CRT News

This post was first published in May 2020, when Cambridge and the rest of the UK was in the middle of the first Covid-19 lock down. It seems strange looking back on it now... Cambridge, along with the rest of the UK, went into government ordered lock down 0n 23rd March 2020, in an attempt to slow the spread of the Coronavirus. Quayside would normally be a hive of activity at this time of the year. Now there is not a single person or punt to be seen. This thriving city, with a population of approximately 124,000 people, usually attracts over 5 million visitors every year. However the normally busy streets have been deserted ever since the start of lock down, at the end of March, as shown by these captivating images. A deserted Bridge street, the approach to Quayside If you've ever visited Cambridge then you will know that it's never this quiet. As well as the local residents and visitors, the city also has two universities, with approximately 30,000 students between them. The city feels like a ghost town (did you know that the Specials wrote their song Ghost Town about Cambridge?). Under normal circumstances, there are times when Cambridge feels quiet but never this quiet. This is usually when the Cambridge students have finished term and local students, who study elsewhere but live in the city, have yet to return during the holidays. But this is different. No students but somehow there's always a traffic cone... Normally at this time of year, many of the Cambridge colleges would be closed to visitors anyway, because it's exam term. However, now they are all closed, along with all [...]

This week has seen Cambridge transformed from an already beautiful city into a Narnia-esque winter wonderland, in quite unseasonable fashion (the 1st of March is meant to be the start of spring!). The so-called ‘Beast from the East’ weather front arrived with a vengeance, bringing with it icy winds, sub-zero temperatures and, for many parts of the UK, quite a lot of snow. Monday morning (Feb 26th), Cambridge was looking like this, cold but beautiful and sunny, and apart from the temperature it definitely felt like spring was just around the corner: We managed to film this footage later the same day, of when the snow first arrived in Cambridge. The three clips were shot within the space of perhaps half an hour, showing how quickly it went from a few flakes, to some light flurries, to what felt like an absolute blizzard! Our European cousins, and those across the pond in Canada and the USA, who regularly experience and cope with far worse conditions during their winters, were undoubtedly looking on with bemusement. The UK was plunged into a frenzy of rolling news coverage about the snow, panic-buying in supermarkets, road closures, school closures, cancellation of sporting events and flights, and so on. Of course, it didn’t stop the intrepid and hardy from going punting: Is it the novelty of snow that makes us both so fascinated by it and simultaneously unable to cope with it? The fact that it happens so infrequently does mean that we don’t really have the infrastructure to deal with it. Most of us don’t have the clothes or the driving skills to make the best of it either. If we had snow more often, would we take it […]

We all know that Cambridge is a great place to visit in the summer when the sun is (hopefully) shining, the days are long and the weather is balmy. But there are plenty of reasons to visit the city all year round. Originally we had written separate blog posts on the two E-luminate festivals that we managed to attend but these are now combined below. Sadly, as far as we can tell there are no plans to continue with the festival any time in the future. Every year between 2012 and 2018, the e-lumiate festival Cambridge had been showcasing some of Cambridge’s most famous buildings in a new light (pun intended) and the 2016 festival was no exception. E-luminate 2016 With a number of installations around the city: Great St. Mary’s Church; the University Library; Gonville & Caius college were just a few of the iconic locations lit up as part of the 2016 festival, held between 12th & 17th February. They say a picture tells a thousand words so here’s video and some pictures we shot on the last night of the festival. You can see a few more on our instagram feed and also on the gallery page. E-luminate 2018 Yes, it’s back. Cambridge’s E-luminate Love Light festival returns to light up the city for its 6th year. We went along to check out the installations on the opening evening – Friday night. The festival runs until Weds 14th Feb, which handily coincides with half term if you’ve got kids (and even if you don’t) and ends on Valentines day, so might make for a nice romantic wander either before or after you go for dinner. The opening ceremony was held at the […]