Which One · England · Cambridge vs Oxford
Two questions and you’ll know which train to book
Two questions sort this. Answer them out loud and the rest of the trip plans itself.
Do you want the literature side of Oxford, Tolkien and the Harry Potter staircase? Or the science side of Cambridge, where you stand in the courtyard where Newton clapped to measure the speed of sound? And have you got a day or a weekend?
Pretty streets and the sciences send you to Cambridge. Literature and two nights send you to Oxford. A day trip is Cambridge, because the whole city sits inside about an hour’s walk. Longer than that is Oxford, because it is bigger and it carries on west to Bath and Bristol. When friends are trying to toss up between the two, these are the two questions I put to them.
Your call | Cambridge | Oxford |
|---|---|---|
The pull | The science. Newton, the Eagle, the colleges | The literature. Tolkien, Narnia, Alice, Harry Potter |
Out of London | King’s Cross or Liverpool Street, north | Paddington, west |
On the train | About an hour | About an hour |
On the ground | A day, one night at most | A couple of days |
On your way to | Ely and further north | Bath and Bristol |
The one thing | Punting the Cam | The Bodleian |
The pub | The Eagle, where DNA was announced | The Turf Tavern. The Eagle and Child reopens in 2027 |
On foot | Compact. Everything inside an hour’s walk | Bigger. More walking between things |
Disclosure
Some of the tours below are affiliate links. If you click through and book, I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Option one: Cambridge, because you can do it in a day
Catch an early train, do the lot and be home for dinner. That is the case for Cambridge. Nothing sits far from anything else, so the day holds a punt, a college, a pub and a wander without ever feeling rushed.
Hire a punt you steer yourselves and the day makes itself. It is a lot harder than anyone anticipates. Have a bet on who goes in first, count the crashes and run it as a drinking game if that is your group. It’s my running joke to see how many people can fall in. I’ve steered one down the Cam myself, which is where the joke comes from.
Want the day without the steering? A chauffeured punt does the work for you.
Pick one college and go inside, because there are some amazing ones to choose from. Trinity comes with a guide who walks you round. King’s is self-guided and a guide costs extra. Entry runs in two fixed slots, one morning and one afternoon, so it pins the rest of your timing. King’s is also the one that gives you the classic Backs photo.
Rather not pick? A walking tour led by a former student strings the colleges together.
Stand in Trinity’s Great Court and you are where Newton worked out the speed of sound, clapping and timing the echo. The apple tree by the gate is a graft of the original. Hold an apple up in front of it and you have the photo. I do it every visit.
Sit in the Eagle afterwards and you are in the pub where DNA was announced. I’ve had a pint there and it still gets me.
Travelling with someone who cannot walk as far as they used to? Cambridge is the kind answer. Mum puts in the effort and does her ten to fifteen thousand steps, but she needs breaks between them. A compact city means an hour or two of doing, then a sit-down in a pub or a café.
You see more here for the time and the steps. It is nicer on the feet than Oxford is. The sciences Mum taught me when she homeschooled me are standing right there in front of her.
Worth it
Worth It: Trinity College and the punt. Those two are the day. One day in the diary is all Cambridge asks for.
Option two: Oxford, for two days and the books you grew up on
Give it two days and Oxford pays you back. It is bigger and there is more to fill the time with. For anyone obsessed with literature it is the one. You can walk the streets where Tolkien wrote and stand at the Narnia lamp post on St Mary’s Passage. The colleges where the Harry Potter scenes were filmed let you in too.
Stand at that lamp post and you are looking at the thing behind the wardrobe scene. Narnia was one of my favourite things growing up. I have a special edition of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I always wanted to come here.
As a book lover the Bodleian belongs high on your list, so book a library slot. It is one of the libraries that collects every book, one copy of everything kept. Book dreams come true in there. Slots go on the library’s own tours page. A two-hour Harry Potter walking tour takes you in there and round the filming spots in one go.
If you want one of those classic photos on the Harry Potter staircase, bring your wand or something to wear and pretend you are a student at Hogwarts. That is the bit that brings the literature nerds out, because you can re-enact any of it.
Climb St Mary’s tower for the view, 127 steps. I’ve climbed them. The Radcliffe Camera from up there is the reason to.
Look up in the Covered Market and the Alice in Wonderland figures hang from the roof like lanterns. It takes five minutes on the way past. The White Rabbit is the one I stopped to photograph.
Give an afternoon to something that is not a college and Oxford Castle and Prison is the one. I’ve been a couple of times and one of them was my birthday, on a ghost tour in broad daylight. The guy running it was hilarious.
Finish at the Turf Tavern, down an alley you will walk past twice before you find it. I loved the atmosphere. It is where Bob Hawke, later our Prime Minister, drank a yard of ale in eleven seconds.
Worth it
Worth It: the literature walk and a pint at the Turf.
Not worth it
Not Worth It: doing Oxford from the outside only. Mine have mostly been walking trips and the buildings are lovely from the street, but you get far more back for going inside something. Pick one college, one library, one tower. Two days gives you room to do all three.
Getting there from London
Head north out of King’s Cross or Liverpool Street for Cambridge, west out of Paddington for Oxford. Both run about an hour on the train, so choose on the two questions and not on the timetable. Allow about half an hour on foot from Cambridge station to King’s, which is the only bit that catches my friends out, every time.
Full days, stop by stop, are on the Cambridge Day Guide and the Oxford day, stop by stop. More of England is on the England hub.
The Pivot
Every one of these trips has a version that does not go in a guide. The ghost tour in broad daylight is one of them. That one belongs on Controlled Chaos.
Both are lovely. This is the choice I put to anyone coming to stay with me. Whichever one you say first out loud is your answer.
By Kat, who has taken visiting friends to both cities more times than the diary can account for.
What did you decide?
Option one
Cambridge
The science, the punt, one day, done
Option two
Oxford
The books, the staircase photo, two nights
