Citizens of the World: A Stoic Podcast for Curious Travelers - Cambridge, England: Explore the Best of this University City from Punting to Pubs

Episode Date: March 24, 2023

Today, we’re exploring the picturesque city of Cambridge, England, home — or at least temporary home — of some of the world’s greatest minds across the centuries. Cambridge is known for its prestigious university, beautiful architecture, and punting — and if you’re not sure what that is, you’ll know by the end of this episode. I’m back with tour guide Sib Jackson, who’s here to share insider tips on the must-sees and hidden gems of this historic city with cobbled streets and breathtaking spires of the colleges. Sit back, relax, and soak in some travel inspiration for this charming city. Are you living the life you want to live, or are you ready for something braver and bolder? 👉 https://sarahmikutel.com/Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

Welcome to Live Without Borders, a podcast about how to live the good life through stoicism, personal development, and cultural exploration. I'm your host, Sarah Megatel, an American in England who's here to help fellow citizens of the world like you make the most of the brief time you have here on Earth. It is time to make every moment matter. Today we are exploring the picturesque city of Cambridge, England, home or at least temporary home, to some of the world's greatest minds across the centuries. Cambridge is famous for its prestigious university, its beautiful architecture, punting, and if you're not sure what punting is, you will know by the end of this episode. I am back with tour guide, Sibb Jackson, and she is going to share some insider tips on the hidden gems and mustsees of this historic city. You'll see cobblestone streets, the breathtaking

spires of the colleges. So sit back, relax, and soak in some travel inspiration in case you ever find yourself in this charming city? Well, I would love to learn more about Cambridge. So, first of all, how old is Cambridge? Can you give us sort of a brief history? And then how did it become a popular university town? Happy, happy to. Now, it's funny because when you visit Cambridge nowadays and the university is omnipresent, there isn't just one campus or so. It permeates the whole of town. There's 31 colleges, A lot of them in the center of town, some a bit further field. They're the faculties, their lecture theaters, their seminar rooms. So it's everywhere and nowhere.

People often think, oh, maybe this whole town started with a university, which is, of course, incredibly old. It's over 800 years old now. It's the fifth oldest in the world. So it has been here for absolutely forever. But actually, the history of the town is much, much older. And the sort of significant period in terms of a settlement really occurred during Roman times when the Romans came all the way up here to their probably not-so-beloved Britannia, one of their outposts from the Roman Empire. They also settled in Cambridge, like they had done in London, of course, Londinium, as they called it, various other cities in the south, because they obviously came over the channel.

and on their way up north to the Midlands, then also later all the way up to Scotland, although of course they never took Scotland because the Scots were very fierce. They settled in Cambridge as well. And that's for two reasons. Often, of course, they like to settle near a river and we have the river Cam in Cambridge.

It's a tiny river. It's maybe a fifth of the widths of the Thames. But it was a navigable. river, a river that also gave them access to the North Sea, because it does flow into the North Sea from here. And at this juncture, where Cambridge now is, there was also an ancient trading route, very, very old trading route from the eastern part of East Anglia, which is this part of England we are in, all the way to the Midlands. Midlands, I mean, sort of Birmingham, Nottingham, that sort of area. And so they settled here to explore.

the trading route and the river and made this the sort of first settlement really and they were here the Romans were here for several centuries then came the Anglo-Saxons they were here from the 5th century till about the 11th

then of course the Normans were here after the Norman conquest in the 11th century William the Conqueror had a sheriff installed here and oversaw a lot of building work also churches, monasteries. The market, the old market square in Cambridge, comes from that period, so it's very, very old.

And so this town was already quite built up by the time the first students arrived in the early 13th century. It had already 12 churches standing here, the market, as I mentioned, a couple of monasteries. So a busy place, even comparable to London and York further up north in those days. So the civic history is in a way certainly precedes university history, but also has a certain independent life even nowadays.

And you may have heard of this expression town versus gown. Yeah. A town and gown that is the residence of Cambridge as one group town against or with the people connected to the university. Because of course a gown, which is a black dress that students and students, all members of the universities had to wear every day up to about 1850, 1860. Nowadays, you only see them for wearing this for special occasions like graduation or formal hall dinners, that sort of thing. I wondered what the gown reference was to town gown.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's quite interesting. It's this, well, academic dress, I think it is. And it's basically just a plain sort of three-quarter length. gown that you put over your normal clothing. And when you become a student here, you have to either hire one or buy one because you do need it. You need it for the sort of, they're called formal whole dinners.

