Cambridge

On an early summer evening, there's no better place in England than the Cambridge "backs", the riverside gardens behind the world-famous colleges, where student singers stand on punts singing madrigals by candelight. Not everyone is lucky enough to spend three years of their life studying in such glorious surroundings, but we can all visit Cambridge and experience, vicariously, a sip or two of the same delight.

Photo: The "backs" at Cambridge: Clare College on the left and King's College Chapel on the right. Photo by courtesy of Alex Brown, published on Flickr in 2008 under a Creative Commons Licence.

The location

Cambridge is quite a sprawling city in East Anglia, the eastern wedge of England, about an hour north east of London by train or car. The city is a curious blend of ancient and modern. The colleges date back to medieval times, but the university is one of the world's most advanced. Although there's quite a lot of countryside around Cambridge, much of it is depressingly flat and uninteresting. Cambridge in summer sunshine is a wonderful place to be—but don't be fooled into thinking the place is always like it looks on the posycards. Set in damp winter gloom with horizontal winds whistling in across the Fens, Cambridge can often feel intensely, miserably claustrophic. An umbrella is an indispensable companion in Cambridge anytime from October through to early summer.

The economy

Unlike Oxford, which once boasted a huge famous car-making plant, most of the industry in Cambridge is intellectual. Students live in several dozen colleges dotted around the town, and are taught by departments, all of which collectively makes up Cambridge University. Apart from the old famous university, there's also a newer one called Anglia Ruskin University, formerly known as Cambridge College of Arts and Technology (CCAT). The Cambridge Science Park, funded by Trinity College, has helped many of the university's brightest brains to launch their own highly profitable offshoot companies. Although most of the colleges fight to make ends meet, some are hugely wealthy. Trinity College remains one of the wealthiest landowners in Britain and still owns a huge chunk of Felixstowe docks and the land around it.

Things to do

Attractions

You'll want to wander round and see the colleges—especially the famous ones on Trinity Street and King's Parade—and the backs. But where you could once walk through the college ground for free, now you'll find you have to pay an admission charge at the porter's lodge (the main college gatehouse). The 40-acre University Botanic Gardens is well worth a visit. It may seem hard to find a decent walk out from the city centre, but follow the river and you won't go wrong. Take a glorious riverside walk to Trumpington and Granchester, the unspoiled village where Jeffrey Archer lives. Or head along Jesus Green and Chesterton Lane for a river and park walk. If you visit during the spring or summer, you're almost obliged to take a trip up the river on a punt. It's easier than it looks and, provided the river isn't choc-a-bloc with drunken people, surprisingly good fun. Note that the colleges open in three eight-week terms: Michaelmas (from October to December), Lent (from January through to March), and Easter (from April to May). Outside these times, and especially during the "long vac" (long vacation or summer holidays), the city is devoid of "real students". In summer, it's dominated by tourists and a large population of language students.

Culture

You'll find plenty of cultural attractions in Cambridge. There are cinemas in the town centre and on Eastgate Street, an Arts Theatre closely linked with the university, and the ADC where the famous Footlights still perform. Intimate chamber-music concerts happen in college chapels most lunchtimes and many evenings and the university concert hall on West Road offers an unmissable opportunity to see live performances from the next generation of great musicians. The Corn Exchange is a large, council-operated concert hall in the town centre, renovated and reopened in the mid-1980s, while The Junction is noted for indie bands, and mor cutting-edge examples of comedy, theatre, and dance.

The town has two unmissable art galleries: the august Fitzwilliam Museum and the more informal Kettle's Yard, an interesting modern gallery of art and sculpture. There are numerous university museums open to the public, including the zoology museum and the museum of archaeology and anthropology, both on Downing Street.

Famous annual events include the Cambridge Folk Festival and Strawberry Fair, a festival on Midsummer Common near Jesus College on the river.

Shopping

There are still plenty of interesting little shops tucked into the older sidestreets and backstreets, but many of Cambridge's unique haunts have closed in the last couple of decades. Twenty years ago, there were about a dozen small English tailors in the town, oufitting the young gents who strode around town in Harris tweed jackets and brown country brogues. Today, there are only a handful left, including A.E. Clothier, Arthur Shepherd, and Ryder and Amies. Some of the smaller bookshops have closed too, though the various branches of Heffers (the Cambridge equivalent of Blackwell's and now owned by the same chain) remain. There's also an interesting market in the market square. Modern chain stores dominate Petty Cury and nearby Lion's Yard, an anonymous 1980s shopping centre that also houses the main town library. There's also a large modern shopping complex called the Grafton Centre on the eastern side of the city. The Visit Cambridge website has an excellent directory of city shops.

Places to stay

There are lots of hotels in the city centre including the University Arms (looks great from the outside, but was very ordinary inside when I last stayed there), the Royal Cambridge, and the riverside Garden House Hotel. Most of the main city hotels are the kind of anonymous places you find everywhere from Delhi to Madrid. Some of the colleges offer holiday-season accommodation, which definitely makes for a more authentic Cambridge experience, and most welcome conferences.

Getting here

The Cambridge railway station is a good hike from the town centre, reputedly because the college powers refused to let dirty steam trains come anywhere near their impeccable stone buildings and gardens! There are plenty of buses from the train station to the town centre, but Cambridge bus drivers are notoriously surly and rude, even by low British standards.

Cambridge is relatively easy to reach from London, with trains taking less than an hour from Liverpool Street or King's Cross. It's harder to reach from any other direction. If you're coming from Birmingham, for example, you rattle along a rural line through the bleak agricultural wasteland of the Fens for what seems like forever. To get to Cambridge from somewhere like Oxford, you have to go into London and then back out again. Fast coaches also connect Cambridge to London.

Cyclists will find Cambridge, with its bicycling student population, particularly friendly. There are cycle paths everywhere'but make sure you're wearing your helmet and high-visibility gear at night. Cambridge has a long and tragic history of losing student cyclists in collisions with unforgiving motor traffic. The Cambridge Cycling Campaign website has excellent information and maps for Cambridge cyclists.

By road, Cambridge is easy to reach from London via the M11, and the A14 links it to the Midlands and the east coast.

Map

Here's a map of Cambridge from Google Images. You can use the "Find businesses" tab and search box to find local businesses, places to stay, and so on.

More information

Visit Cambridge: Official tourist information site.
Cambridge local area information: A very helpful page from the university website.
Cambridge in photos: Take a look at some of the images people are posting on Flickr.
Cambridge in Colour: Sumptuous, atmospheric photos by the very talented Sean McHugh.
Cambridge: A background article from Wikipedia.