Cambridge

Cambridge - city of bikes~

I’ve lived in London for five and a half years now, seven if you don’t count the two years when I moved back to New Zealand and desperately missed the place. Most of the time London keeps me really happy – I just adore it and I don’t think I’ve had a single weekend in all of that time where I was bored silly; there’s just always something to do. Because of this very reason though it means that it’s not often I escape it and when I do I’m usually excited to get back. I think you could say this means London has become “home” for now?

Let’s stick with that.

Anyway, when you start to consider somewhere your home you tend to forget about some of the fabulous things nearby and that’s pretty much how in my five years I’ve hardly given Cambridge a second thought. Our staycation recently was the perfect excuse to take a day trip there.

The Fitzwilliam Museum's lions

Fitzbillies

When you’re on holiday in your own city, getting out of bed is impossible. Somehow we managed to drag ourselves out at 9am to catch the 10am train to Cambridge and got there in perfect time for morning tea. This is where Fitzbillies lush Chelsea buns come in….

I’ve always been a fan of the humble Chelsea bun. They are a reliable filling snack of soft dough, icing and sultanas, but in the past few years of cupcake and macaron madness I kind of forgot about them. Until my amazing food blogger friend, Sarah at Fingers and Toes, recommended a stop at Fitzbillies when I mentioned to her that we were heading to Cambridge.

Usual recipe for happiness: cake and a flat white

One of Fitzbillie's delightful buns...

Blimey. It’s several weeks on and I’m still thinking about this. For crying out loud Katherine, IT WAS A BUN.

But a beautiful warm, gooey, divine sticky goodness of a bun. Did you know that Sir Ed took a few to Everest? Yes, these delightful sticky buns have history too. We were so blown away by the buns that we took two to eat on the train home a few hours later… but they lasted less than an hour. By the time we were walking behind King’s College we had scoffed them down.

After that experience, Cambridge had a lot to live up to.

Inside the Fitzwilliam Museum

We checked out the excellent Fitzwilliam Museum which is like a combination of all the London museums put into one nice concise building with some fantastic collections. The rest of the day was spent walking around the colleges, admiring Cambridge’s ability to put cyclists first and finishing up in a quirky little pub. Here’s some pics:

Inside one of the lovely colleges

Beautiful architecture~

A world apart from my East-End abode!

Punters on the River Cam

The Elm Tree - a little hidden away pub filled with goblins and "real ale".

So that’s Cambridge ticked off the list. Oxford has been done many times thanks to work. Bath we’ve done three times thanks to its outstanding restaurants. Where to next? We need an excuse to see more of beautiful England, because it really is lovely.

First signs of Spring - yipee!

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