedants' note: punt refers to the pole, not the boat. Scudamore's (+44 (0)1223 359 750; www.scudamores.com) has mooring points on the Quayside and on both sides of the weir beside the Anchor pub.
Local Knowledge
- Taxis
- The city centre is compact enough to be navigated on foot, but for out-of-town jaunts or late-night laziness, cabs are easy to flag down. Alternatively, Panther Taxis (+44 (0)1223 715715) are a reliable pre-booked service.
- Tipping culture
- As with the rest of the UK, tipping is optional, but 10 per cent is always appreciated.
- Recommended reads
- Cambridge has had a library-load of novelists, poets and pass through its colleges – it would take longer than a lifetime to polish off the works of its alumni. Try Engleby by Sebastian Faulks, which sees 1970s Cambridge through the eyes of a scornful (and possibly deranged) student; Tom Sharpe's Porterhouse Blue satirises the University's battle with embracing modernity. Ted Huges and Sylvia Plath's doomed romance began at Cambridge. Hughes' verse chronicle of it The Birthday Letters is affecting reading.
- Regional specialities
- Cambridge's biggest claim to foodie fame is Trinity Burnt Cream, a British foreunner to the Continental crème brûlée, which unreliable legend sources to the 19th-century kitchens of Trinity College. Once the splashing ground of eel-trappers, the Cambridgeshire fens are now more noted for root vegetables, but you still find fresh eel in the markets and restaurants of nearby Ely.
- Currency
- Pound sterling (£).
- Time zone
- GMT.
- Dialling codes
- Code for the UK: +44, Cambridge: (0)1223.
- Do go/don't go
- The students may have left, but swarms of tourists descend on Cambridge in the summer months from June to August, clogging the colleges and the packing the river with punts. Although the weather’s best in July and August, you’re better off visiting in May or September, when the sun’s shining but the city’s less busy.
Don't go home without...
Learning something. The University hosts a programme of regular lectures that are open to the public, on topics ranging from protein crystallography to the science of social networks. See talks.cam.ac.uk for dates and locations.
