January 2025. Cambridge.
“Let’s go to the Castle for lunch” says Mrs RM, desperate for a break from Waterbeach (she hasn’t seen Sheffield for two month).
Sadly, the Adnams flagship in Cambridge is shut, despite a ready stream of European tourists flocking over the bridge towards Kettle’s Yard and dejectedly back.
UK cities have an odd habit of closing that first week of the new year before schools return; I remember our bemused American guests being pub-less in Manchester in 2019.
You can still buy your pottery, mind,
and the long-running independent restaurants of colourful Magdalene (pronounced “Mag-der-layna”) Street aren’t missing out on trade.
Thank Binh has survived there at a prestige site a while now,
despite the invasion of Triffids in the window.
Steaming plates of duck and beef curry, Vietnamese rather than Thai but just as good at only a couple of quid more than lunch in the dominant Greene King diners.
New Year, before the undergrads return, is a good time to pop round the colleges. Tourists head to the ones that charge, missing out on the freebies like Magdalene (pronounced Maudlin) with its slightly secretive entrance (top) and Pepys library.
You can also get a good view of the punts from Magdalene’s southern lawn. It used to be far more fun when tourists mistakenly believed they could navigate their own craft and fell in.
The cafes and bars along Quayside are an enduring disappointment, with Las Iguanas the focal point. Head towards the Maypole for a rare dose of Proper Pub,
or nip in the Mitre for your Nicholson’s fix.
I’ll say this for the Mitre, it’s your best bet for a wee.
retiredmartin 
I was lucky timing Cambridge for four months ago, a pint of Elgoods in Milton’s Waggon and Horses and then the 2 bus to two pints of Adnams in the Castle.
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You also had decent McMullens in two not quite Proper Pubs.
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Yes Martin, it all went very well indeed, just like my other nine trips last year – er, except for a fractured spine on the last one.
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Where did you fracture your spine, Paul, and can we boycott it.
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London, but I’ll be BACK three weeks today, on my way to Chichester.
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Sorry, five weeks today not three weeks today.
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Just back from the Castle, where the Adnams was pretty good, but the refurb had knocked a bit of character out of the interior.
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Blog of the year award…..just for the title 🙂
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Holiday shutdowns seem even more dramatic now that things are open so much longer all the time. I rarely check to see if a grocery store is closed anymore. The emptiness of the cities on days like that really hit home when you experience it. Such a rare feeling.
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Yes, a rare feeling, like walking through the City of London when everything is closed.
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A Sunday in Bavaria, or even Berlin!
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Are they that bad, Paul ?
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