Cambridge and the East

Why go east

East Anglia is the bulge of England north and east of London: Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, with a slice of Essex. It is flat, dry and under huge skies, and it is the part of England most Americans skip after a day trip to Cambridge. That is a mistake, because the region packs in one of the world's great medieval chapels, two magnificent cathedrals, the richest Anglo-Saxon burial ever found in Britain, a network of lock-free rivers you can captain yourself, and a coast of salt marshes, seals and beach huts.

It also has deep American ties. During the Second World War the US Eighth Air Force flew from dozens of airfields here, and the only American Second World War cemetery in the UK sits just outside Cambridge. If a grandparent served with a bomber group, there is a good chance they were stationed in Norfolk or Suffolk. See our family history guide for how to trace a unit.

Cambridge works as a day trip from London, but it rewards a night or two: Evensong at King's, an evening walk along the Backs, and a morning on the river before the crowds. From Cambridge, Ely is 15 minutes up the line and Norwich about an hour and a quarter. The coast and villages are where a car pays off.

Cambridge: the colleges

The University of Cambridge is a federation of 31 colleges, each a self-governing community with its own buildings, chapel, gardens and porters. Seeing Cambridge means visiting individual colleges, and each sets its own rules for tourists: some charge, some are free, some admit visitors only at certain hours, and almost all close at short notice for events, graduations and exams.

King's College Chapel

If you see one building in Cambridge, make it this one. King's College Chapel was begun by Henry VI in 1446 and finished under Henry VIII, and its fan-vaulted stone ceiling, the largest of its kind in the world, seems to float above some of the finest Renaissance stained glass in Europe. Rubens's Adoration of the Magi hangs behind the altar. Allow an hour for the chapel and the college grounds along the river.

Tickets are sold for timed slots, and online advance tickets are cheaper than buying at the gate. On weekdays an adult ticket is £15.75 online (about $21) or £17 in person (about $23); at weekends it is £16.75 online (about $22) or £18 in person (about $24). Children aged 5 to 17 and students with ID pay £13.25–15.50 (about $18–21). Family passes for two adults and two or three children run £55–64 (about $73–85). The college sells a limited number of tickets per slot, so book ahead for summer weekends at King's College opening times and tickets.

Evensong at King's and elsewhere

During university term the King's College Choir sings Evensong six days a week, usually in the late afternoon (around 5:30pm on weekdays, earlier on Sundays). Times shift for special services, so check the chapel's online services calendar for your date. Terms run roughly early October to early December, mid-January to mid-March, and late April to mid-June. Outside term the choir is often away, and visiting choirs or spoken services may take its place.

Arrive 30 to 60 minutes early in summer and on weekends, because the queue on King's Parade can be long and nobody is admitted once the service begins. Bags must be no bigger than airline carry-on size, and phones must be off. There are no public restrooms in the college, so plan around the city center's facilities.

St John's College Chapel and Trinity College Chapel also have superb choirs and are usually far less crowded. A weekday Evensong at St John's, with a candlelit chapel and a handful of visitors, is one of the quiet pleasures of Cambridge.

Trinity College

Trinity is the largest and richest Cambridge college, the alma mater of Isaac Newton, Lord Byron, A.A. Milne and a long list of Nobel laureates. Its Great Court is the biggest enclosed courtyard in either Oxford or Cambridge. Trinity currently runs guided tours at 10am and 2pm daily for £10 (about $13) per person, free for under-12s, paid by card on the day and bookable on the college website. Meet at the Great Gate on Trinity Street a few minutes early.

The real treat is the Wren Library, designed by Christopher Wren and finished in the 1690s. It is free and open to the public Monday to Friday from noon to 2pm (last entry 1:50pm) through most of the year, plus Saturday mornings from 10:30am in term. Enter from the river side via Garrett Hostel Lane. Treasures on display have included Newton's own notebooks and manuscripts by Milne. It closes from Christmas Eve to early January and on the Easter and August bank holidays.

