Cambridge
One chapel, one river, and six colleges that turn their backs to it
- When to go
- October 12° · 13 rainy days
- Per day
- €€€€price 4 of 5
- How many days
- 1days
- For you
- 6 questions →
- Nearest airport
- 36 km London · 49 km Luton
- Right now
Cambridge began around 1209, when scholars fled Oxford after a fight with the townsmen, and today it has thirty-one colleges. Six of them stand in a line along the River Cam with lawns running down to the water — the stretch called the Backs, and the reason people hire a boat here.
King's is the one college most people actually go into, and the chapel is why: four kings built it between 1446 and 1515, and the fan vault from the last years of the work is the largest of its kind in the world. Tickets are sold for a set time slot and in limited numbers, so the college can't promise any on the day; booked online ahead they cost less than at the gate. The same chapel is free with no ticket at all for evensong, sung six days a week in term — but nobody is let in once the service has begun, and you sit rather than look around.
From the street you see the colleges' fronts; from the river you see their backs, with the lawns and bridges. That's why people hire a boat here: self-hire is from €33.21 an hour for a whole boat of up to five passengers, while a shared chauffeured tour lasts 45 minutes and is paid per head. Doing it yourself means a pole that sticks easily in the mud; if you want neither, the Mathematical Bridge can be seen from the bridge on Silver Street.
What to see in Cambridge
King's College and its chapel
An adult ticket booked online for a weekday is €18.35, with entry at the slot you choose. The chapel is 88 metres long and 24 high inside. Evensong lasts up to an hour.
The Backs and the Mathematical Bridge
Six colleges along the Cam — St John's, Trinity, Trinity Hall, Clare, King's and Queens' — turn their lawns and bridges towards the river. The Mathematical Bridge joins the two halves of Queens' across the water, and the shared tours along the Backs pass under it.
The Fitzwilliam
A free museum whose collection runs from Egyptian sarcophagi to Titian, Rubens and the French impressionists, inside a columned building of 1848. Tuesday to Saturday 10–5, Sunday 12–5, last entry 4.40, closed Mondays. On the first Sunday of the month exhibition tickets are pay what you can.
The Wren Library
Trinity College's library, designed by Christopher Wren and finished in 1695. Entry is free, weekdays 12 to 2, last entry 1.50, and on Saturday mornings in term. Inside are Newton's own copy of the Principia, annotated for the second edition, and Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh manuscripts.
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Cambridge or Oxford
Cambridge is smaller and the river runs through the middle, so King's, the Backs and the Fitzwilliam fit into one day. Oxford has the Ashmolean, Natural History and the Bodleian, and they want a second day. For museums and two days — Oxford; for one day and an afternoon on the water — Cambridge.
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Getting here
From King's Cross the fastest train takes about fifty minutes, and stopping services longer. The station is 1.8 km from King's College in a straight line, so you walk into the centre or take the bus.
Two things you probably did not know
Watson and Crick announced in the Eagle pub in Cambridge in 1953 that they had found the structure of DNA. The plaque is still on the wall and the pub carries on as a pub.
The Mathematical Bridge over the Cam looks as if it stands without a single bolt, in a legend the students themselves repeat. It has always had fasteners; the story of Newton assembling it without nails is invented, since it was built twenty-two years after he died.
Ready for Cambridge?
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