Cambridge – a city of spires, students and great noodles

It took me nearly 40 years to get to Cambridge. Having studied for my first degree at the almost equally prestigious University of Bradford and my masters in the dazzling city of Manchester, it was great to finally see how the other half had studied when we first visited a couple of years ago, and the environment that they enjoyed on their educational journey. Now, with Cambridge less than an hour away from home, it has become a regular day trip for us.

A relatively small city, it is easy to cover Cambridge in a couple of hours of gentle strolling. It is also easy to get lost in the narrow lanes that wind between the different colleges, yet as long as you keep the river and the shops as a guide you’ll never be far from where you want to be. Visiting on a weekday during term time, one thing that immediately struck me was the high concentration of foreign students, mainly Asian. I pondered the consequences of this shift in student demographics and concluded that there are likely to be far less drunken gangs wandering the streets at night annoying the locals. Having spent 6 years in Durham where the student population was postively despised by the majority of local people, Cambridge seemed to be in a better place to avoid this conflict. Am I right? We didn’t stay long enough to find out but perhaps others can comment.

The atmosphere around the city is one of charm and politeness. Students rushed in and out of colleges, no doubt late for lectures, while the workmen and security staff of the colleges greeted us at the entrances to the colleges and waved us in to have a look around the courtyards and gardens. Most of the colleges are open to the public and are free to enter during the week. We visited two and had a walk through the grounds and into the chapels. By all accounts the entrance fee that is applied at some of the colleges is there as a deterrent to stop them being over-run by visitors and disturbing the students’ activities.

There were tourists milling around the city, but far fewer than during the summer months. The centre actually felt more like a normal English city than a major UK attraction. And yet, while observing the pedestrians passing along the main streets of Cambridge there was no escaping the high proportion of young well-to-do students that make up the term time population here. Jack Wills, Fat Face and co. must do very good business here…

We had lunch in Cambridge, and happened to pass a sign for a noodle bar as we tried to park. Having found it again, this time on foot, we stepped into the small Jinling Restaurant with steamed up windows to find a hive of Chinese activity. At once we noticed we were the only non-Asians in the restaurant (traditionally a good sign). We grabbed the only available small table and ordered noodles, fried rice and green tea, along with some of the vegetables that every other table seemed to have ordered. The food was quick in arriving and very tasty, although as with much of the Chinese food in the UK, needs to be eaten before it gets cool and starts to congeal. The portions were big; too big for us to get through, and it seemed the same for others as we barely saw an empty plate in the restaurant.

Cambridge is an easy day out for anyone staying in London, and if you have the chance then do it away from a holiday weekend and without the formality of a tour group. There are many trains from London to Cambridge, and once in the city you can tour as many or as few of the colleges as you wish and pay as you go. The city has a bright, friendly atmosphere and I genuinely think will live up to most peoples’ preconceptions.