St John's College

Next door to Trinity, St John's has the Bridge of Sighs (named after the Venice original, though it looks nothing like it), a huge Victorian Gothic chapel and grounds that run across the river. Admission is £17 for adults (about $23) and £10 (about $13) for seniors 66 and over, students and children aged 12 to 16; children's tickets drop to £8 (about $11) in summer. Payment is by card only, and American Express is not accepted. The college closes from midday on December 24 to January 1.

Other colleges and how to see them free

Queens' College's wooden Mathematical Bridge is easy to see without paying from the Silver Street bridge. Several smaller colleges, such as Emmanuel and Jesus, have generally let visitors walk in during the day without charge; ask at the porters' lodge, and respect closed signs. Walking the riverside paths along the Backs, and crossing Garret Hostel Bridge, gives you the classic view of King's, Clare and Trinity for nothing.

Punting and Grantchester

A punt is a flat-bottomed boat pushed along with a long pole planted in the riverbed. On the Cam it is the classic way to see the Backs, the stretch where King's, Clare, Trinity, St John's and Queens' back onto the river. You have two choices: sit back while a "chauffeur" (often a student) punts and narrates, or hire a punt and do it yourself.

Chauffeured tours

Shared tours of the Backs last about 45 to 50 minutes and pass the Mathematical Bridge, King's College Chapel, the Wren Library and the Bridge of Sighs. Private tours reserve a whole punt for your group. Prices vary by season and company, and every operator sells cheaper tickets online than at the quayside, so book on the company's own website a day or two ahead. Scudamore's, the longest-established operator, runs every day of the year except Christmas Day, from 9am until dusk, with longer hours in summer.

Self-hire

Hiring your own punt is cheaper per head for a group of four to six, and very funny to watch. Hire is by the hour, staff give you a short handover, and you will be asked for ID and a deposit. Stand at the flat back end (the "till"), drop the pole straight down, push, and let it trail behind as a rudder. If the pole sticks in the mud, let go of it rather than going in after it. Avoid summer Saturday afternoons, when the Backs become a slow-moving traffic jam.

For a longer, quieter trip, take a punt or canoe upriver from the Mill Pond toward Grantchester through meadows and willows. It is a few hours there and back, so ask the hire company how long to allow for your group's skill.

More of Cambridge

Food in Cambridge runs from the Chelsea buns at Fitzbillies, a fixture since the 1920s, and the stalls of Market Square to Midsummer House, the city's long-standing Michelin-starred restaurant on Midsummer Common. For a pint with a view, the riverside pubs by Quayside and Mill Lane are crowded but cheerful. Restaurants often add a 12.5% service charge; read our guide to tipping and service charges.

Grantchester

Grantchester is a village about 2 miles (3 km) south of Cambridge along the river, reached by a flat, lovely walk across Grantchester Meadows, by bike, or by punt or canoe. It was the haunt of the poet Rupert Brooke and the pre-First World War "Neo-pagans," and it is the setting of the TV detective series Grantchester.

The draw is The Orchard Tea Garden, where Cambridge students and dons have taken tea in deckchairs under apple trees since 1897. Order scones and tea, then walk back along the river. The village also has several pubs, including The Red Lion and The Green Man. Allow a half day. In wet weather the meadow path gets muddy, so wear shoes you do not mind ruining.

Ely Cathedral

Ely rises out of the flat Fens like a ship, which is why locals call its cathedral the Ship of the Fens. The town was an island until the Fens were drained in the 1600s. The cathedral's Norman nave is vast, and its 14th-century Octagon, a lantern of wood and glass built after the central tower collapsed, is one of the engineering wonders of medieval Europe. You may recognize it from The Crown and other period dramas (see film locations).

