Several people have been asking us, “What is there to do in Cambridge?” I know that some of you are planning a visit in the next year. Well there are lots of things to do here! I decided to do a blog on some of them so you can be getting ideas and look around at some different websites to give you an idea what you might enjoy doing when you come. I’ve sorted the things to do into various categories.
Shopping
Shopping is one of the main attractions for British people to go to Cambridge. Cambridge is considered a fairly large city, and it has a lot of what they call “High Street” shops. Most of which I’ve walked into and walked back out of because they are so expensive. :) I personally thing the best shopping is at the central market in Cambridge. There’s a market everyday in the City Centre which has food, clothing, antiques, bikes, you name it. I often buy veggies and fruit if I’m down there. One of the same sellers sells at the car boot sales on Sunday morning so we’ve been buying from them then instead. There’s a great seller who carried pashmina shawls and scarves. The antiques seller has interesting paintings, small ones which could go home with you, as well as tea cups, saucers, tea pots, tureens, and lots of interesting stuff of that nature.
Besides the market there are lots of charity shops here- if you’re interested in bringing back something truly British, like an antique book or interesting vase or tea pot or something like that these places can be good ones to pick something like that up. I find lots of interesting British books that way. Oxfam has a wonderful bridal section which has great fancy dresses for not too much. Sometimes I poke around in there just to see if I can find a nice white dress for the next Scottish ball. :)
If you’re interested in new books, there’s a seller downtown called Galloway and Porter, and they carry discounted books, ones that were overruns and stuff like that. They have tons of good stuff in there- I buy all my gardening books from them for like $4 or $5.
Of course no trip is complete without a visit to a UK foodseller. Tesco, Sainsbury, Marks and Spencer are all worth a visit because their system is so different from ours. Marks and Spencer has a whole store dedicated to prepackaged foods alone. :) Anyway wandering around a store looking for something suddenly becomes a lot more fun when you have friends with you. :)
In the villages there are interesting Farm Shops, which are a bit like Clinton’s Atlas Feed and Grain. If you’re from Clinton or nearby you know what I’m talking about. :)
Oh I almost forgot about the Arts and Crafts Market downtown on Fridays and Saturdays. There are lots of great photographers there as well as interesting handmade ceramics, jewelry, and tons of other interesting things.
Last but not least Cambridge seems to have a lot of chocolate shops. Enough said there. :)
Historical buildings
Cambridge is an ancient city and is just packed with old buildings. Cambridge University is actually comprised of something like 30 smaller “colleges,” all of which have their own small campuses here in the city. Depending on the time of the year you can walk through most of them- tourist season is not a good time to visit though if you’re interested in that. Most will let you tour through if you pay a small fee, or are free if you go at the right time of the day. I think we can go in free now since we’re Cambridgeshire residents now. All of the colleges have beautiful chapels which are very interesting, besides the greens inside and the flowers and stuff. I’ve been to almost all of the colleges and they are all beautiful. If you’d like a tour I’ll hook you up. :) But make sure you bring a camera and plenty of film/CF cards. King’s College, which is famous for it’s choir, is amazing.
Besides the colleges there are many historic churches here in Cambridge. St Botolphs was built in the 1200s, and there are several others which are worth seeing. There is a round church here in Cambridge (yep, the central part is a big cylinder) which is very old. St Mary’s which is downtown has a stairway all the way up to the top which has the best view of Cambridge anywhere.
Just walking around the city center is interesting- there are all the old buildings with the wood visible, and the white plaster, with the building leaning a bit over the road. :)
Outside of the city there are the following places which you can find online as well:
- Anglesey Abbey, a nice smallish manor house with very pretty grounds and a nice rose garden. http://www.angleseyabbey.org/
- Wimpole Hall and Home Farm- I think my favorite- the house is great, the grounds are just beautiful and they have very interesting gardens. There’s also the Home Farm, which was built in the 1700s as a model farm and is a working farm. You can see the animals there, and you can even learn to use the Shire horses to plow and stuff. And you can pet some of the animals, a definite bonus. :)They are obsessed with handwashing too, so no worried about mad cow. :) http://www.wimpole.org/
- Audley End- a very old house with small but pretty grounds and short walks. They have a Snowdrop walk in February which we went to that was really cool.http://www.audley-end.co.uk/
- Ickworth- This place is huge, like I said. It’s an unusual house, with an interesting history. http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-ickworthhouseparkandgarden/
Let me know if you're interested in joining the National Trust and I can take care of that before you come, so that you'll be all set with a card and everything. If you want to go to more than one place it's worth it to join.
