It's that time of year again where I pull out the summer day out list, when it's grey and rainy and we have the whole summer ahead of us I like to plan things and days out for the coming weeks when it's sunny. I'm always planning things and writing lists, Ben on the other hand is spontaneous. You need one of each person in a relationship I think. Anyway, a couple of years back we booked a couple of nights away in Norfolk in June the day after my exams finished {blog post here}, the weather was glorious and we decided to stop in Cambridge for the day on the way back. We'd never been before but knew we wanted to go punting on the river. Think we're due a return trip sometime soon, it's such an amazing city. Oxford is on my list too! And lots of other day out inspiration here. 

{apologies to those of you who had a sneek peak at this post last week, the scheduling messed up!}

Of course, being home to one of the most famous {and oldest} universities in the world, the focus of the city is on the university colleges and chapels which means the architecture is amazing. There are medieval lanes to stroll around with nice shops, restaurants and cafes around a central square. And yes there are bikes everywhere, England's own Amsterdam. 

We first walked around the city before deciding that if we wanted to go punting on the river, it would be better to do it earlier rather than later before the hoards of tourists arrived. So we went to find the 'Backs' - the river which runs behind all of the colleges. It's actually quite hard to get to, all of the college's have access and gates out the back but access is restricted on most to students and fellows only. You can book tours around some of the buildings but we just wanted to see the pretty bits. In the end we found a road leading down to all the boat hires.

There are two prices for punts, one a self-punt and one a guided group punting trip. We thought, oh how lovely let's just punt ourselves, it will be more romantic just the two of us and fun. How hard can it be? The answer, for somebody who's never punted before, is very hard. Haha poor Ben. You have to stand at the back of the flat boat, balancing on the edge and then push the oar down into the river bed to propel the punt along. In theory it sounds easy but when you're standing on the back of a wobbly boat, it's actually quite scary. It took a short while of working out which way was left and right and all of the students make it look so easy! But after a while Ben got the hang of it and we were off sailing up the river, under historic bridges and next to the world famous colleges with meadows on either side. Going straight was easy, turning around was just a little tricky... 

We even passed a Pimms punt going up and down the river on such a hot day. Summer heaven!