Admission is £14 for adults (about $19), and children under 16 are free with a family. Ask staff on the day to convert a full-price ticket into an annual pass at no extra cost. Visitor hours are Monday to Saturday 9:30am–4:30pm and Sunday noon–3pm, with services at 5:30pm Monday to Saturday and at 10:30am and 4pm on Sunday, all free to attend. The Octagon Tower and West Tower tours give the best views in the Fens; they take small groups and must be booked ahead at Ely Cathedral tickets and tours.

Upstairs in the cathedral, the Stained Glass Museum (£6.50, about $9, on top of the cathedral ticket) shows 800 years of British glass at eye level. It is up a 40-step spiral staircase with no elevator, and is open Monday to Saturday.

Ely is 15 to 20 minutes by train from Cambridge and about 1 hour 10 minutes direct from London King's Cross. The station is a 15-minute walk from the cathedral, partly along the river. Also in town: Oliver Cromwell's House, where the Lord Protector lived with his family, and riverside pubs and tearooms. Half a day is enough; a full day lets you add a walk on the river path.

Norwich

Norwich was one of England's largest and richest cities in the Middle Ages, and it still has more medieval churches than any city in northern Europe. It is compact, lively and mostly free of tour buses. Plan a full day, or two nights if you will also explore the Broads and the coast.

Norwich is about 1 hour 50 minutes from London Liverpool Street on Greater Anglia trains, and about 1 hour 15 minutes from Cambridge via Ely. The station is a 15-minute walk from the center.

The Norfolk Broads and the coast

The Broads

The Broads are a maze of rivers and shallow lakes northeast of Norwich, formed when medieval peat diggings flooded. They have national park status, and they hold more than 125 miles (200 km) of navigable waterways, almost all of them free of locks, so they are the easiest place in Britain to drive a boat. Expect windmills, reed beds, thatched pubs and herons.

For a taste, take the train 15 minutes from Norwich to Hoveton & Wroxham, the main boating village, and hire a day boat by the hour or the day. Operators show you the controls in a few minutes, and no license is needed. Speed limits are low, mostly between 3 and 6 mph, and strictly enforced to protect the banks. Climb the tower of St Helen's Church at Ranworth for the best view of the waterways. A week on a hire cruiser, sleeping aboard and mooring at pubs, is a classic British family holiday; book months ahead for summer.

The north Norfolk coast

The coast from Hunstanton to Cromer is a protected landscape of salt marsh, shingle, pine woods and wide sandy beaches. The highlights:

• Holkham beach: a huge, empty-looking beach backed by pines, below Holkham Hall, a Palladian stately home.
• Blakeney Point seals: boat trips from Morston Quay go out to see the grey and common seals on the sandbar, tide permitting. Book a day or two ahead in summer.
• Horsey: on the east coast, grey seals give birth on the beach from about November to January. Watch from the marked viewing areas, keep dogs leashed, and never get between a seal and the sea.
• Wells-next-the-Sea, Burnham Market and Blakeney: flint-built villages with good pubs, delis and crab shacks.
• Cromer: a Victorian resort with a pier and the famous sweet Cromer crab, sold dressed in the shell from spring to autumn.
• Sandringham: the King's private country house near King's Lynn. The house and gardens open to visitors in spring and summer only; check dates on the estate website.

Suffolk: Lavenham, Southwold and the coast

Lavenham and the wool towns

In the 1400s Suffolk grew rich on wool and cloth, then got poor, which is why so many of its half-timbered houses never got knocked down. Lavenham is the best preserved, with crooked black-and-white houses leaning in every direction and a vast church paid for by clothiers. Harry Potter fans will recognize De Vere House as the Potters' home in Godric's Hollow in Deathly Hallows: Part 1.

