Cambridge – Cultural Icons

Overview

Meet the top-notch Blue Badge Tour Guide at one of the UK’s newest architectural treasures – the Cambridge Eco Mosque.

There will be time for morning refreshments at the Mosque (included) before being taken on a guided tour. Worshippers and visitors (all are welcome, men and women of all faiths) enter via the Islamic Garden before passing through a covered portico and then an atrium, preparing them gradually for the contemplation of the prayer hall, facing Mecca. This combination of gardens with whispering fountains and vaulted prayer spaces has been used to great effect throughout Islamic history.

The building is an Eco-Mosque, constructed to run on as little fuel as possible, to recycle rainwater, to make maximum use of natural light and to harness the power of the sun.

On leaving the Mosque we head to the heart of Cambridge to break for time to buy lunch which will include the free time option to visit the “greatest little museum in the world”. The Fitzwilliam Museum is a glittering jewel in the crown of the University of Cambridge.  You will have time for private exploration plus a highlights tour of the Fitzwilliam with our Blue Badge Guide. This mini-British Museum holds the University’s art collection so prepare to be impressed.

We round off our entertaining and erudite day out with one last visit to a Cambridge Cultural Icon – the Orchard Tea Gardens in Grantchester for a cream tea (included in tour price).

For over 700 years, students such as Newton, Darwin, Cromwell, Milton, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Tennyson, Marlow and Spenser have walked, ridden or boated from Cambridge to Grantchester Village. Once best known for the Old Vicarage and Rupert Brooke’s Stands the clock at ten to three, Granchester is now also recognised the world over for the erudite and eponymous detective drama.