Grantchester in the Afternoon, With Cambridge and the River First

There is a compactness to Cambridge that flatters a day trip. Nearly everything you have come for sits inside twenty minutes on foot, and the stretch that made the city famous, the Backs, where seven colleges run down to the Cam, is one continuous walk. Arrive by car with a chauffeur and you can be set down at one end in the morning, collected at the other, and spend all the middle of it on your feet.

King's College Chapel anchors everything. People who have looked at a great deal of ecclesiastical architecture still tend to halt in the doorway. Great Court at Trinity and the Bridge of Sighs at St John's follow along the same walk, while the Fitzwilliam Museum, ten minutes south, costs nothing to enter and is forever underrated. Punting gets booked at the river itself, and it earns its hour when the weather plays along.

Afternoons belong to Grantchester. Two miles upriver it sits, walkable over the meadows if that appeals, with a tea garden under the apple trees that has served visitors for well over a century. Your chauffeur will run you straight there and bring you home again, or leave you at the meadow gate and meet you at the far end. Want more than that? Ely and its extraordinary cathedral sit half an hour to the north.

On this day, as on every touring day we run, we provide the vehicle and the chauffeur rather than commentary or tickets. No licensed guide sits behind the wheel. College and chapel admission you arrange yourselves, opening hours shift with term and with events, and we will gladly say what looks realistic. Want a qualified guide alongside you for the walking parts? We can arrange one.