One of our students, Kanjiro Oe, spent this weekend in Copenhagen. He couldn’t give any reason for going to Copenhagen, except for a vague desire to see, well, Copenhagen. And who can blame him. It’s a pretty town. I was there once, a few years ago.
Cambridge is pretty well situated for short breaks to Europe, with Stansted Airport, hub of low-cost air travel, only half an hour away by train. I’ve known students go to Paris, Rome, Venice, Madrid and Lisbon for the weekend.
And now, I notice, you can fly direct to many European destinations from Cambridge International Airport (!?).
Cambridge Airport has long been little more than an aerodrome where you could learn to fly or land your helicopter, but it now hosts Darwin Airlines, who offer scheduled services to Paris, Leipzig, Milan, Florence, Rome, Amsterdam, Geneva and Lugano at not particularly prohibitive prices (return to Amsterdam from £140, for example).
I’m particularly interested in all this, as I live about four minutes’ walk from the airport. But that means it’s only a five-minute taxi ride from the school. Amsterdam is under an hour’s flying time from Cambridge. You could very easily stroll up with a newspaper under your arm, be in the newly refurbished Riksmuseum by opening time, and home again in time for your tea before you’ve finished the crossword.
For a full list of destinations (not including Copenhagen, unfortunately), see here.
