Cambridge is less than an hour by train from London and it offers a feast of wonderful architecture. We love its sense of small-town tranquillity which is quite a surprise for a city which has such a world-class academic reputation. Cambridge is no ivory-tower retreat; the dreamy look of so many of the colleges masks the fact that education and research are big business in this most likeable of university cities.

Wander through The Backs, where the gardens of seven colleges run down to the River Cam. Take to the waters on a punt (and try not to get wet). Everything in Cambridge oozes style. Even the modern shopping centre (pompously called the Grand Arcade) is smarter than similar malls in other English cities. Definitely make time to visit Fitzwilliam Museum (free entrance) and a handful of colleges. King’s College, with its magnificent chapel, is a good place to start.

The 19th-century city fathers and dons were not keen on the railway intruding on their picture-perfect city. So the station is some way distant from the centre. But regular buses shuttle from the station forecourt into the centre every few minutes. There’s an excellent range of regional trains from Cambridge station, with hourly departures to Birmingham, Leicester, Norwich and Peterborough (for connections to York and Edinburgh). There are two quite separate rail routes from Cambridge to London (one to King’s Cross and the other to Liverpool Street). A second station, called Cambridge North, opened in the university city in May 2017. Travellers heading for the centre of the city and the university should however still travel to Cambridge rather than the new station.