Cambridge - Britain's Oldest University Town

There are few cities that boast the same kind of history as Cambridge, or which are quite as beautiful and welcoming during the summer months as this stunning city just an hour north of London, where the educational elite have traveled in order to complete their university degrees for more than five hundred years.

Cambridge is by far the leading center of learning in the United Kingdom, and the university is one of the most highly respected and oldest in the world. Only the University of Padua in Italy and the Academia in Athens are older, and the college system in use at Cambridge has been imitated at many of the other top seats of learning in the world including Harvard in the USA, which has been built in a town named Cambridge to capture the essence of the English city.

The River Cam is very much the lifeblood of Cambridge, and many of the most important buildings in the city, including many of the colleges of the University are located on its banks. The Chapel of Kings College, which boasts one of the finest choirs in the world, overlooks the water, and during the summer you will often see punts moving gently along the river with their pilots wearing the traditional dress of the river men.

There has always been a certain amount of tension between the residents of Cambridge and the students that attend the university thanks to the massive social divide between them. This has led to there being two separate towns when it comes to nightlife in Cambridge. The bars close to the main colleges have an almost exclusively student clientele, while further out from the university you will find a much wider variety of places to enjoy your evening out.

In common with nearby Oxford, the city's great rival, visitors to Cambridge will find that the city has been heavily influenced by the many students who have come to the city from all over the world and left their mark. Cambridge has a surprising variety of restaurant, and you can find authentic cuisine from all over the world in addition to sparkling conversation, and a lot of fun on an evening out in the city.