They occur in your college on a regular basis and have a bit more of a sort of celebratory character than just a normal dinner that you can get every day. And you're still required to wear for that. course the same for graduation and things like that. So special, special occasions. So you see students and academics running around with their gowns quite regularly, actually still in Cambridge. Interesting. What are some other Cambridge traditions? This is what's so interesting about Cambridge these crossroads of, you know, a long, long tradition and at the same time being an incredibly modern, dynamic, top university in the world. And that tension that that creates or dynamic is what

fascinates me really about this place. So, well, let's talk about Latin maybe, the language of Latin, because that was the teaching language at the university for a long time, until, again, this period of a great modernizing reform in the 19th century. So Latin was the language that everything was taught at, and there were even some colleges that demanded from their students that no other language than Latin would be. spoken within the college walls up to that point. And so we still have a bit of Latin

left in Cambridge, the graduation ceremony. So if you've done, you've finished your degree and you want to do your ceremony, you go to Senate House where they take place and that ceremony is entirely in Latin still. There's not a single English word spoken in the ceremony. then I already mentioned these formal whole dinners that the colleges organize and every college has their own grace, which is a saying or a proverb that is said before you then sit down for the dinner and eat together. And that's all in Latin and you're supposed to be learning that as a student to be able to say it at any moment in time.

And even it was 10 or 15 years ago, so there was a wave of graffiti occurring in town around various buildings that the students had put on and the graffiti was in Latin as well so it's quite funny so Cambridge isn't it so that's definitely a tradition that is in some respect still alive here then of course the varsity matches I should mention as a long tradition here as well varsity teams are the university sports teams which obviously include the best sports members of the university for any kind of sport. The most important ones are rowing, rugby, cricket, possibly a bit of field hockey tennis as well. But the varsity team represents the University of Cambridge against the University of Oxford,

because of course that is the age-old competition with Oxford. and, for example, the varsity Cambridge-Oxford boat race, which is the rowing race on the River Thames every year, actually happening in three weeks' time at the end of March, has existed for over 170 years now where the best rowers of Cambridge try and beat the hell out of the best rowers of Oxford every year. And that happens in every sports discipline. And what happens in town on that day?

Are people out there watching and like drinking and drinking and stuff? Yes, very much so. Yeah, very much so. So there are various pubs that offer, you know, because it's on television. It's televised. You can see it. There are, I think they put a big screen on Park Spies as well. It's all been different now because of COVID.

Of course, there were no, no, no competition, no boat race for two years. So last year was again the first one in April last year. So, yeah. But it's something. everybody wants to watch and it's quite, you know, it's quite a thing to sort of celebrate on the day. That rivalry with Oxford goes back a long time, right? Like, in fact, it has something to do with the founding of Cambridge as a university town. Could you talk a little bit about that history? Yes, it has because when the very, very first students arrived in Cambridge in the year

1209, we know the exact year, they were sort of refugees, refugee students and they were from Oxford. So Oxford is an even older university than Cambridge by about 100 years or so. I mean, you know, we're talking about universities in a very embryonic state, obviously then. And why did they leave Oxford then? Because, as I was mentioning earlier, town and gown tensions were at a height in Oxford in those early days, with residents of Oxford really resenting the fact that the students in in Oxford were enjoying a lot of privileges, that their college buildings were built on premises that had been occupied by domestic dwellings. They had to make way for university and college buildings, etc., etc.

