Cambridge

Cambridge is small enough that no part of it is genuinely far from the colleges, so choosing where to stay is really a question of what you are willing to trade. Stay inside the historic core, within the triangle formed by the market, Parker's Piece and the Backs, and you can walk out of the door into King's Parade in three minutes, come back for an afternoon rest, and never once think about buses or parking. That convenience is priced accordingly, and the buildings tend to be old, which means charm alongside narrow stairs, uneven floors and occasional street noise from a city that stays lively until late.

North of the river, the run of Victorian villas along Chesterton Road and the streets behind Castle Hill is where most of the city's independent guest houses and family-run hotels sit. The walk into the centre crosses Jesus Green or Midsummer Common and takes ten to fifteen minutes through parkland rather than traffic, which is no hardship at all. Rooms here are commonly a third cheaper than the equivalent in town, breakfasts are cooked to order rather than laid out in a buffet, and - crucially in a city where a central car park can cost more than a pub lunch - free parking is often part of the deal.

Arriving by train changes the calculation again. The station sits a mile south of the centre, and the CB1 development around it has filled with modern hotels aimed at people down from London for a day of meetings. They suit late arrivals from Stansted and early departures.

If you are driving and want space, look at the villages. Grantchester, Madingley, Comberton and Great Shelford all lie within twenty minutes and give you a country pub on the doorstep and easy access to a park and ride site. Whatever you choose, book early for late June, when the May Balls and graduation ceremonies fill every room in the city, and for the Folk Festival weekend in late July. January and February are the cheapest months by a wide margin.

Much of what you will want to see sits within a square mile, so plan by mood rather than by map.

• King's College Chapel - the finest late Perpendicular building in England, with the largest fan vault in the world and Rubens' Adoration of the Magi above the altar. Time a visit for choral evensong to hear the choir that sings the Christmas Eve service broadcast worldwide.
• Punting on the Cam - either take a chauffeured trip along the Backs, gliding under the Bridge of Sighs and the wooden Mathematical Bridge, or hire your own punt and learn the hard way. The quieter upstream route towards Grantchester is the more rural of the two.
• The Fitzwilliam Museum - the university's principal art museum, free to enter, holding antiquities, illuminated manuscripts and paintings by Titian, Monet and Constable behind a colossal classical portico on Trumpington Street.
• Cambridge University Botanic Garden - forty acres of systematic beds, glasshouses, a limestone rock garden and a winter garden planted for scent and bark, created under the influence of John Stevens Henslow, who taught Charles Darwin.
• The Round Church - one of only four surviving round churches in England, built around 1130 and now used to explain the city's history to visitors.
• Great St Mary's tower - climb the 123 steps of the university church for the best rooftop view of the colleges, the market square directly below and the flat country beyond.
• The Polar Museum - the Scott Polar Research Institute's collection of sledges, letters and relics from the Antarctic expeditions of Scott and Shackleton, quietly one of the most affecting small museums in the country.
• A walk to Grantchester - two miles of meadow path along the river to a village of thatched cottages, ending with tea and cake under the apple trees at the Orchard, where Rupert Brooke and his circle sat a century ago.

The city's own speciality is the Chelsea bun as made at Fitzbillies on Trumpington Street since 1920 - sticky, heavy with syrup, and worth queueing for. The other local sweet is Cambridge burnt cream, the caramelised custard said to have been served at Trinity College long before the French version became fashionable. For everything else, start at the market on Market Square, open daily, where street food stalls sit alongside cheese, bread, fruit and secondhand books.

At the top end, Midsummer House sits in a Victorian villa on Midsummer Common and has held two Michelin stars under Daniel Clifford for many years. Restaurant Twenty-Two on Chesterton Road and the vegetarian tasting menus at Vanderlyle are both serious cooking on a smaller scale. Parker's Tavern, in the University Arms, does confident British food in a room modelled on a college hall, and Bistro du Vin on Trumpington Street is reliable for French classics.

For informal eating, Aromi bakes Sicilian sourdough pizza by the slice and good arancini on Bene't Street, Steak and Honour grills the best burgers in town, and the Cambridge Chop House looks straight at King's while serving pies, chops and suet puddings. Pub-wise, the Eagle on Bene't Street is where Crick and Watson announced the structure of DNA in 1953 and still keeps the RAF bar ceiling signed by wartime airmen; the Free Press near Jesus Green is tiny, quiet and mobile-free by tradition; and the Cambridge Blue on Gwydir Street pours an unusually long list of real ales in a large garden. Out at Grantchester, the Green Man and the Rupert Brooke make good ends to a riverside walk.

Cambridge itself has no campsite - the city is too compact and too built up for one - so camping here means basing yourself in the surrounding countryside and travelling in. That is less of a compromise than it sounds. The villages west and north of the city sit five to fifteen miles out on flat, easy roads, several have a bus route or a park and ride site within reach, and the cycling is exceptionally good: this is some of the flattest terrain in England, with quiet lanes and traffic-free paths such as the guided busway track from St Ives.

The land around Cambridge is gently undulating chalk to the south and west, giving way to true fenland to the north, where the ground is black peat and sits at or below sea level. Pitches are almost always level and drain reasonably, but the fen edge is open country with very few hedges or trees, so wind matters more than rain when you are choosing a spot. Ask for a pitch with some shelter if the forecast is breezy.

The weather is otherwise kind. Cambridgeshire is the driest county in England, with annual rainfall around 550 to 600mm, and summer temperatures here are regularly the highest recorded in the country. That makes for excellent camping in July and August but also for genuinely hot tents in the afternoon, so shade is worth having. The trade-off comes in winter and early spring, when the same lack of shelter and the proximity of the North Sea bring hard easterly winds and cold clear nights.

Wild camping is not legal in England without the landowner's permission, and there is no equivalent of the Scottish right to roam, so all camping around Cambridge must be on a proper site or with explicit consent. Most parks in the area open from March or April to October, though one or two of the hardstanding sites stay open all year for caravans and motorhomes. May, June and September are the best months: long days, warm ground, and no competition for pitches from the summer festival crowds.