One of the best things about traveling with Millennium Tours on a study abroad in Great Britain is that you are so close to so many famous and historic cities. This week my friends and I went on a day trip to Cambridge. We took the London King’s Crossing line to the Cambridge station on a simple 49-minute train ride.
When we were first considering going to Cambridge, we had no idea what we wanted to do or what we wanted to see, all we knew was that it was insanely pretty. We started by asking professors and our best friend Google for some recommendations on what to do. One of the top-rated things to do was to go “Punting”. At first, I was confused because I thought it was a fancy way of saying put-put, but boy was I wrong. One of the best things about punting is that you can take a tour, or you can do it yourself. For us, since we have never been, we decided a guided tour would be in our best interest. We walked up to the waterfront and saw tons of boats with people standing on the back with an ore paddling through the water and that is when we discovered punting was a boat! Luckily for us, they were not busy and were able to get us in within five minutes on a tour with just me and my friends. As a part of this tour, not only did our guide paddle us around, but he also gave us a tour of the channel telling us all about the different colleges within Cambridge. My entire life I thought Cambridge University and Kings College were two completely different places, but Kings is a college within Cambridge University. Our tour guide had been to the states and knew the general location of where we were all from which was comforting. This punting tour has been one of my favorite tours I have been on since being in Great Britain.
When we first got off the train in Cambridge it looked like a normal place, but that quickly changed. Cambridge is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to. I loved how quaint and slow paced it was compared to the hustle and bustle of the city. There we tons of shops, places to eat, and on almost every corner there was a cute gelato cart. I remember walking down the main street in Cambridge and all our mouths dropped due to the beauty of it.
For lunch we went to the Cambridge Market Square where they had 20 plus vendors with all different types and styles of food as well as shops within. We were super lucky that the weather was on our side because it was not too hot or too cold and it was not crowded. Cambridge felt like, to me, as if it were straight out of a movie. It was peaceful and very hard to get lost in. We had all the streets down by hour four of walking aimlessly through the town.
For dinner our punting tour guide recommended this hole in the wall Italian restaurant, La Margarita, that had great prices as well as fantastic food. Our phrase of the day was “This is the best day ever!” and it really was. I am not sure how anything can top it. Honestly, I cannot think of a single thing I did not like about Cambridge. If you are ever in the UK, Cambridge is a must-see place.
