Cambridge is small and can be explored on foot, so expect to walk for most of your visit. There are no hills in the centre of town. Take a stroll along the Backs between Garret Hostel Lane and King's Bridge.

View the beautiful gardens along the Backs by hiring a boat on the river. Don't miss Clare College Fellows Gardens and Clare Bridge. Try your hand at punting - punts can be rented by the hour from many locations on the River Cam (see links page). An alternative is to take one of the chauffeur-punts, where in half an hour the chauffeur (usually a Cambridge student) will whisk you from Silver Street Bridge to Magdalene Bridge and back again. You should get a potted history and some amusing anecdotes thrown in by your guide.

Cambridge has many other places of interest; please see descriptions of activities and attractions listed below. Alternatively visit our links page for each attraction’s individual website.

Things to see and do around Cambridge

King’s College
Before Henry VIII, the monarchs of England focused their patronage mainly upon King's College and, lying next to it, Queens’ College. Both contain some beautiful buildings. King's College chapel would do as a cathedral in most other towns. It is one of the most sublimely beautiful buildings in Cambridge. Started in 1438 and completed 100 years later it is the emblem of Cambridge. Forget the Rubens painting at the altar that is valued at £20,000,000 - look instead at the wonderful fan-vaulted ceiling, the technological marvel of its age. A guided tour is well worthwhile as is attendance at a service when the choir sings.

Queens’ College and the Mathematical Bridge
Queens’ College Master's lodge and the Mathematical Bridge. Try to visit the lodge for an open-air performance of a Shakespeare play in May Week, in June. The Mathematical Bridge was the first bridge in the world to be designed according to mathematical analysis of the forces in it.

The Fitzwilliam Museum
The Fitzwilliam Museum was founded in 1816 by the bequest of the VIIth Viscount Fitzwilliam of Merrion to the University of Cambridge and contains magnificent collections of works of art and antiquities of national and international importance. They comprise antiquities from Ancient Egypt, Sudan, Greece and Rome, Roman and Romano-Egyptian Art, Western Asiatic displays and a new gallery of Cypriot Art; applied arts, including English and European pottery and glass, furniture, clocks, fans, armour, Chinese, Japanese and Korean art, rugs and samplers; coins and medals; illuminated, literary and music manuscripts and rare printed books; paintings, including masterpieces by Simone Martini, Domenico Veneziano, Titian, Veronese, Rubens, Van Dyck, Hals, Canaletto, Hogarth, Gainsborough, Constable, Monet, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne and Picasso and a fine collection of 20th century art; miniatures, drawings, watercolours and prints.

Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
The Museum contains large and important collections of archaeological and anthropological material from all parts of the world. The archaeological collections from all periods include significant collections from Palaeolithic Europe, Asia and Africa; Precolumbian Central and South America; early civilizations of the Mediterranean; and British archaeology. The world-renowned anthropological collections include important collections from the South Seas, West Africa and the Northwest Coast of North America; historic collections from the 18th century; and extensive photographic collections from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Cambridge University Library
The University Library contains one of the greatest collections of books and manuscripts in the world. It provides a number of services, some of which are only available to members of the University.

Exhibitions:
The Library exhibitions centre hosts a series of changing exhibitions, which run for approximately six months at a time, allowing the riches of its collections to be shown to the general public.

Museum of Classical Archaeology
The 'Ark' houses one of the largest collections of plaster casts of Greek and Roman statues in the world - over 600 casts of almost all the major pieces of classical sculpture. The collection was gathered together in the late nineteenth century to provide material for studying ancient art in Cambridge (the Victorians called it their 'archaeological laboratory'). The museum is part of the Faculty of Classics and is still used for University teaching; it also welcomes visitors and (pre-booked) school parties.

