A few weekends ago, to the scandal of several of our Oxonian friends, we took a trip to that unmentionable rival university town, Cambridge. We had high hopes – we had heard that it was even more beautiful than Oxford, and certainly those glamorous shots of punters on the river Cam with King’s College and its perfect green lawn made Cambridge seem like a lovely place to visit. I must say, however, that we were a bit disappointed…

I suppose that living in Oxford has turned us a little bit into Oxford snobs, but even with open minds, we were not as impressed with the city as we had hoped to be. We had a full day to spend there, and it was spent walking through the city centre streets, seeing the main University buildings and other landmarks that Kyle had researched. Early on, we made several observations, all favouring Oxford over Cambridge. First, Cambridge didn’t have the same feeling of a city centre, or medieval town, that Oxford does. True, the main colleges and churches are all on the same main street, but as a city, it felt much more spread out. The one benefit of this was there is space for some nice green parks, but at the same time, we prefer the dense buildings of the Oxford city centre (and being able to see the countryside from many spots in Oxford).

Surprisingly, Cambridge was also a lot more touristy than Oxford (at least, at this time of year). For example, while punting in Oxford finished at the end of autumn, Cambridge still had large tourist-geared punts in action on the River Cam. And it seemed that the city was more oriented to this industry than Oxford – Cambridge’s city centre seemed way more densely populated with boutique stores and big shopping malls. We visited several of the colleges (the ones that didn’t charge admission), and although they were very nice, they were exactly like those in Oxford. The Fitzwilliam Museum (which, as the University museum, I consider to be the rival of the Ashmolean!) was a beautiful building, but its collections and especially displays left something to be desired.

I realize this sounds horribly snobby! But I think what we realized is that once you have seen one of either Oxford or Cambridge, there is not much new to see in the other. And we do think Oxford is the nicer town of the two.

One special highlight of Cambridge, however, was our time in the King’s College. We attended an Evensong service (the clever way to see the college and chapel for free!), and it was quite incredible. The chapel is all the more magnificent from the inside, with beautiful stained glass that spanned all the walls. The choir was magnificent as well – and the reverb in that church!! Wow! I was especially glad when they sang my favourite setting of In Dulci Jubilo by Michael Praetorius. We were also lucky to be in Cambridge that day as it was the grand finale of the 800th anniversary celebrations of the University. There was an interesting light show of projections on various University buildings, including King’s College (see the pictures for an idea).

After spending a day in Cambridge, we took a small regional train to Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk. I had wanted to visit this town because it was the site of one of the most powerful Benedictine monasteries of medieval England, and it often came up in my studies in Toronto. Although the train let us off in a dodgy part of the town, we were delighted to eventually find a quaint little old town centre, with many neat things to see. We visited Moyse’s Hall, a medieval merchant’s house on the market square, now turned into a local history museum. There we saw many neat pieces of stonework and artifacts from the now ruined monastery.

Kyle was sad when the Greene King Brewery (which now owns many pubs all over the country) was closed for renovation. However, the situation redeemed itself somewhat when we were able to have a pint at Britain’s smallest pub, the Nutshell (also owned by Greene King), which had seating for just five people on benches around a tiny bar. Of course, my favourite part of the trip was visiting the abbey ruins, which were really neat. It is quite amazing to see just how much area the monastery’s grounds covered. The gardens surrounding the ruins had beautiful walking paths, and I could have spent many more hours than we had simply trying to imagine what the buildings would have looked like in their prime. I love being in England, where I can actually see these things!!

You can see all of the photos from the trip here. All in all, it was a fun weekend, and we hope to take more little trips around England when our schedules allow. The next trip will be to Bristol to visit friends from St Paul’s back in Halifax.