A perfect day in Cambridge

Get your bearings with a bird’s eye view of the city. Make your way to Great St Mary’s Church. One short climb up a steep and windy staircase later and you’ll be at the top of a tower with views over Cambridge’s pretty spires.

You can’t visit Cambridge without peeking into the colleges, with their perfectly mowed lawns and grand libraries. King’s College is one of the most famous, but Corpus Christi and St Catharine’s are just as stunning. Extra Cambridge points if you rent a bike and explore on two wheels.

Grab a bite to eat at Market Square. It’s like an outdoor version of Greenwich Market minus the crowds. Or eat at local fave the Old Bicycle Shop. It used to be – you guessed it – a shop that sold bikes. It dates back to the 1800s and Charles Darwin is rumoured to have once bought a bike from there.

Cambridge Arts Theatre is a total gem that welcomes new shows each week, while the Fitzwilliam Museum, home to art and antiquities, gives the British Museum a run for its money. Don’t miss Kettle’s Yard, an art gallery and the former home of Jim Ede, a curator at the Tate.

Cambridge Wine Merchants is part shop, part bar, with floor-to-ceiling shelves stuffed with bottles of vino from all over the world. Fancy a pint? Seventeenth-century pub The Eagle is doused in history. It’s where Watson and Crick announced their findings on DNA, and has graffiti by WWII airmen on the walls and ceiling.

Pack a picnic, pick up a punt from Scudamore’s and glide down the River Cam to Grantchester Meadows. Got there in one piece? Enjoy your alfresco nibbles among the greenery. Don’t turn your nose up at punting just because it’s an obvious Cambridge pursuit – it really is lovely.

Just off Parker’s Piece – the city common that links ever-charming Mill Road and the train station with the centre – the University Arms is Cambridge’s oldest hotel, and also its most beautiful. The former coaching inn now has the feel of a particularly grandiose university college, with books dotted all over the place and eccentric touches galore (shout-out to the recording of Alan Bennett reading ‘Wind in the Willows’ in the loos). The rooms are comfy, the service is warm, and the food at the on-site Parker’s Tavern is exceptional. Here you’ll feel both pampered and at home – quite something. From £200 a night.