Whipple Museum of the History of Science
The Whipple Museum is a pre-eminent collection of scientific instruments and models, dating from the Middle Ages to the present. Included in this outstanding collection are microscopes and telescopes, sundials, early slide rules, pocket electronic calculators, laboratory equipment and teaching and demonstration apparatus. The Main Gallery of the Museum is housed in a large hall with Elizabethan hammer-beam roof-trusses, built in 1618 as the first Cambridge Free School. Other galleries include discover which displays a wide array of scientific instruments, the new Victorian Parlour, with plenty of handling activities for children, and the Reserve Gallery, which is open during school holidays. The Museum is part of the Department of History and Philosophy of Science and plays an important role in the Department's teaching and research.

The Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences
One of the University's many hidden treasures, and actually its oldest museum, the Sedgwick is packed full of fossils with more than 1 million in its collection. These range from the earliest forms of life from more than 3000 million years ago, to the wildlife that roamed the Fens less than 150,000 years ago. The museum was built in memory of Adam Sedgwick and started with Dr John Woodward's bequest of his fossil collection in 1728 (still on display in its original cabinets).

Displays include a gallery of minerals and gemstones, the world's largest spider, rocks collected by Charles Darwin on the 'Voyage of the Beagle', dinosaurs from the Jurassic and Triassic, and fossils from the local area including a hippopotamus from the nearby Barrington gravel pits.

University Museum of Zoology
The University Museum of Zoology, reopened in October 2001 after refurbishment, displays a great range of recent and fossil animals, emphasising the structural diversity and evolutionary relationships among the animal kingdom. The collections were accumulated from 1814 onwards, and include many specimens collected by Charles Darwin. They are now housed in a spacious modern building on two floors. The lower gallery presents a striking array of mammals, many as mounted skeletons that are appreciated as much by art students as biologists. This gallery also houses a near-comprehensive display of British birds. The upper gallery houses systematic displays of the major animal groups, exhibits that trace the origin and evolution of land vertebrates (not just dinosaurs!), and a notable collection of beautiful shells. To find the museum, look for the spectacular whale skeleton, hung above the entrance and visible through the archway from Downing Street.

Kettle's Yard
Kettle's Yard is the former home of Jim and Helen Ede and houses the fine collection of art, from the early part of this century, which they gave to the University. Artists represented include Ben Nicholson, Christopher Wood, Alfred Wallis, David Jones, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska.
There is a separate gallery for exhibitions of contemporary art, which are widely advertised and detailed on the website. A lively programme of lectures, workshops and discussion groups accompanies each exhibition.

Botanic Garden
The Botanic Garden was founded in 1846 by John Stevens Henslow, Professor of Botany, best remembered for inspiring his pupil Charles Darwin with a love of natural history. The Garden comprises 40 acres with many fascinating features including a lake, glasshouses, Winter Garden, Chronological Bed, Rock Gardens, and a superb collection of mature trees. The Garden holds nine National Collections, including Geranium and Fritillaria. The 10,000 species in the Garden are held for scientific purposes, but have been laid out with superb horticultural skill to provide a rich aesthetic experience. A must to visit in the summer – a haven of peace and tranquility and also a good place to rest the feet!

The Herbarium
The University Herbarium, begun in 1761, houses an internationally famous collection of over 1 million pressed, mounted, and named plant specimens arranged in systematic order. Specimens from around the world have been added to the collection as a result of purchases, gifts, exchanges and benefactions. The Herbarium, contains some 50,000 type specimens. It is famous for its historic collections, for example, the plant specimens collected by Charles Darwin on the voyage of the 'Beagle', and the John Lindley Herbarium with its many new species collected on nineteenth-century expeditions to unexplored places in North America and Australia. The Herbarium also has a unique collection of taxonomic books and floras.

Scott Polar Research Institute
The Institute was founded in 1920 in memory of the late Captain R.F. Scott and his companions who perished while returning from the South Pole. Its purpose is to be a centre for research and information on both polar regions, and it has become one of the most important repositories for Arctic and Antarctic data. The Institute includes a museum, which displays maps, journals, paintings, photographs, clothing equipment, artefacts, and other materials illustrating polar exploration and related activities. A special exhibition is arranged annually and there are public lectures.