And so it became quite unsafe for the Oxford students there because there were skirmishes, there were riots by the local residents, even public. hangings of some students, believe it or not. Wow. And so for a period of time, Oxford was basically vacated by the students there. They went to various different places and some came to Cambridge, most probably because there was already a sort of Christian center here with the churches and the monasteries. Of course, monasteries we know from history have always been places of education and scholarship

and centers of training priests as well. So, and most probably the Oxford students were invited here by the local bishop, the bishop of Ely, had to come and stay here at least temporarily. But of course, what they did is found another university, found a rival university. So, yes, Cambridge was founded by Oxford student. I think that's fair to say. We've accepted that. I think Cambridge is.

also a town that attracts a lot of visitors. So if you had friends visiting for the weekend, where would you take them? Ah, there's so much to see in Cambridge. And it's wonderful. The town center itself is very compact. Cambridge is actually quite a small town. And so you can walk around in a very leisurely way to see the highlights. Now, the first place I always like to show people is Kings College Chapel, because when you, and this is where our tours start as well, When you are on Kings Parade, you see the magnificence of that college, King's College, with its wonderful, wonderful chapel from the mid-15th, early 16th century, right there with such a dominant place in town. And it's absolutely beautiful.

And then I take them over the river because I remember when I came to Cambridge and I cycled over one of those bridges on my first day of term in. October, 1993, that was, over to the history faculty. And it was a beautiful golden autumn day, and I was cycling over this bridge. And I couldn't quite believe how beautiful a place it was, this conjunction of old stone architecture, green spaces, the river. It was just a sight to behold. And I always like to replicate that with people when I take them around. and I often get these comments. People are really astounded

how just visually beautiful a place it is and that's the first thing I want to show people. And then I guess I take them to places a little bit according to their interest. If it's, for example, people who are interested in art, I will take them either to the Fitzwilliam Museum, which is a really impressive beautiful art museum in Cambridge, quite a big one,

Or I take them to a more intimate place, which is Kettles Yard Museum. And I'm actually part of the music committee of Kettle's Yard, because they hold chamber music concerts there as well. Kettles Yard is a tiny museum up on Castle Hill that is actually originally an artist's or art historian's house that he created together with his wife. He basically put five old cottages together and made one big, space out of them and packed it full with artworks by his friends because he knew all the artists

in England from the 1950s, 1960s. That's when he lived there. And when he died, he gave the house to the university and they turned it into a museum. So you can still walk into this house, how Jim Ead, that's the name of this artist, how he lived there with his wife. So you still have this really intimate sense of a lived-in house. Plus now it has a contemporary art gallery attached to it as well, a modern art gallery with changing exhibitions. And in the living room, basically, of this couple, you can hear the concerts. And it's a completely unique place. You used to ring a sort of bell, and then somebody would come out of one of the rooms in Kettle's yard and open the door for you. Now it's become a little bit more professional, but it's still.

free of charge and you can still wander around the house at your own pace and sort of marvel at somebody's incredibly good taste in furniture and artworks and even rugs. You know, it's kind of unique to Cambridge. And Jemid made all this wonderful provisions, for example. He made provisions for artworks to be taken down from his walls to be lent to students. So that can still happen. You can go in there as a student and say, I'd like this. artwork on my wall in my student room for this term. Can I have it, please? Oh, that's a step up from all of like the Van Goghs that prints that are hanging on most college students. That's quite a step up, I agree. And he also made provisions for concerts to take place there. And that, that's a tradition

that's still going on there. And it's a very intimate space and it's of course how chamber music should be experienced. And I'm very happy and honored to be part of the committee there to keep that going and to encourage all of that. Sticking with music, where else do you like to listen to music in town? And also, if we wanted to listen to cathedral music, is that something we would need to book in advance? How does that work? Yeah.

So all the college chapels in Cambridge have their own choirs. They are, of course, students. And then you have the very famous, very old choirs attached to some of the larger colleges, most famously, of course, Kings. King's College Choir is world-famous choir. They also have boys attached to the college. They go to King's College School and become choristers of the choir. St. John's College has something very similar.

And these choir sing what is called the Coral Evensong in the College Chapels. This used to be just for the sort of community of each college, but there are acts of public worship, according to the Anglican right, the right of the Anglican church are very, very traditional. But this choral singing that happens in these chapels, and I must say, of course, King's is wonderful in its own right because the acoustic at King's College Chapel is so great as well. But a lot of these choirs are of incredible high standard, the singing.

