The guide
Cambridge
Cambridgeshire, England
King’s College Chapel across the Cam — the postcard view from the Backs.
Getting there
London King’s Cross → Cambridge — direct, about 50 minutes on the fastest trains (typically up to 1h 14m) — roughly every 30 minutes on weekdays and Saturdays, hourly on Sundays.
Famous for
Eight hundred years of cleverness in one small city. Thirty-one colleges, the Backs along the Cam, and spires that have watched Newton, Darwin and Attenborough walk underneath them. Punting is practically compulsory, the museums are free, and the whole place runs on bicycles and curiosity.
Where to eat
- Bread & Meat — roast-meat sandwiches on Bene’t Street; the porchetta ciabatta draws a queue and it’s worth it.
- The Galleria — riverside European bistro under Magdalene Bridge, watching the punts drift past St John’s.
- The Mitre — historic gastropub by St John’s College — proper pies, real ales, Sunday roasts done right.
- Sala Thong — well-loved Thai on Newnham Road, a short stroll from the river; open Sunday lunchtimes.
What to do
The Fitzwilliam Museum — free, and world-class.
- King’s College Chapel — allow 1 to 2 hours; the fan vaulting is the most famous ceiling in England — book ahead.
- Punting on the Cam — hire a chauffeured punt or try it yourself; the Backs are the whole point.
- Fitzwilliam Museum — free — antiquities, armour and Impressionists in a grand Victorian pile.
- University Botanic Garden — 40 acres of glasshouses and calm; the winter garden is lovely year-round.
- Market Square — the daily market has run since the Middle Ages — fruit, street food and secondhand books.
- The Corpus Clock — a grasshopper-devouring timepiece on King’s Parade; hypnotic and slightly sinister.
- Walk the Backs — the riverside path behind the colleges — best at golden hour.
Jess's favourite The University Museum of Zoology, in the David Attenborough Building
free entry, open Sundays 12 to 4:30. A 21-metre fin whale skeleton hangs over the hall, and there are Darwin’s Beagle specimens and a real dodo skeleton. Jess, a junior zookeeper, was home before she’d even taken her coat off.
Good to know: On Sundays the Museum of Zoology opens at noon and some colleges restrict visitor hours — start with the market and a punt, then do the chapel and museums in the afternoon. Book King’s Chapel tickets online in advance.
Jess plans her trips the week before, but trains have a mind of their own. Routes, times and fares in these guides were checked at the time of writing — engineering works, timetable changes and last-minute alterations can still happen. Please check your journey before you travel (National Rail Enquiries or the Trainline app) — and if a replacement bus sneaks in, we hope the day makes up for it.
Read Jess's diary of the day ↓
Jess's Day Off · Diary No. 7
Cambridge: Chapels, Punts, and a Whale in the Hall
Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
I woke up at 6am, which for a day off counts as a lie-in. The meerkats were still in my head, but I told them firmly that today was about a different kind of animal watching.
The journey
King’s Cross to Cambridge, fifty minutes on the fast train — barely time for the flask of tea, let alone the cheese sandwich. I had my notebook with two pages of Barnaby’s latest dictation (a hedgehog, a moonlit pond, a misunderstanding about jam — I’ll tell you when it’s finished), and a plan that said only “clever city, see what happens.”
The arrival
Cambridge station, and the first thing I noticed was the bicycles. Hundreds of them, parked in rows like patient metal sheep. No lion roars, no parrot opinions — just bells, and students hurrying somewhere terribly important, and spires doing their best to look casual about being eight hundred years old.
The walk
I did the Backs first, along the river, watching the punts slide past King’s with their nervous passengers. Then I took one wrong turn — my mandatory one — and instead of the chapel found myself in front of the David Attenborough Building. The rule of day trips held: the wrong turn was the right one.
Because inside is the University Museum of Zoology, and it is free, and hanging over the entrance hall is a 21-metre fin whale skeleton. I stood underneath it for a full ten minutes. At the zoo I measure animals in wheelbarrows of fish; this one would need a trawler. There were Darwin’s actual finches from the Beagle, in a drawer, labelled in handwriting. I may have squeaked. A small child looked at me with great respect.
Down by the Cam afterwards I watched the swans — big, bossy, unbothered — and a moorhen doing its frantic-paddle impression between the punts. Same energy as our penguins at feeding time, half the fish.
The café
The Whale Café, right there in the museum — coffee under the whale’s ribs. I sat with my notebook and wrote “TRAWLER” in capital letters and underlined it twice, in case the story needed reminding.
Lunch
Bread & Meat on Bene’t Street — the porchetta ciabatta, crackling and all, eaten on a bench while a queue formed behind me and I pretended not to feel smug about having beaten it.
Home
Back in London by early evening. Tired, a bit windswept, notebook smelling faintly of pork crackling and museum dust. Happy.
Story seed
The fin whale did it. Twenty-one metres of gentle giant hanging over a room full of schoolchildren, and nobody was scared — everybody was delighted. I’m writing a scene where Clarence meets an animal ten times his size and discovers it’s the gentlest creature in the wood, and Pinafor has to learn that big doesn’t mean frightening. Barnaby says that’s the whole book in one image. He’s probably right.
Barnaby's text“You stood under a whale today and took notes instead of photographs — that’s a keeper’s eye, Jess. The great naturalists started exactly where you are: curious, careful, and kind to small things. Keep going; the animals can tell.”
— Jess
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