The New Cavendish Laboratory
The museum in the New Cavendish Laboratory, Madingley Road. If you are a physicist you will enjoy sitting down at Maxwell's old desk or seeing the vacuum tube used by JJ Thompson when the electron was discovered. The photographs of Cavendish people are worth looking at too. No crowds for this delightful, small museum.

Downing College
Spacious, quiet buildings with a grand design.

Magdalene College
Beautiful gardens and buildings. The Samuel Pepys library is here but jealously guarded - don't expect to get to see it.

Fitzbillies confectionery shop
Get some of those famous sticky buns. You can even buy them boxed and ready to be posted.

Emmanuel College
Americans may want to visit Emmanuel College because several famous Americans (then not-famous Brits) went to settle in America after studying at Emma. For example William Penn (of Pennsylvania fame) and Mr Harvard.

ADC Theatre
The ADC theatre (by Jesus Lane) is where many famous actors and comedians have started their careers. Try to see the Footlights review - preferably after it comes back from the Edinburgh festival (October) when the students have had a chance to hone their performances. Keep the programme and maybe in a few years you will see some names re-appear on television.

The Eagle Pub
The roof of one of the bars in the Eagle pub has names and squadron names left by airmen stationed around Cambridge during the Second World War - many American. The names were scorched on using cigarette lighters. There are some pictures to see. If this is of interest then you should also visit the American Cemetery outside Cambridge (Madingley - west of Cambridge 2 miles) and/or the Imperial War Museum at Duxford (south of Cambridge about 15 miles by the M11).

The American Cemetery outside Cambridge
Visit the cemetery and the unusual Chapel. The site, thirty and a half acres in extent, was donated by the University of Cambridge. It lies on a north slope with wide prospect. The west and south sides of the cemetery are framed by woodland. There are 3,812 American military Dead buried there. On the wall running from the entrance to the chapel are inscribed the names of 5,126 Americans who gave their lives in the service of their country, but whose remains were never recovered or identified. Most of these died in the Battle of the Atlantic or in the strategic air bombardment of Northwest Europe during World War II.

The Meadows
Located between Silver Street Bridge and Fen Causeway. There are some nice footbridges to explore, waterfowl to admire, a good children's open-air play area and a secluded swimming pool formerly for university dons (allegedly for nude bathing). Also a good place to rest and eat - watch out for the cows. Unfortunately, the busy Fen Causeway cuts through the meadows.

The Technology Museum
The Technology Museum, Cheddars Lane off Newmarket Road. A bit off the beaten track but you can get there by following the river out north-east, but stay on the south side of the river - look out for a tall, brick chimney. Check on opening times as volunteers run the museum. This is a museum for steam enthusiasts and environmentalists. It is the disused surface water pumping station for Cambridge built in Victorian times. It has an old steam pumping engine and a couple of newer, town-gas pumping engines. An old boiler used to be fired using waste from the city (hence the environmental angle) otherwise the pollution from the chimney was presumably terrible.

Trinity College
Trinity College main gate and main courtyard. Over the gate there is a statue of King Henry VIII holding an orb and... a wooden chair leg. Get the story about the undignified chair leg by going on a guided tour of Cambridge organized by the tourist office.

Trinity Chapel
Trinity Chapel is worth a visit but not particularly for the architecture nor for the atmosphere nor for the choir but it's worth visiting to see statues and plaques about some of its old-boys: Isaac Newton is probably best known but Lord Byron went there too with his pet bear. Trinity boasts more Nobel prizewinners than a certain major European nation so the list of old boys is impressive. King Henry's influence lives-on!

Trinity Gardens
Trinity gardens, overlooking the river, next to the Wren Library during May week in June when a choir arrives to sing madrigals.

St John’s College Chapel
Take a look at the stunning view from the top of St John's College Chapel.

St Mary’s Church
Enjoy the view from the top of Great St Mary’s Church but don't be on the stairs when the bells are ringing!

The Erasmus Building
Located within St John's College this is the oldest surviving building in Cambridge but access to it is restricted.