It's really a thing in Cambridge. And so you can go into these chapels and therefore also actually see a little bit of these colleges when they hold their even songs, usually in the sort of late afternoon, early evening, and experience this singing and this worship in those places, really, and they all offer it in one way or another. Kings does it every day. Some of the larger colleges do it several times a week, smaller ones maybe just once a week. But this is still something I love doing, and I particularly like taking people to as well,

to one of these chorale even songs. And of course, Kings is always the great one to go to because you have this wonderful architecture around you as well. But smaller colleges like Claire or Gonville and Keys, they have much smaller chapels, but the choirs are exquisite. And you really spend an hour, as long as you're okay with a Christian worship, this kind of one hour of contemplation with wonderful music. And, yeah, it's a sort of meditative hour, really. I see it like that.

That you can get a sort of sense of a particular historical aspect, activity in Cambridge. That's still very much alive, very much alive. So that's one way to see part of the college. And I think you can also tour the colleges as well. How does that work? Yeah. I mean, it's such a shame in a way. Because when I came here as a student in the early 90s,

especially if you were a student already, but also if you just sort of casually walked in, there were no entry fees to any colleges. I remember, though, during the exam term, which is the summer term starting after Easter until the exams in early June, all the colleges are always shut to the general public because they want maximum quietness

for the students to prepare for exams. But the other term, so October to Christmas, January to Easter, usually you could just walk into the colleges and have a look around. It was all very informal and relaxed. And then at some point, some started charging entry fee because especially Kings, and that was one of the first, gets a lot of visitors. And I think the community of Kings was complaining a little bit about how busy it was. And so they turned a dilemma into a money-making machine, basically, and started charging

entry fees. And other colleges followed suit that felt they, you know, were of particular historical interest, had a beautiful architecture attached to it. So St. John's College and Queen's College and some others also started charging

entry fees and others. And I guess maybe it has to do just with the intensification of tourism in Cambridge that they had to regulate this a little bit more. So they have now visiting hours. Some colleges now are actually completely shut to the public like Trinity because it's also quite a famous college that gets usually a lot of sort of day visitors.

So it's become a little bit more organized, unfortunately, but you can go into colleges. And I always on my tours point out the colleges that luckily you can still just walk into as a tourist and get a sort of sense of, you know, what a college looks like and what the atmosphere is. If we can only visit one, which one should we visit? Oh, that's a tricky one, Sarah, and I will probably have to go for my college, which is Queens, because it's a beautiful old college from the mid-15th century. And in a kind of blessing of disguise, it's relative poverty. Queens has never been a very rich college. So in the early centuries, after it was built and opened, this was sort of in the later 15th century, it never had enough money to. to upgrade its buildings, like other colleges did already then, you know, get a new chapel in the 17th century, build a bigger dining hole in the mid-19th century.

Queens never had that money. So that means the old section of that college is completely intact from the 15th, early 16th century. It consists of two cloisters, two courtyards. And they are, it's really like a time warp when you walk in there. And it's worth paying a five or four to go in. So it's not as a. expensive as King's or St. John's anyway. And you get this feel of this scholastic, almost monastic place, actually, because they look a bit like monasteries, these old colleges. And how tiny and intimate they were as well, the early colleges. We're talking about a tiny chapel, tiny dining hall that sits maybe at the most 80 people or so. Because of course, when it was founded, it was originally founded for, I think, 25 scholars plus a few of their teachers.

That was it. That was the community of Queens when it started out. And now it has 800 students and about a hundred staff, academic and administrative. So it's come a long, long way. But it has really retained this 15th century atmosphere of an old college. And that's really worth visiting. So I would take them there first. What else should we see in Cambridge if we are history lovers? Ah, well, I also recommend going up Castle Hill. That is the only hill in Cambridge, because this whole area is very, very flat, part of the fence. On Castle Hill, it's just a little bit over the river. It goes up for about 40, 50 meters, so nothing very dramatic. But up there were the earliest settlements in Cambridge. And there are sort of, you know, signs where you're can read about the settlements that were there from prehistoric times through Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Norman times. The Normans actually build a big castle up there. None of that is left. But you can walk up that grassy mound and have a beautiful view over the city.

