The Best of Cambridge Colleges in One Day
A Walking Tour taking in the Top Sights Including Trinity and Kings
The Cambridge Visitor Information Centre offers a two hour walking tour, which take in the best sights of this unique place. The tour, led by a qualified blue badge guide gives visitors an excellent snapshot of Cambridge and is ideal for those on a tight schedule or those staying a little longer who want to get an overview before delving a little deeper.
Highlights of the walking tour include:
The Eagle Pub
Students being students, Cambridge is not short of pubs. One of the first stops on this tour will be the Eagle Pub.
The Eagle has had a long and varied life since it opened as a coaching inn in 1667. During the 2nd World War, this was a popular haunt for fighter pilots, and the RAF bar has the signatures of some of the pilots burnt into the ceiling with lighters or candles.
This was also the place that one of the most important discoveries in history was announced. When Watson & Creek discovered the secret of DNA, they didn’t broadcast the fact in one of the colleges, they headed to the Eagle.
One of the most iconic buildings in Cambridge, Trinity College was founded by Henry VIII in 1546 as an amalgamation of two older colleges, Michaelhouse and King’s Hall.
One of Trinity’s most famous landmarks is its clock, which chimes the hour twice. This is the basis for the Great Court Run, featured in the film, ‘Chariots of Fire’. Runners race around Trinity’s Great Court, a distance of 341m in the 43 seconds the clock takes to strike Noon.
Trinity alumni include Francis Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton, Byron, Thackery and Tennyson, six Prime Ministers and 32 Nobel Prize winners.
Visitors with more time might like to see the Wren Library, which contains amongst others, a Shakespeare First Folio, Newton’s Principia Mathematica and A.A. Milne’s manuscript for Winnie the Pooh!
King’s was founded by Henry VI in 1441 and was intended to be fed exclusively by Eton School another educational establishment which enjoyed his patronage. King's College maintained this exclusivity for four centuries and only accepted Old Etonians.
Henry didn't see the college completed and it was the Tudor kings Henry VII and Henry VIII who were responsible for the college’s crowning glory, the Chapel.
King’s College Chapel is recognised as one of the finest medieval buildings in Europe and has a number of features which have miraculously survived the turbulence of English history.
Highlights include:
- the magnificent vaulted stone ceiling
- the rare 16th century stained glass windows depicting scenes from the Old and New Testament
- ‘The Adoration of the Magi’, masterpiece by the artist Reubens
Cambridge Visitor Information Centre
The Cambridge Visitor Information Centre
The Old Library,
Wheeler Street,
Cambridge,
CB2 3QB.
Walking tours leave daily at the following times:
- 10.30 July and August (not Sundays)
- 11.30 throughout the year (Not Sundays from Oct-Mar)
- 13.30 throughout the year
- 14.30 July and August
Costs:
- Adults £10.00.
- Concessions £8.50.
- Children (under 12) £5.00.
- Children (under 5) free.
Cambridge Travel
Do not drive to Cambridge if you can possibly help it. This is a very old town and not designed for motor traffic. If arriving by car for the day, use the excellent park and ride service at Madingley Road near J13 of the M11. Parking for the day costs £3.60 and a bus takes customers into the centre of Cambridge. The journey takes approximately 15 minutes, but can be more during rush hours.
Regular trains run from London’s Kings Cross Station with a journey time of approximately 45 minutes or Liverpool St. Station and the journey takes about 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Cambridge
|
What do you think about this article?
More in Travel
Latest Articles