Rebekah Lucy Loves Cambridge

A couple of weeks ago Annalies and I took a day trip to Cambridge. It is adorable. And we are stupid. We simply got off the train and... had no idea what to do next. We knew we wanted to go punting, natch, so we took a quick look at a map, roughly committed a few street names to memory (key error: Annalies has a terrible memory, and I was operating on about three hours sleep as per the norm), and walked for approximately one hour in the wrong direction, culminating in someones driveway and a retrace of our own steps.

That little blip aside, we soon found the river, ambled along to Granta Moorings, and sat in the sunshine sipping pink cider and patting Luca the dog while we waited for our turn in a punt. I had delusions of grandeur and imagined we would do our own punting, but after watching a handful of grown muscle men trying and struggling, I pretty swiftly changed my mind and let Miles, our 11 year old* chauffeur take charge.

*I sometimes exaggerate for effect. Now that I am 30 everyone else looks approximately 11 to me.

Although 11, Miles knew a lot about the history of Cambridge - he's a local innit. He talked us through the history of the beautiful college buildings, and the various competitions that have taken place on the river (death on the Cam! Seriously! Or... according to Cambridge legend at least...). Miles talked, we floated. And lost all feeling in our buttocks. And collided with less experienced punters more than a few times. And worried about That There Baby Which Is Rather Precariously Perched On A Sloping Bank.

 

 

 

After the punt, we wandered back to The Anchor which had a really sweet view up the river. We inhaled some cheap wine (mmm, unsealed) and pub grub before making our way in to the city centre for exploring and photos. We ended up inside the King's College grounds - there may or may not have been a sign (there was) which said the school was closed, but we simply opened the gate and popped through for some photos. I also touched the green, green, softy, softy grass. And Annalies pole danced on a fancy lamp post. Out the other side, we found the river again and took some glamour shots on the bridge before making our way back through the grounds only to find the gate was... proper closed. Luckily it had some kind of hidden porthole to another dimension gate within a gate so the panic was only short lived and we didn't have to swim to safety.

 

 

Then we found another pub, had some cider, got a bit lost, ignored the men who wanted to touch my tattoos, and made our way back to the train station for the way-too-long-at-9pm-trek back to London.

Go to Cambridge. It's (b)romantic and pretty. Have a plan. Take a map. Punt. Pose on a bridge. Drink some cider. Worth it.