Artwork trails, swimming spots and punt safaris, all simply accessible from Cambridge’s new prepare station | Cambridge holidays

Flat fields of poppies and ox-eye daisies stretch out to a large horizon. There are butterflies, vetches, salad burnet. Skylarks sing overhead and a cuckoo calls from the timber close to the river. Legend has it that the poet Lord Byron swam right here as a Cambridge undergraduate and, 20 years later, Charles Darwin surveyed its beetles. Heading by way of flowering meadows in the direction of a nature reserve referred to as Byron’s Pool, I’ve walked a mile from the brand new £250m Cambridge South station.

Opening to passengers on 28 June, Cambridge South would be the first Great British Railways-branded station. The towering Biomedical Campus subsequent door is Europe’s greatest medical analysis facility, with about 40,000 guests a day. The station itself, with its 1,000 cycle-parking areas, residing roof and photo voltaic panels, looks like a mannequin for sustainable transport.

Like different scenic medieval cities, Cambridge itself suffers from congestion. Its cobbled alleys are crowded with vacationers, its roads gridlocked with vehicles. But you’ll be able to attain some wild and peaceable corners with out including to the visitors. There are layers of human and pure historical past, a newly devised art trail, bat safaris by punt and a peaceable botanic garden close to the busy central station.

Cambridge has been my nearest metropolis for the final 15 years. With a lot of buses and now three stations, it’s straightforward to get round and not using a automotive. I’ve spent numerous days exploring, and revealed guides to the long-distance Harcamlow Way, a 140-mile (227km) figure-of-eight strolling route that loops between Cambridge and Harlow. The finest rural bus routes embrace the busway from Cambridge North station (opened in 2017) to Fen Drayton lakes and bus 1 to Fulbourn for orchid-rich fens and chalk-flowered Saxon Fleam Dyke.

Walking and cycle paths head out in all instructions from the brand new station at Cambridge South, and I’m following considered one of these to Trumpington, stopping for bao buns and peach oolong tea on the Dao cafe. In the village church, I discover considered one of England’s oldest brass monuments. Sir Roger de Trumpington, who died in 1289, is mendacity in prayer and full chain mail, with a bit lion-clawed canine biting his broadsword. Just south of the church, archaeologists unearthed the grave of a young Anglo-Saxon woman, with a fragile gold-and-garnet cross on her chest.

Heading north by way of Grantchester Meadows, I’ve a dip within the reedy River Cam, preserving my head above the willow-shaded water. Sun glints off ripples as I swim previous waterlilies, moorhens and straggling blue forget-me-nots. Walking on in the direction of town by way of Paradise nature reserve, there are birds in all places: a cetti’s warbler sings loudly from a reedbed and a track thrush from a waterside alder. A mom duck quacks warnings from a nest-topped tree stump as ducklings paddle beneath.

Twenty minutes additional on, Cambridge University Botanic Garden (adults from £8.60, youngsters free) is at its aromatic finest. Bees are buzzing by way of sage, lemon balm and lavender within the scented backyard; roses sprawl above foxgloves and cranesbill. There are benches within the cow parsley underneath walnut and cherry timber, the place I sit and take heed to blackcaps and chiffchaffs. I detour 5 minutes up the street to purchase a slice of apricot tart from Maison Clement bakery and eat it on the prepare dwelling.

In the final decade or so, a number of accommodations have (re)opened close to the central station, from the right-next-door Ibis (doubles from about £80) to the flowery University Arms (from about £175), the place Parker’s Tavern brasserie can pack you a gourmand picnic hamper (£45pp) with 24 hours’ discover. Nearby, one of many metropolis’s latest choices, Hobson by Adina, has studios from about £125.

The subsequent day, I catch bus 13 three stops to the iron age hill fort at Wandlebury, stroll spherical its wooded ramparts and previous flax-blue meadows, candy with wild marjoram. The grassy observe of an previous Roman street runs by way of shady beeches and pink canine roses.

Heading again into town, I time-travel to Victorian Cambridge, when designers reminiscent of William Morris commissioned grasp painter FR Leach to brighten halls and church buildings. I assumed I’d visited almost all town’s 30-odd museums and galleries, however till lately I hadn’t even heard of David Parr House, which is 10 minutes’ stroll from the principle station. Parr was a working-class artist, employed by Leach to color flowers, fruit, foliage and ornate textual content for Arts and Crafts designers throughout the nation. By 1886, he had saved sufficient to purchase a terrace home on Gwydir Street, which he embellished within the type of the interiors he labored on every single day. A go to to the cosy home (from £15) reveals a long time of hand-painted ornament and illuminates town’s social historical past.

The home is simply off Mill Road, now considered one of Cambridge’s foodie meccas, lined with indie eateries serving noodles, souvlaki, bibimbap, bamya stew or distinctive plant-based tasting menus. Once a tough observe to a windmill, Mill Road expanded with the railway into intently packed terraces. Parr’s home stands reverse an previous redbrick brewery, now a stylish coffee shop. The home lately produced a brand new FR Leach walking map, which takes me to All Saints’ church on Jesus Lane, with its crimson, gold and inexperienced decor, and the Michaelhouse Cafe in a transformed church, the place Leach work may even be discovered within the bathroom. Down the street, Great St Mary’s has a 360-degree view from the tower (adults £7.50).

After a cone of tangy blackcurrant ice-cream at Jack’s Gelato, I wander down the street to the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (free) to see the jewelled Trumpington cross of that younger Anglo-Saxon girl, alongside a gallery of Cambridge finds, from stone-age axes to eel-catching prongs. Over the street within the Museum of Zoology (additionally free), I cross by way of sea stars and rock pythons to seek out Darwin’s field of neatly labelled beetles.

As the museum closes, it’s time for dinner at Jordanian Little Petra: crisp-and-creamy aubergine fatteh, topped with a jewel-like layer of nuts, parsley and pomegranate seeds, and Bedouin tea, brewed with contemporary mint and sage. Finally, heading to the river, swifts are whirling and screaming because the solar sinks behind the universities.

Iain Webb, group conservation officer on the local wildlife trust, dreamed up the bat safari 15 years in the past and often guides punts stuffed with nature-lovers alongside the Cam in the direction of Grantchester on summer time evenings (£71 for 2). “We need nature more than nature needs us,” says Webb. Despite all of the pressures on the Cambridgeshire countryside, it’s a wealthy, idyllic scene.

A kingfisher flashes previous, herons fly overhead with large, sluggish wingbeats, and the banks are gold with carpets of buttercups. Daubenton’s bats skim low over the water, whereas pipistrelles swoop between darkish willow branches, flickering out and in of visibility, like creatures from some parallel dimension. A couple of stars are popping out, the darkling air is filled with birdsong, and tawny owlets are calling from a nest among the many timber.

Transport was offered by Greater Anglia. Find extra data at Visit Cambridge