Cambridgeshire & The Fens

By exploring slowly and delving into the stories and histories that have shaped these landscapes, you’ll start to get a true sense of Cambridgeshire beyond its capital.

Lucy Grewcock, author of Cambridgeshire & The Fens

Around 8.2 million visitors flock to the city of Cambridge each year but only a fraction stay overnight and very few venture beyond the city centre, let alone explore the rest of the county. By seeking out a backstreet pub or venturing beyond the county’s capital, Slow travellers can experience a side to Cambridgeshire that most visitors (and many residents, for that matter) never see.

If you’re fully committed to the Slow ethos, there’s far more to discover: linger longer or travel a little further and you’ll find Anglo-Saxon earthworks, wildlife-filled wetlands and historic villages that tell stories of the hermits and horse knockers, earls and adventurers, monks and millers, ice skaters and innovators that make this county so fascinating.

Shaped like a rough-edged diamond, every corner of Cambridgeshire exudes a different identity. In the southwest, the former county of Huntingdonshire is distinct in its riverside mills and market towns while, north of here, the city of Peterborough has a grand cathedral and is bordered by rolling countryside and honey-coloured villages that line the River Nene. In northeast Cambridgeshire, the pancake-flat fields, vast orchards and remote villages of the Fens feel a world away from the green hills and affluent settlements of southern Cambridgeshire, or the busy streets and grand university buildings of Cambridge itself. It is this diversity that makes the county so appealing to Slow travellers, who can experience vastly different landscapes, architecture and attitudes within just a few miles.

By exploring slowly and delving into the stories and histories that have shaped these landscapes, you’ll start to get a true sense of Cambridgeshire beyond its capital.

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Bradt on Britain – our Slow Travel approach

Bradt’s coverage of Britain’s regions makes ‘Slow Travel’ its focus. To us, Slow Travel means ditching the tourist ticklists – deciding not to try to see ‘too much’ – and instead taking time to get properly under the skin of a special region. You don’t have to travel at a snail’s pace: you just have to allow yourself to savour the moment, appreciate the local differences that create a sense of place, and celebrate its food, people and traditions.

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