Best Day Trips from Cambridge: Two Gorgeous Choices

I am a fan of day trips from Cambridge as a way to see more and learn more about England. After all, I don’t want to return to America having seen only two places. What are the best day trips from Cambridge? For starters, don’t miss the weekend market in Norwich. Here are two more gorgeous suggestions to fill your weekends.

A 40-minute car ride from Cambridge, England is Bury St. Edmund’s. The population is roughly 35,000 people, if that helps you imagine the size. Like many small villages in Europe it is known for its cathedral. But, it also has another special place that’s worth seeing.

The Abbey Gardens at Bury St. Edmund’s

The Bury St. Edmund’s Abbey is actually the ruins of an ancient abbey. It is free to enter and stroll around. While it may sound a bit boring on the surface, once you get inside the main gate, you realize that you don’t have to be a history buff to be impressed by this place.

This Benedictine monastery was founded in 1020, and like most ancient European structures, was added onto over the centuries. Interpretive signage helps orient visitors as to where they are standing, and more importantly, just how big this place was.

Here are a couple of pictures to show you the scale of this place.

Here’s the thing that kept coming back to me as I explored. “Imagine that that this is just your regular neighborhood park and you hang out here on the weekends and walk your dog here.” What a different perspective on life you would gain! For my readers in my hometown: Imagine that this place is your Westside Park. Crazy.

Best Day Trips from Cambridge: Ely

If you are exploring small English villages on a weekend, there is still plenty of time after you’ve visited Bury St. Edmunds to hop on a train (40-minute travel time) and go see Ely. The best word I can use to describe Ely is “awe.” While the town itself is small and bustling with shops for everything you could ever need, it is famous for one thing: its cathedral.

I have been to many of the greatest cathedrals in the world, including Sacre-Coeur (France), Notre Dame (France), Sagrada Familia (Spain), and St. John the Divine (NYC). I could never pick a favorite. That would be simply absurd. The Ely Cathedral is awe-inspiring and I am awestruck every time I walk inside. I’ve seen it three times and cried at least once.

A continuous place of worship since the year 673, Ely Cathedral is now part of the Church of England. For American readers, that’s the church of which King Charles is considered to be the head. In fact, on May 6, 2023 when King Charles has his official coronation day, the cathedral will be open to the public for free so everyone can come watch the ceremony, which the church will broadcast on screens in the main worship area.

Staff told me that the church can seat 1600 people, but the fire marshal really only allows them to seat 1200 guests.

I haven’t taken the guided tour up into the octagon tower yet, but I hope to do that one day. There are multiple “smaller” chapels and a massive pipe organ that I got to hear being tuned. There is so much color and detail that I can never decide where to look first and I find something new every time. For example, the pictures below show The Lady Chapel, a “smaller” chapel in the rear of the property. Check out the close-up images of the decorative centerpiece on each ceiling rib.

To create sacred spaces such as these, without the benefit of modern tools, baffles me every time I think about it. Staff shared with me that Ely means “the place of eels” and that barrel after barrel of eels were fished and traded to buy some of the initial materials needed to begin constructing the chapel all those years ago. This year, 2023, marks the cathedral’s 1,350^th birthday.

While the original intention was for a worshipper to stand in the nave and be in awe of G-d, the other result is that a person can stand there and be in awe of man too.