Exploring, London, Staycations, Things to do, Travel

Sunday Afternoon in Cambridge

ellieslondon

As you may or may not be aware, Cambridge has been on my list of UK cities to see for some time now. On the Sunday in between Christmas and New Year with both myself and my Mr having a few days off of work, I suggested an impromptu mini road trip up to the picturesque university town, and yes, I know it is actually a city.

Located on the River Cam, its world famous university opened its doors in 1209 and the most famous colleges include King’s with its Gothic chapel, St John’s with its ‘Great Gate’ and Trinity which was founded by King Henry VIII. We left London just before midday and arrived in Cambridge at 1:30pm. Parking in the city is a lot worse than London, with many restrictions in place even on Sundays. It took about 20 minutes of driving around the winding one way systems to locate a space so next time we visit we will find a park and ride as they seem like a frequent and reasonably cheap option.

img_20181230_154834
King Henry himself watching over the city

The first port of call for us was finding food! We picked Smoke Works on Free School Lane in the heart of the city. Unfortunately, this was the most disappointing part of the day for me. Whilst my boyfriend thoroughly enjoyed his burger, I opted for the same and completely hated it. A boneless chicken thigh burger with smoked applewood cheese, mustard slaw and salsa, the ‘Smokey Clucker Burger’ did not live up to my expectations. Served with two sides, I really do not like coleslaw in huge quantities in my burgers, so when my first bite of this burger was a creamy, cold mess it really put me off the rest of the meal. I also found the thigh meat greasy with the skin grossly sliding over the meat as the food slid down my throat. Yuck. So in the end, I ended up paying for my two sides and a drink and leaving still hungry and picking up noodles from a simple noodle bar later on.

img_20181230_143205
Yes, I picked two fries as my sides as all of the other sides options seemed to be variations of salads. Do not judge. 

After ‘lunch’ we started to do some exploring. Many of the university museums have exhibitions on things like archaeology, zoology and anthropology which would have been no doubt riveting, however with it being a cold Sunday afternoon we decided to set about the city on foot.  With the remains of a Christmas market in the town square we had a browse around there but found the attitude of the people on the stalls quite rude, which was a shame as some of their products were nice.

IMG_20181230_155255.jpg
A typical street in the city

A standard ‘uni town’ all of the high street shops and a number of pubs and bars snaked their way around the little streets. We Google mapped our way to the Mathematical Bridge, which was originally built in 1749. It is a popular misconception (and I even overheard a tour guide telling a group of tourists this!) that the bridge was designed by Sir Isaac Newton and constructed without any kind of connection joints. Further to this, it is often told that students from the university took the bridge to pieces to learn how it was standing and then could not put it back together without using bolts. Actually, the bridge came to be over twenty years after Newton’s death and even though it has seen two rebuilds, there have always been nuts and bolts keeping it together. Admittedly however, the fixings were less visible on the original bridge which may have resulted in the incapable students’ myth.

img_20181230_155457
The bridge in question

Before leaving Cambridge behind, we checked out their mini Winter Wonderland but left after only five minutes as it was very orientated towards children, lacking anything Christmas-markety, in favour of tea-cup rides, dodgem cars and bouncy castles.

Overall, Cambridge was very reminiscent of my home town Durham, with the cobbled streets and similar Gothic architecture. It only feels natural to compare the city to its counterpart Oxford, having visited there last summer. Cambridge had a lot more to offer in my opinion and I will definitely be back, however I did have a better experience in Oxford, given that it was summer, warm and al fresco cocktails were involved!

Have you ever been to Oxford or Cambridge? Which do you prefer?

 

 

 

 

 

Published by ellieslondon

A London based content writer with a little corner of the internet for ramblings that spring to mind. On a quest to meet fellow creatives!

25 thoughts on “Sunday Afternoon in Cambridge”

    1. Cambridge was on my list for so long! I didn’t think I’d get there before spring 2019 so it was definitely a random drive sorta day! I really liked it despite the disappointing aspects. I liked Oxford too, I’d 100% like to go back to both places 🙂 Thank you for reading, Anna x

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    1. I’d recommend both places for sure! I would love to go to Cambridge in the Summer so I can get a fair idea of what it’s like before it gets dark! Ordering two sides of fries is the BEST and the waitress looks at me like I’m strange like 😐 can you not… 😂 Thank you for reading x

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    1. Thank you Anna, i am glad you enjoyed the post. Cambridge is a lovely place to visit and definitely worth a visit. I’d love to go back in the summer for a proper look around and maybe some drinks on a roof top bar somewhere ♥️

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    1. They really do. I would love to visit this place in summer as I think it will be beautiful ❤️ Oxford and Cambridge are both lovely and I’m looking forward to visiting more cities with year! X

      Like

      Reply

    1. Thank you for reading Anais ♥️ I thought I was never going to get there as I wanted to go in summer after visiting Oxford! I would always pick fries over salad! Every time. I’d like to return to Cambridge in the sun one day! X

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    1. Thank you for reading Dylan 🙂 To be fair, I never really wanted to visit Cambridge until I went to Oxford and then I got curious last summer. I’d definitely recommend a visit one day – maybe in the warmer weather though! x

      Like

      Reply

  7. Ah Cambridge looks so beautiful! It’s on my list of places to visit, along with Oxford. I love the history and the architecture. 😊 How disappointing about that burger! Those chips look so good though. Great post xx

    Like

    Reply

  8. Ahha what a lovely read about a beautiful uni town. I didn’t know the fact about the mathematical bridge myth, thanks for sharing your experience and burger with two sides of chips is defo a great idea 💡👍🏼

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thank you as always ♥️ It was such a pretty place to visit, I’d love to return in the sunshine soon. I love fries so much 😁 i know I’m not the only one that will have done that. I’d definitely need to eat somewhere else when I go back 🤔 x

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      4. Wow – that sounds amazing. I was looking at Switzerland also in March but as I’m moving house now, I think it will be April and I’m looking at Slovenia now ♥ (I can never make up my mind on this stuff!)

        Like

  11. Pingback: Winter Bucket List Update – Ellie's London

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s