The National Trust's Lavenham Guildhall on the Market Place explains the town's boom and bust. Adults pay £11 (about $15), children £5.50 (about $7), and families £27.50 (about $37); National Trust members are free (see our heritage passes guide). In winter it is open 10:30am–4pm on selected days, so check before you go. Lavenham has no train station; the nearest is Sudbury, about 7 miles away, and the 753 bus links Bury St Edmunds, Lavenham, Sudbury and Colchester. Nearby, Long Melford has a mile-long main street, two Tudor halls and another enormous church, and Kersey is a tiny, picture-perfect village with a ford across the street.

Constable Country

On the Suffolk–Essex border, Flatford Mill and Dedham Vale are the scenes John Constable painted, including the view in The Hay Wain. The National Trust runs Flatford. It is an easy riverside walk of about 2 miles (3 km) from Manningtree station, which is about an hour from Liverpool Street.

Southwold and the Suffolk coast

Southwold is a genteel seaside town with a lighthouse, pastel beach huts, a pier, greens left by a 17th-century fire, and the Adnams brewery, whose beer you will find in every pub. Walk or take the summer foot ferry across the river to Walberswick, where families go crabbing off the bridge. Southwold has no station; the nearest is Halesworth on the East Suffolk Line, with a bus or taxi from there.

South along the coast, Aldeburgh has a pebble beach, excellent fish and chips and Maggi Hambling's steel Scallop sculpture, which honors the composer Benjamin Britten. Britten's concert hall at Snape Maltings stages music year-round. Orford has a 12th-century castle keep run by English Heritage and boat trips to the strange military landscape of Orford Ness. Framlingham Castle, also English Heritage, is where Mary Tudor rallied her supporters in 1553. Little Dunwich was once a major port; most of it has fallen into the sea.

Sutton Hoo

In 1939, an amateur archaeologist named Basil Brown, digging for landowner Edith Pretty, uncovered the imprint of a 90-foot (27 m) ship buried in a mound above the River Deben. Inside was the richest Anglo-Saxon grave ever found in Britain, probably that of Rædwald, a 7th-century king of East Anglia. The story was told in the 2021 Netflix film The Dig.

The famous helmet and the gold treasures are in the British Museum in London, so come to Sutton Hoo for the place itself. The National Trust site has the burial mounds (with free guided tours), Edith Pretty's 1910 home, Tranmer House, with displays on the excavation, an exhibition hall with replicas and original finds, a 56-foot (17 m) viewing tower over the royal burial ground, and woodland walks of half a mile to 2 miles above the river.

Admission is £18 for adults (about $24), £9 for children aged 5 to 17 (about $12) and £45 for a family of two adults and up to three children (about $60); under-5s and National Trust members are free, and you do not need to book. On a late-October weekday, the house and exhibition hall are open 10:30am–3:30pm and the grounds and tower 10am–4pm. Guided tours of the burial ground run daily from February to mid-November and at weekends only in winter.

The nearest station is Melton, about 1¼ miles (2 km) away on the East Suffolk Line from Ipswich; Woodbridge, the next stop, is about 3 miles, and the 70 bus from Woodbridge stops at the entrance. Drivers should follow the brown signs from the A12 rather than their GPS, which can send you to a neighboring farm. Allow at least three hours, and pair it with lunch in Woodbridge.

Trains and getting around

Cambridge station is about a 25-minute walk or a short bus ride from the colleges; frequent buses run to the center. Cambridge North station serves the science parks. For fares, check National Rail: off-peak returns are much cheaper than peak tickets, and Advance singles on longer routes like London to Norwich can be very cheap if booked early. A Two Together or other railcard cuts a third off most fares (see our train tickets guide).

Driving and cycling

Do not drive into central Cambridge. Streets are narrow, many are closed to cars, and parking is scarce and expensive. Use one of the city's Park & Ride sites on the edge of town. In Norfolk and Suffolk a car makes life far easier, since villages like Lavenham, Southwold and the coastal ones are poorly served by trains. Roads are signed in miles and mph, and East Anglian country roads are narrow but flat. Read our driving guide before you rent.

