Cambridge

To go back to University or not ...

Last month I decided to go for a day trip to the beautiful city of Cambridge with my wonderful mother. Cambridge is a famous university city north of London, in Cambridgeshire with a wonderfully rich history. Getting to Cambridge from London is extremely easy with multiple transport options varying in price and travel time. Trains depart regularly from London Liverpool Street Station and King’s Cross Station for Cambridge taking 46 minutes to 1 hour 20 respectively. Pricing obviously is dependent on when you book as well. We booked our tickets the week of travel so prices were averaging £35 return. Luckily we manage to find £15 return tickets from Liverpool Street Station, so the travel time was a little longer but it was worth the extra savings. We arrived into Cambridge mid-Friday morning and walked into the city centre, picking up some coffee on the way of course. A short 15 minutes later we were in the city centre where we walked through the market place, the modern shopping mall and the many surrounding cobble-stoned streets. A beautifully picturesque city, which was a refreshing change from the urban London.

After a little wandering and a spot of lunch, we decided to go punting, along the River Cam and admire the Colleges the best way possible. Now, I wanted to give it a go myself but apparently, I wasn’t to be trusted … thanks mum. I have no doubt that it would be ridiculously difficult but it did look like a whole lot of fun, so perhaps in the summer I’ll make my way back to Cambridge and at least then if I fall into the Cam I wont freeze. The punting tour we did was through Scudamore’s and we managed to score a discount for booking through the visitor’s office. The choices are endless for punting, just about everyone offers tours, even university students. But it truly is the best way to see Cambridge in my opinion. The tour takes you along the River Cam, past multiple colleges and even underneath the famous Bridge of Sighs, which looks nothing like the Venetian bridge of the same name. We punted along ‘the Backs’, past St John’s and Trinity Colleges and heard all about the history of Cambridge and the college culture.

Once our punting was unfortunately over we decided to visit one of the colleges. We chose to visit St John’s college which we had already seen from the river but we wanted to explore a little more. The college was beautiful with lovely courtyards and amazing architecture, definitely would inspire anyone to go back to university and study there. If only it weren’t impossible to be accepted! The day disappeared very quickly and before we knew it we were headed back to the train station for our journey back to London. It was a perfect day out from London and I think it’s fair to say that I will definitely be making my way back to Cambridge, one of my favourite English cities.