Cambridge

Where To Shop

Your first few days at our luxury Cambridge student accommodation will be all about finding your bearings and understanding where things are and how to get there. Shopping is going to be an important part of your time living independently as a student, as we all need to buy food, clothes, and other items. With Cambridge being such a compact city it is easy to find everything you need within walking (or cycling) distance, and you’ll find the supermarket chains that you know and love, as well as local stores and shops to help you purchase your food and other grocery items to make the best of your spectacular modern kitchen appliances in your lovely apartment.

Aside from that however, there is plenty to explore and love in Cambridge when it comes to shopping. Through a quick exploration of the streets you’ll find high street brand names and stores and modern shopping centres, alongside classic markets, vintage stores, and independent and quirky boutiques. There is something for everyone when shopping in Cambridge. Best of all, its all so close to your elegant and modern student accommodation in Cambridge.

Shopping Centres

The Grand Arcade is set in the very beating heart of the city and is an award-winning shopping centre that is home to plentiful restaurants, cafés and coffee shops, as well as over 60 of the biggest names in retail. Another modern shopping centre for you to explore is the Lion Yard Shopping Centre. Here, you can find over 40-stores set over two floors. It is a stylish shopping experience where you can find everything from crafts and gifts, to jewellery and high-end fashion. It also has a few restaurants and food outlets to help you overcome hunger after a few hours of shopping. Both of these shopping centres are located dead central in Cambridge and are very easy to find. Just a short ten-minute walk out of the city centre is The Grafton, another big, modern shopping centre, that is home to over 60-stores with all the big brand names you know and love. It also has food outlets and a big cinema!

Independent Stores

There is more to shopping in Cambridge than just big name brands and high street stores though. There are loads of great independent retailers to explore and find, with hidden gems all over the city, depending on your specific taste. One of the best places to start is the traditional cobbled market square, which is open seven days a week and is home to countless retailers. Market Square is certainly a fantastic way to get to know the city when you first move into your stylish student accommodation in Cambridge, and every Saturday there is also the All Saint’s Garden Art and Craft Market.

A wide range of independent boutiques and vintage stores can be found walking around Magdalene Street, Rose Crescent, Trinity Street, and Bridge Street, to name just a few. Mill Road is another great place to find chic boutiques and interesting stores.

The Best Places To Eat At

Our elegant student accommodation in Cambridge is close to all of the best cafés, bars and restaurants you could ever need. It’s easy to find any type of cuisine to suit your taste buds. The main section of the city where most of the restaurants are situated is only a 20-minute walk away from your new home, but you can cut that journey time down significantly using public transport or by cycling. It is a compact and vibrant city, with food on offer to help set you up for a hard day of work, for light bites at lunch, or for a big meal with your new friends at night. There’s even plenty of good choices to help you find some greasy and tasty treats late at night after a student night out, or a hangover-breaking breakfast the next day!

Restaurants And Cafes

There are so many different restaurants and cafés to suit your food and drink desires in Cambridge that it is a great way to get to know the city when you first move here. TABANCO is a Spanish and Portuguese restaurant that is well worth a visit, whilst you can also roam around the city and find a fine selection of Italian restaurants, Vietnamese, Thai, Indian, and American barbecue-style food outlets to satiate your hunger.

In terms of cafés you will never be disappointed during the day. The Urban Shed is a real tasty treat, with a wide range of affordable sandwiches, healthy plates, cakes, coffees, and also vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free items. The Bould Brothers café is the perfect place to sample an authentic English café experience, whilst Aromi is the equivalent Italian café. For hearty breakfast options The Copper Kettle is a firm favourite with students over on King’s Parade, and this is also a great place to sit and relax with a cuppa in hand for an hour or so. Fitzbillies is an absolute Cambridge institution, serving its famous Chelsea buns since 1921.

If you are looking for a lunchtime treat after a hard morning at university, and to prepare you for the afternoon ahead, there are several places worth checking out. These include The Pint Shop and its two courses for a tenner during the week, The Cambridge Chop House, and Galleria. The Eagle is world famous as the pub where Watson and Crick announced the discovery of DNA, but it is also a place where you can get real old-fashioned, and incredible tasty British pub grub without breaking the bank.