Cambridge is a cycling city, with bikes outnumbering cars in the center. Bikes for rent are easy to find, but watch out as a pedestrian: cyclists come silently and fast, and on the left.

Where to stay

Cambridge hotels are pricey for the city's size and fill up on graduation weekends, May Week and during big conferences. Midweek in term is usually easier than summer weekends. In Norfolk and Suffolk, pubs with rooms and holiday cottages are the way to go; many cottages in summer rent by the week, Friday or Saturday to Friday or Saturday. For general advice see where to stay in the UK.

Tiers are for a room for two per night: $ under £110, $$ £110–220, $$$ £220–400, $$$$ over £400. Rates swing a lot by season and day of the week, so treat them as a guide.

Itineraries

One day in Cambridge from London

1. Day 1

   Colleges, river and Evensong

   Take an early fast train from King's Cross. Start at King's College Chapel at opening on a pre-booked ticket, then walk the Backs to Trinity in time for the Wren Library at noon. Lunch at the market or a pub, then a 45-minute shared punt tour along the Backs. Spend the afternoon at the Fitzwilliam (closed Mondays) or walking to Grantchester for tea. In term, finish with Evensong at King's or St John's, then take an evening train back.

Three days: Cambridge and Ely

1. Day 1

   Cambridge colleges

   King's Chapel, Trinity and the Wren Library, St John's and the Bridge of Sighs. A pint at The Eagle, then Evensong.

2. Day 2

   River and museums

   Punt or canoe to Grantchester and have tea at the Orchard. Afternoon at the Fitzwilliam and Kettle's Yard, or the American Cemetery at Madingley.

3. Day 3

   Ely

   Train to Ely, an Octagon Tower tour, the Stained Glass Museum and Cromwell's House. Weekday Evensong at 5:30pm, then back to Cambridge or on to London.

Six days: the East Anglia loop

1. Day 1

   Cambridge

   Colleges, punting and Evensong. Overnight in Cambridge.

2. Day 2

   Duxford or Madingley, then Ely

   Pick up a rental car outside the center. Morning at IWM Duxford or the American Cemetery, then Ely Cathedral in the afternoon. Drive on to Norwich (about 1 hr 15 min).

3. Day 3

   Norwich and the Broads

   Cathedral, castle and market in the morning; afternoon on a day boat from Wroxham. Overnight in Norwich or a Broads village.

4. Day 4

   North Norfolk coast

   Cromer crab for lunch, a seal trip from Morston Quay, and a walk on Holkham beach at sunset. Overnight in Burnham Market or Wells.

5. Day 5

   Southwold and Aldeburgh

   Drive south (about 2 hr) to Southwold for the pier and a beer at Adnams, then fish and chips on the beach at Aldeburgh.

6. Day 6

   Sutton Hoo and Lavenham

   Sutton Hoo at opening, then cross-country to Lavenham for the Guildhall and a late lunch. Return the car and take the train to London from Colchester or Cambridge.

When to go and what trips people up

East Anglia is the driest region of the UK, but it is open to cold winds off the North Sea, and the coast can feel 10°F (5°C) colder than Cambridge. Summer highs usually sit in the upper 60s to low 70s°F (about 20–23°C). See when to go for month-by-month detail.

• Book King's College Chapel tickets online for any weekend or summer visit, and check closures for exams from late April to mid-June.
• Check the Evensong calendar for your exact date, since out of term the King's choir is often away.
• Remember the Fitzwilliam is closed on Mondays.
• Allow for winter: many National Trust and English Heritage sites cut hours or close on some weekdays from November to March, and boat trips and buses thin out.
• Carry a card that is not American Express; some colleges and small businesses do not take it.
• For Sutton Hoo and Lavenham, check the National Trust website for the day's hours before you set out.

Pair this region with London, or head north up the East Coast Main Line to York and the North. For more on the National Trust and English Heritage, see heritage passes. For help planning, see our custom trip planning service.