And it really smells of history that place. So it's a great sort of place to go and to find your bearings a little bit in town and point out a few of the bigger buildings that you can see in the distance. and so that's another lovely place to go. I would probably recommend people also to either walk along the river a little bit or take a punt, go punting, go on the river boats that take you through the old colleges in Cambridge. Is punting like a boat that you, I think I read that it's one of the ones,

are you standing and you've got like that pole? Yeah, I don't know if you saw them, Sarah, for remember, yes, It's quite a flat, a wooden boat, quite long, maybe five, six meters long, and you can sit about five or six people in it. And on the back, there is a sort of wooden platform. And that's where the punter stands. And he has a very long pole. It's called the punt pole. And with that, you push the boat forward because the river is quite shallow.

So you use that to both steer and push the boat forward. And that's what the punters do. And it's quite difficult. Actually, I've done it many times. But at the beginning, oh my God, I fell into the river a lot because you can lose your balance or the punt pole gets stuck in the mud or something. And if you don't let it go, you fall in. So in the summer, lots of people fall in.

And it's a great laugh. I think I'm having like a scene of, was it Bridgett's own story? Hugh Grant's character, Fallon, I think. I think that's what I'm thinking of. It's a very, like, classic English thing. It's done in Oxford as well. They also do punt, but the river in Oxford doesn't go right through the middle of town

as it does in Cambridge. So you really can see sort of some of the colleges from inside. And it's very, very beautiful, and it's a very popular thing to do. And even... So do you rent, do you go and have somebody else punt you around? Are you doing it yourself? Where can you do?

do this? Lots of places in Cambridge. It's a highly competitive market these days. There are quite a lot of outlets that offer it. And I always encourage people who come on the tour to practice their bargaining skills with the various punt companies to not get ripped off. Yeah, you can do it at various places around town. There are three bridges that have sort of punting outlets attached to them. And you can see that the puns sort of parked in rows, you know, quite a lot of them there. So one is on Silver Bridge, actually where my college is Queens. And the other main outlet is on the other side of city near Mordland Bridge. And in between, maybe it's sort of a mile or so, I would say, or river.

You go through, as I said, the sort of the old college centers. And it's a really special thing to do. And you will hire usually one with a chauffeur. They're called chauffeurs. Don't ask me why. And they are perhaps a little bit like us tour guides equipped with historical facts and, you know, historians of student pranks and competition between the various neighboring colleges and things. And it's a great entertaining thing to do.

And of course, in the winter you have to wrap yourself up in a blanket, but in the summer you usually, you know, do it to a sipping a bottle of champagne or some pins or something. and, you know, have entertainment in that sort of way. It's really good fun. So when I do it with visitors, I punt myself. So I go to Queens because I can still hire their puns there as a member of the college. And then we'll do it. And it's great, great fun.

And I let my friends try it as well. And they, of course, also fall into the rivers. We'll have a laugh. We'll have a laugh. So don't wear nice clothes when you're on that. And bring lots of drink. What should we be eating and drinking in Cambridge? Are there any local foods we should try?

Where should we go for traditional food? Oh, so the first thing to say about it is that when I first arrived in Cambridge in the mid-90s, this was not a place to go for food, really. You know, the colleges served okay food, but, I mean, there was one pizzeria in town at one maybe okay curry house, but now it's, changed for the better so much. We have so many more good restaurants in town now of all sorts of backgrounds. There isn't really a local cuisine. I mean, it would be English food. And so it's a matter of deciding, you know, do you want sort of more high-end pub food or English cuisine? You get

very high-end restaurants like Midsummer House that even has Michelin stars or restaurant 22. They serve modern English cuisine. It's a really wonderful place along the river. Or you go to places now like Aromi, which is a Sicilian place. So you get authentic Sicilian cuisine there. Very, very popular in town to go there. Or you go to a pub like the Eagle or the Maple, where you get sort of quite box standards,

pub lunches, fish and chips, you know, that sort of thing. steak and kidney pie. But I love that sometimes. I absolutely do. So with, you know, a pint of beer or something. So that's also something fun to do. Does the Chelsea bun have anything to do with Cambridge? I mean, I would assume it was tied to Chelsea.

But when I was like looking up things that people ate in Cambridge, that mentioned Chelsea Ben. That's served by one cafe. That's Fitzbelis. It's a very, very old cafe in town. Has existed for over 100 years. and they, I think they had a baker there who kind of knew about this Chelsea bun and then made it. And it became very famous.