Go Explore!

It is so handy to live in comfortable, high-spec Cambridge student accommodation that is well placed in the city. What it means is that you have the perfect home and location to explore the many pubs, bars, and nightclubs that this great city has to offer. As it is such a compact city centre, whether you choose to walk, cycle, use public transport, or get a taxi, you’ll never be too far away from the action.

Pubs And Bars

Cambridge has some fine examples of pubs and bars, many with spectacular views of the city and of the River Cam. Some places you should definitely check out include The Mill, which overlooks the river and is a comfy, retro pub, The Pint Shop, which is home to wide selection of fine craft ales and beers, and the Cambridge Brewhouse, which is set in the very heart of Cambridge and is a warm and welcoming environment to students, tourists, and locals alike. The Eagle is another fine example of an olde traditional English pub. It was built in the 16th century and is right next door to King’s College and Corpus Christie, as well as a whole host of other traditional real ale pubs and the like. For pubs, there are few city centres better than Cambridge, and with such history, tradition, and great architecture around, it’s easy to see why so many people fall in love with the pub culture here.

With such a long and cherished history as one of the oldest universities in the world it is no wonder that Cambridge has the ability to offer some fantastic student pubs and bars. As you can see above this includes so many traditional pubs that you can have a quiet pint in during the day, make new friends with locals at the bar at any day of the week, and to pre-drink in before the big student nights out. The pubs are fantastic, but there is more to Cambridge as a student than that, starting with the very lively Students’ Union bars.

Clare Cellars 

There is at least one bar at each college, with a different vibe to each. These are great place to make life-long friends and to experience specific college nights and themed parties for different societies etc. Clare Cellars is one of the most enchanting of the college bars, located in the cellars of Clare Chapel in the crypt. You can drink cheap drinks, see live music, and dance away to your hearts content. There is a different DJ here every Friday night playing drum and bass, hip=hop, and dubstep, with Saturday night switching vibe completely and offering up live jazz and a more relaxed and sophisticated affair.

Clubs 

Away from the college-specific student bars though you are never far away from some cracking bars and clubs, some with student nights to enjoy. 2648 is a nod to the original Motown Records address in Detroit and that’s exactly the type of music you can expect to dance to here, at this Motown-inspired bar. They also have a great cocktail promotion Monday to Friday (5pm-9pm). Hidden Rooms is an underground bar in an old Victorian Roman Baths, which has a sumptuous Cocktail Club at weekends, whilst Lola Lo is the place to go for all things Tiki and a tropical night out on its roof terrace.

Events & Attractions

It is no wonder that there are so many great attractions and sites to see in this historic city. Your luxury Cambridge student accommodation is in the perfect location to easily visit all the beautiful museums and art galleries in town, as well as being in the best place to attend some of the fine events that take place throughout the year.

Museums

Outside of London you’ll struggle to find as many museums and art galleries as in Cambridge. There is so much to see and do here, with the famous Fitzwilliam museum one of the best places to start. It is an eye-catching part of the city skyline, but more important is home to over half a million artworks, with history showcases from as far back as 2500BC. It is an extremely interesting place to spend a day. Two of the university museums are also incredibly important in the field of anthropology, archaeology, and zoology, with many other historic buildings and museums to explore throughout the city. The Ruskin Gallery, Kettle’s Yard Gallery, and the New Hall art exhibition are fine examples of gallery space in the city.

Festivals

For events you can take in the twice-annual Cambridge Literary Festival, which hosts world-renowned authors, and workshops from some of the finest thinkers around. Cambridge Folk Festival and Cambridge Jazz Festival are two great examples of music festivals in the UK, and are some of the leading festivals in each genre in the world.

Live Entertainment

If comedy is something you are interested in you can watch performances by The Cambridge Footlights, which is one of the oldest sketch comedy troupes in the country and has been home to some of the most notable names in comedy and entertainment, from Monty Python, Peter Cook, Stephen Fry, and Olivia Colman.