Travel Journal: A Day in Cambridge, Part I

This is a bit of a 'throwback' blogpost. I visited Cambridge back in June, which feels so long ago. I have a friend who I reconnected with through instagram after losing contact for many years. She is super spontaneous and very keen to travel, she suggested going to Cambridge for the day to go 'punting' and I was up for exploring somewhere new. I did my research, which made me all the more excited for it. I made the travel arrangements and a rather ambitious itinerary (sometimes it goes off schedule). We gotten the fast train from King's Cross, which took just under an hour. The weather was beautiful. It was a glorious 23 degrees, sunny, not a cloud in the sky and...guess what I was wearing? A grey and back outfit and as you can imagine I was a sweaty mess. Typical outfit choice. 

Our first stop is the Station Tavern for brunch. The interiors of this restaurant was very right up my street. I love the rustic ambience with the brick walls, leather furniture and the wooden tables, but most of all I loved the vintage bookshelf. It had some old hardback books, a teapot and a typewriter, which is pretty cool. I was very keen on the interiors but what I wasn't so keen on was the service - we waited ages for our food to arrive and it wasn't even busy. It was just sitting there in the kitchen, not being brought to our table, wasting our time and we had to literally ask the waitress. As a customer, you shouldn't have to ask a waitress 'erm where's my food?' Not very impressed.

The first place on the itinerary was the Cambridge Botanic Gardens, which is part of Cambridge University. It has 40 acres of gardens and some glasshouses. It was so huge that you actually need a map otherwise you'll get lost! I may possibly love it more than Kew Gardens. It's so green and just really wonderful, I wanted to stay there all day. My friend says it reminds her of Alice in Wonderland and I suppose it does have a very wonderland-esque mood to it, especially with the roses. Even though we didn't get to explore everything in the garden, my favourite part was the benches with the yellow roses in the background. 

Since this post is going to be very long I'm going to split it in half. I will be uploading the rest of the photos in part II in an uploading post, which will the punting tour and the Cambridge Universities  - my main highlight of the trip.