retiredmartin

More Cambridge tourism tips, in case Dick and Dave ever get over their Northern fixation.
Now the ice age is over, our city is packed with Spanish and Italian schoolchildren, drawn by our famous Mill Road takeaways and free houses.

Tourists to Cambridge are all very welcome; particularly the ones old and sensible enough to use our pubs.

I joined them in their touristy pursuits on a day I was condemned to stay at home (my starter motor has blown up).

£4 allows you to exercise your legs for ten minutes up the tower of Great St Mary’s. That’s cheaper than Boston Stump, and the graffiti is posher.

It’s worth pausing half-way up to see the spot where felons guilty of smuggling craft beer into the City walls were hung.

The best views in Cambridge, which isn’t saying much as the next highest point in about 10ft high.

Yes, there’s a lot of colleges.

It’s harder to spot the pubs from the tower. But follow the padded jackets past Kings.

There was a horde of them in the courtyard of our most famous pub (after the Pint Shop), where 14 year old Italians were being taught how to burn their initials in the ceiling with a Zippo lighter.

I was keen to find out why the Eagle never makes it in the Beer Guide, but sadly they’d fallen foul to Duff Opening Times (DOT) as well. Or the Punk IPA had run out.

So on to The Mill. Another honeypot location by the punts, and one of our finest tourist pubs.

It’s always interesting to see who’s drinking at 11.30am outside of Spoons. The answer is a seemingly Cambridge IT workers, American tourists (hoorah !) and some Italians looking for takeaways to drink on their punt.

It’s an attractive pub, the sort you hope to find on holiday but rarely do.  Wood panels,  simple food, old Cambridge history.

Asking for the best-selling beer at 11.35am normally gets a “You What“; here I was pointed to the Crafty Sauvignon.

You’ll be used to me telling you I didn’t see a cask pulled all the time I was in a pub. At the Mill nearly everyone had the cask.

One chap from the Wirral (well, he sounded like Andy McCluskey of OMD) asked for “a beer I had a long time ago“. And then proceeded to ask for taste to try and remind him which one it was.

Last time I was here was my last day in the NHS, and I rather overdid the craft keg. So it was only appropriate I followed a decent Sauvignon with a somewhat cooler Old Dairy.

Yes, he did warn me it was 7% this time. And yes, I was told it was £7 a pint.

 

NB : Yes, you may have seen this before, but deleted the post somehow so this is the draft.  My mouse isn’t working and it’s mucking up my posts (great excuse for typos, too).