20 minutes away there’s St Ives, and also Ely, which is fascinating- they have a cathedral there right in the fens, and you can take a tour up into the top. They also have a stained glass window museum.
Farther out (as in maybe an hour or 2) there’s Oxford, and 3 hours will get you to Bath where you can visit the Roman baths. We’re planning to go there sometime. There’s also LondonJ There is also the Peak District, and the Lake District, both of which are famous places in northern England, famous for their beautiful scenery. If you’ve seen either of the Pride and Prejudice movies you’ve seen bits of Darbyshire, which is at least partly in the Peak District. within 2 hours drive. But who wants to go there? ;)
Walks and bike rides
Swavesey is in the best possible location for nice hikes and walks. We are on the edge of the Fen Drayton National Preserve, and there are tons of small lakes here. There’s also the River Ouse, and there are public walkways through the fields and everything else here. Our village is quaint and so are the surrounding ones which are an easy bike ride. Everything’s beautiful here all day everyday no matter what the weather is. At least that’s my opinion. :) You can really get a good idea what life is like here if you bike around. The villages of Over and Willingham are both within an easy bike ride, and Over is just as small as Swavesey. Willingham is a step up- they have my favorite new craft store (all the stores here are so teeny and quaint) and also some decent farm shops where you can buy all local produce, meat, preserves, etc.
All of the big manor houses have good walks, but Wimpole has a nice Gothic Folly (a pretend castle) that is a nice walk out to.
Out of country
It is very easy and very cheap to fly to anywhere in Europe via Ryan Air or Easy Jet. If you’d like to hop over to Europe (here known as “The Continent”) you can do that. Jen and I flew to Ireland for a 4 day driving trip, which was great. You could fly up to Scotland easily too. Or if you want to test your foreign language skills and see some interesting sites you could fly to Rome, Paris, Frankfurt, Vienna, even as far as Turkey I think. Some friends here flew to Ephesus on Easy Jet. It’s easy to stay at a hostel or a bed and breakfast for a few days and then come back. I think I’m going to visit some friends in Germany in October when they fly over for another friend’s wedding. After all it’s only a 10 hour drive, or an hour flight. :)
Eating
One of the most popular things to do in Cambridge on what they call a “Day Out” is go shopping and eat at one of the good restaurants here. Now, food is one of the most noticeably expensive things here. Everything costs more with the value of the dollar down against the pound, but food seems more noticeable. Anyway there are good places to eat here that aren’t expensive. And you just can’t leave England without having had at least these 2 things- a full English breakfast, and a cream tea. :) We’ll make sure that you get both, and we can even make it ourselves so it won’t be expensive. :)
There are several good truly Italian restaurants here, and at least one good French restaurant. And I didn’t see snails on their menu. :) There is no good American food- none. But we can certainly make something Americanish. Honestly I’m not sure what I would classify as American food anyway- it varies so much by region, and even in one state 2 hours away people eat totally different foods. But there is great English food if you eat at a pub during the day. You can eat in the evenings as well but people drink more then and I don’t like that so much. During the day they are nice and cosy, good food, not stinky or loud at all. One thing to remember- pubs are NOT like bars. They are not at all the same. Pubs are really a place where people go and hang out, which is different from my idea of a bar. :) Oh, one thing to know is that there is absolutely no smoking inside any building in Cambridgeshire. Not even pubs or bars. I’m a big fan of that- it’s a new law as of July 1st 2007.
There are some good Thai places, one good Chinese place, and lots of good English places. It all depends on what you want to eat and how much you’re willing to pay.
