Cambridge – The Academic Town with its Own Charm

As one of the most famous ivory towers in the world, Cambridge has its own breadth and depth of cultural heritage and knowledge influence.

I met a few folks from Cambridge Publisher in the Frankfurt Book Fair in October, so after staying in London for a couple of days, I decided to visit Cambridge, the charming academic town with global influence.

After checking in at the hotel, I walked along the River Cam toward the center of the city. The water is clear, many poets, authors, artists wrote or painted River cam, there are enriched stories behind it. It was the drizzling rain at noon time, people were bicycling, walking, joking on the river bank, some were paddling the boat in the river, the surroundings look harmonious.

After more than 30 minutes’ walk, I was hungry, and found a small restaurant serving traditional English dishes, having some soup and slices of bread, I was crossing the main bus station, and heading toward the downtown area. Like London, Cambridge rains a lot in the winter time, especially in the early afternoon.

The University of Cambridge is composed of dozens of different colleges, distributed across the Cambridge area. The global strangers here answer quite many of my inquiries about streets, college directions. The downtown of Cambridge is just like the mini version of London, the same grocery chain store, coffee shop chains, brand name boutiques, and restaurants of all global flavors. The big Arcade shopping center has all sorts of stores, including the community library. Walking through it, you may reach different parts of downtown.

The river Cam flows smoothly across Cambridge, perhaps professors or students name bridges with some interesting names, inspiring their learning. One of the small bridges across the river inside Queen College is called Mathematics Bridge, very famous, because of her, I bought the ticket to visit the Queen College. It's a very nice environment, the Cam river flows quietly; a few students were studying on the river bank, some did exercises in the campus. Many tourists stood on the bridge to capture the beautiful picture of the river cam.

Exiting Queen’s college, going even deeper across the meadow, I saw the gate of King’s College, but the guardsmen there said they had some other arrangement at that afternoon, so we cannot visit inside. From outside, it looks very green and spacious.

Continually exploring deeper, asking around, I approached the gate of Cambridge University Library, but not everywhere open to the visitors. I am a bit disappointed, however, there is a small exhibition museum downstairs at the corner, in which you could see some political cartoons, history illustration, etc. Walking out of the library, exploring surroundings, I passed through Trinity college, a few gentlemen wore suits and high hats, exactly like the English gentlemen we saw in the movies which reflected the western lifestyles and societies in the 19th century. I asked them for directions, they were also very friendly, and showed me how to get back to the downtown area.

Just like the alley I went through , the deeper I walked through, the more scenes and views I could discover, but some of them were not opening. As one of the most famous ivory towers in the world, Cambridge has its own breadth and depth of cultural heritage, knowledge influence, also conservative traditions. The different colleges focus on a variety of subjects and academic research. The second day, I visited the Cambridge Publisher organization, their staff were also friendly and professional.

The other nice place I visited is Cambridge Botanic Garden, which is not so far away from the train station. It is delightful to immerse yourself into the shade of green in the deep autumn season. Plants, Landscape designs, flower nursery, fountains, meadows, etc, many students sit there painting, others hand ground, sipping coffee, chatting, truly a botanic light in Cambridge.

I lived in a couple of hotels across different directions of Cambridge. Learn to be a local, I took public transportation tools such as buses or trains to travel around. In the suburbs, usually there is at least one bus running across a different street. Very often I have to ask locals how to reach a specific address. Most areas are quiet and peaceful, making Cambridge one of the great places to visit.

Posted in: culture Master,Global Trips