What is the Chelsea bun? It's very sweet. It's a kind of yeasty, like a Danish pastry type swirl. And it has raisins and cinnamon and lots of sort of melted sugar on top. And when it's fresh, I mean, it comes out of the oven and they sort of make it by the tray. you go to Fitzbillies and eat it there. And I do this still occasionally. And then I've sort of had enough sugar intake for three weeks or so.

I've eaten one. Yeah, that's one very famous, quite local thing. They can really only get in Cambridge. That's absolutely true. But another thing, of course, is scones. You know, scones with cream tea and clotted cream. And a wonderful place to have that is the orchard tea rooms, which are about three miles out of Cambridge.

along the river in the next village, Grandchester. The orchard tea rooms is a really, literally an orchard of apple trees where you can then buy your, you know, cream tea in the hatch and then you go with your tray

to one of these wonderful tables underneath an apple tree and enjoy that there. That was visited by people like Virginia Woolf and poets, you know, World War I poets and so forth already in the 1920s. It already existed then.

It's a wonderful ancient place. Oh, that sounds so charming. So would that make a good day trip if you were, you know, in Cambridge. Yeah, even half a day. It takes, if you walk along the river, it takes under an hour. Or you can just go there by taxi or so it's three miles maximum. And it's really worth going. Or you can punt there, actually, as well, because it's all along the river.

You can take the punt outside the city center and pump there and park your, or more your punt. Have a tea and then go back. I've done that as well. But that takes a little bit longer, so you need probably, yeah, a good half day for that. There's a food market in town, right? I went to one, how old is that? And would you recommend? Yeah, that's the market square right in the city center behind the university church of Great St. Mary's.

And that's the market square I mentioned that has been there since Middle Ages. And it's a changing market. So the stalls are slightly different over the weekend than. weekdays and it's a real mixture now and again actually a sort of reflection on how Cambridge has become much more of a foody place because you have now lots of sort of street food stores there from Vietnamese over a Middle Eastern over I think ostrich burgers fish and chips so it's a whole variety of things there now and really one stall is more delicious than the other or you can buy a fresh smoothie

that is squeezed there in front of you. But it also has the normal market stores, like vegetable, flowers, meat, cheese. So locals buy there as well. On Sundays it's got a wonderful organic vegetable store there. Lots of locals go to that or buy local vegetables. It's a great place. And whenever I go, I meet someone that I know.

It's really wonderful. And the only problem is you can't sit very well there. So it's okay in the summer. Maybe you'll find a better. or so, but in the winter, obviously, if you buy street food, then where do you go? But, yeah, it's really lovely place, the market in Cambridge. I recommend it. There's also an arts and crafts market.

I don't know if you saw that one, Sarah. It's a smaller one, just outside St. John's College. It's called the, what's it called? What's that guy? It's a garden, old saints garden, I think, arts and crafts market. and has wonderful, maybe sort of 20 or 30 stores of local arts and crafts that I exhibited there. And Cambridge really is a really arty plate. Lots of potters live here.

Jewelry makers, furniture makers, and some of them sell their stuff there. And that's a really nice little place to go as well. Is that every day? It's every day, yes, during the week. It's every day. And Saturdays, I think, as well. I can recommend that for people who want to buy maybe. A local craft or something.

Oh, I love that. Yeah. That is a great recommendation. Well, before I let you go, can we do a little lightning round of your favorite places in Cambridge? Of course, yes. Happy to. What is your favorite cafe? There's lots of independent cafes in Cambridge.

Also shops, which is great, and I love that and I love to support them. If I want to just nip into a cafe for a coffee, nothing else, I go either to espresso lane, which is just off Trumpington Street, a tiny, tiny room that just has the most wonderful tasting coffee, or a little cafe around the corner from Kings called Indigo. Also serve lovely coffee. Both are tiny, so you have to make sure you get a space there to sit, but that's where I go for my coffee.

If I want a coffee with a piece of cake, I go to Michael House Cafe. It's actually the oldest college chapel in Cambridge from the 12th century, converted into a cafe. And the chapel aspect of it, it's still a concentrated chapel, but it's just a totally unique place as well. So Michael House is wonderful for coffee and cake. I love that you have a planned based on whatever you want specifically that day. Absolutely.