Music
Cambridge has tons of concerts all year round- between the 30 colleges and all the local groups there’s always excellent music. Especially classical, and especially baroque and ancient music. We went to a harpsichord concert at Kings which just happened to be going on after an Evensong (an evening service where the choir sings) and it was phenomenal. The organ concerts there are amazing as well- King’s College Chapel is incredible, and the acoustics are beyond anything I’ve ever heard. Even Hill Auditorium, my second fav after King's College Chapel. :)
My personal suggestions
If you are coming to visit you should plan on doing the following at the very least:
-a visit to Wimpole
-Going up to the top of St Mary’s to see the view of Cambridge
-Taking a tour of King’s College Chapel
-Walking through the colleges which back on the river Cam
-Walking around Cambridge
-One or 2 short walks around Swavesey
-A visit to Ely Cathedral, including the Octogon Tower
-A walk through a car boot sale if you’re here over a Sunday
-Going to at least one evensong service (it’s an interesting experience)
-Catching an evening concert somewhere in Cambridge
Getting here
I’ve fielded a few questions about arranging to come here. So here is some info to help you.
Flights
Northwest flies a nonstop overnight service from Detroit to London Gatwick, which leaves every evening at 10pm. British Airways flies a similar flight overnight nonstop from Detroit to London Heathrow leaving at I think 9pm. Air Canada has a 1 stop flight, Detroit to Toronto, then overnight Toronto to London Heathrow (I think.)
I recommend signing up for Travelocity, which sends emails out every week on the best fare deals. There are often great cheap flights to London on there. I use Orbitz to book all of our flights, and although I know that people used to say you should book 14 days in advance, but I think that’s gone out the window now. I wouldn’t venture to suggest that you wait till the last minute, but, well, that’s what we do. I’m sure you’re not surprised by that. :)
Don't plan on arriving here on a Friday. The traffic is horrendous. If you want to arrive on Friday plan on taking the train to Cambridge (hint hint). :D You will get the best fare deals if you fly out Tuesday through Thursday, and Monday is the next best after that. Also Sundays aren't too bad. But Friday and Saturday are usually more expensive.
Flights over here are cheapest ($350-$450) during the non peak season, which basically means October through the end of April. The absolute cheapest are in January and February. It’s generally in the 40s here then, which is about 40 degrees or more warmer than Michigan at that time. J Most of the National Trust houses aren’t open then except for special events, but the grounds are. I don’t know about the status of car boot sales in the winter. :)
Currently, fall flights run about $700 on Northwest or British Airways if you don’t catch a sale. But Air Canada has flights for $550, which isn’t bad either.
You have a few options about getting to Cambridge from London. 1. You can take the train. 2. We can pick you up. If you’d like to see the countryside and ride the famous London Underground (and you don’t have much luggage) you can take the airport train to Victoria Street station, then take the Underground to King’s Cross station, where you can get on a train to Cambridge. It’s not all that complicated. Or, we can come and pick you up, which might mean some time to kill at the airport for you depending on what time your flight comes in. It takes about 2 hours to go through customs, get your luggage, etc if it isn’t busy. 3 hours if it’s busy. Bring a book or cross stitch or something to do while you wait in line. :) It takes about 2 hours if there’s not bad traffic to get from Cambridge to Heathrow. 3 hours to Gatwick. Now in traffic, you basically sit in the car for an extra hour, so that makes 3 hours from Heathrow, 4 from Gatwick. If you fly into Gatwick you might want to consider taking the train in to Cambridge, because it will shave 2 hours off your travel time.
Now, we can either come pick you up when you arrive, or you can take the train to Cambridge from London, especially in morning rush hour traffic. If you fly into Gatwick you can take a train into London center and then out to Cambridge, or you can take the train to Heathrow, where it will be easier to pick you up. The train and Underground experience is worth having I think, but that’s up to you. :) I’d even be willing to take the train in and meet you at the airport and help you through the underground and the train system. and we can pick you up at the station. If your flight is coming in very early, like before 10am, the train is probably the best option because it takes so long to get to London.
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