What's your favorite restaurant? Now, I like Indian food very much, and there is a restaurant in town because so much, as I mentioned, has changed. that has actually existed since I came here as a student, and that's called Pipasha. It's a little bit out of town near the Leppard Chapel, but it certainly was going to, and it recently won a prize in the, I don't know,

National Curry Awards or something, because the Indian food there is absolutely delicious. So Pipasha would get my absolute first boat. You mentioned it's a little bit out of town, and it's reminding me of something that you said on your tour that I went on about the train station being, What was the reason that the train station wasn't immediately in town? Oh, this is so funny.

The train station opened in 1845, is about a 20-minute walk from town. And before it opened, the university was in real cahoots with the town people. Again, maybe an example of town and gown, because they didn't want it in the city center. They wanted it as far out as possible, the university authorities, because they were very worried that it would become a escape route for students to go down to London because London is less than an hour away or go home or whatever. And so they thought if we put it as far out as possible,

the students would be less tempted to go and whiz down to London for a night and get drunk or do silly things. And it also reinforced the sort of rule that Cambridge University still has in place nowadays. for their undergraduate students, whereby when they're here during term time, they're meant to be studying and studying only. And so they're not really allowed to leave

beyond the radius of three miles from the university church, which is right where the market is, so it's sort of the center of the center, if you like. And, yeah, it's still very frowned upon if you escape during term time. That's right. This is why the train station is that far out.

That's so interesting. So is that the worst the penalty can get is people just frown upon it if you decide to cross the three-mile barrier? Well, there used to be curfews. Colleges had curfew rules. And the one I know from one of the center in town colleges, Conville and Keys, is that the students had to be back in the college by 9 p.m. So they would have dinner quite early in the college, and then they were allowed out into the many pubs. Cambridge always had a lot of pubs.

And, of course, some of the students wanted to carry on drinking beyond 9 o'clock. So they would have to, because the college gates would get locked by 9 o'clock. And of course, the students were living inside the college. So what to do then? So there's a whole story about escape routes, where basically, or secret routes into the college. over a wall or a railing or through a hidden door or something to go back into your college, unseen after 9 o'clock. That is so funny. No more curfews now, though, and no more punishments if you leave town during time.

But it's still you're supposed to, you know, check with your supervisor and get authorization. It's still in place. Interesting. Well, what is your favorite place to hang out at night? at various places. Yeah, I like to mix and match a little bit. So, for example, if I want to go to a film, to see a film, I like the art cinema, because it has a lovely bar attached to it, which is also opened quite late,

either before the film or after. There's also a place in town called Cambridge Wine Merchants, because I love wine. And they not only sell wine from all over the world and are very knowledgeable. about it, but they now have a little bistro attached to it as well, where you can sample wines and have a nibble. So that's a place I like hanging out at. Also, there are the museum nights. They happen twice a year, I think, where the museums are all open late, and that's a great sort of wander around town late at night and visit the various museums. There are eight museums in Cambridge of various specializations. That's a real great.

sort of hangout thing as well. Or just go to any of the lovely pubs in town. You know, I try and avoid the sort of more famous ones because they get so busy. There is a pub called the Maple where lots of the musician students actually hang out at. So I like going there and have a pint. You mentioned museum nights. And you mentioned some other museums earlier. Are there any other ones you wanted to mention?

And I guess I should bring up that Cambridge is also. So has a lot of scientific discovery coming out of it. Is there anything related to that that we should check out? Yes. So actually, it was a few years ago. The students of Cambridge voted the most important ever Cambridge student, let's say, the greatest Cambridge student. And on top of that came out Isaac Newton by far, followed by Charles Darwin.

So I think we could also call him a scientist. Both were students here. Charles Darwin then left after being a student here, but Isaac Newton, of course, was a professor of mathematics here and left a huge, huge mark on Cambridge in a positive way. And there is the Center for Mathematics, there is the Center for Computer Science History. There is the Stephen Hawking building as part of his old college,

places you can go and visit and sort of get a whiff. But there's also the Cavendish Lab, where a lot of eminent scientists, including those that discovered the DNA, that discovered the neutron, the neutron, that you can at least pass. It's no longer a lab now. So you can get a sense of the importance of scientific discovery and scientists that have come through here at various places in town. And the sort of correspondent museum to that, well, I don't know.

I would recommend probably the Museum of Archaeology and anthropology. Not a science museum as such, but it's a wonderful combination of really the most eccentric, interesting finds from all over the world and also local finds. So from the Roman period,

from the prehistoric period, from the Anglo-Saxon period. So it kind of mixes international archaeology with local archaeology, and I love that. And it's not too big a museum and in a way sort of reflect some of the

eccentric interest that people have in Cambridge very much. So that's definitely one I would recommend. And I think is Bletchley Park nearby? No, Bletchley Park is about halfway between Cambridge and Oxford. And was, of course, the secret location of MI6 that they built up during World War II to see if they can intercept or crack the German communication. code, the Enigma Code, that's what it was specifically set up for. But Cambridge students and academics were recruited, scientists to go and work there. And the most famous one, of course,

was Alan Turing. He had studied maths at King's College in Cambridge. Then I think he went to Princeton for a while and then had just come back to Cambridge to teach when World War II broke out. And that's when he was asked to join Bletchley Park. And of course, we all know the story of the imitation game film, which is a great film, where Eddie Redmayne plays Alan Turing, to sort of tell that story of how he and his team succeeded eventually after many frustrating attempts and quite a few years, actually, to intercept German military and Navy communications. And nowadays, historians argue that it brought the end of the war forward or to a close, several years earlier

and probably saved several hundred thousand people's lives. Well, incredible achievement, really. And Redley Park now is a museum, but as I said, it's quite far away. So it's not, you could do it in a day trip, but it's not something you could do, you know, while visiting Cambridge.

It's a little bit too far for that. It does sound like a place worth visiting, though. Yes, I haven't been, actually. I must admit, it's on my list. And they're planning to revive the old train line between Cambridge and Oxford, which was shut down in the 60s. And then you would basically have a station at Bletchley Park between Oxford and Cambridge. And so I'm waiting for that. But it might be in a few decades.

I don't know. Why was it closed down? It seems like it would be a popular route. Oh, it was just, you know, like all roads lead to Rome, all roads lead to London in England. Yeah, that's true. You know, it unfortunately has to do with the death of regional travel, all for the sake of making all train lines run to London, basically. And that one, of course, between Oxford and Cambridge does not run through London. So they closed it down because I didn't think it had enough traffic on it.

Yeah, that's true. I was just talking about this with my friends the other day about how awkward certain travel can be. Because you're right, no matter where you're going, usually you have to get routed through London first. Yes, it's ridiculous. I mean, you have to do a sort of L shape of traveling now down to London and then to the west to Oxford to get there from Cambridge. So I do hope it's going to happen and then we'll get to Bletchley Park more easily again. Well, you shared such great information. Is there anything that I didn't ask that you wanted to mention?

Oh, no, I think we had a real good in-depth conversation. and I hope I gave a bit of a flavor of Cambridge and that is worth visiting for sure. And we get a lot of day travelers from London especially or the region to come and see it. And no, I can't think of anything else. I think we covered so much, Sarah. Well, you definitely have me wanting to go back and visit. Maybe I'll see you in the summer and we can go hunting. Oh, yeah.

Please make contact. That would be absolutely lovely. I'll ask you to go and try punting for yourself. Gosh, I'll bring my bathing suit. You've been warned. So where can we find more about you? If we want to take a tour with you, what should we do? Oh, I see.

So, yeah, I mentioned footprints. This is the organization I do tours for. So if you want to go to Cambridge and do a tour, do it through footprints. That's probably the best way to do it. I also have a LinkedIn site. I don't have a web page, but I have a link. in profile with my name, Sybil Jackson, that people can have a look at and leave messages up. Okay. Well, thank you so much, Sib. This has been great. You are very welcome, Sarah. It was a great

joy to talk to you. That's all for now. Go ahead and follow the show or hit subscribe so you can hear more episodes like this. And if you would like my help taking bold action on your own dreams, like living abroad, changing careers and other life transitions, visit Live Without Borders podcast Thanks for listening and have a beautiful week wherever you are. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarahmicatel.com slash blank no more.