Cambridge is a one-day-wonder for visitors of any age

I reached a sobering personal milestone last weekend. It was the first time I've attended a wedding at which I was older than the mother of the bride.

Not by much, mind you. But it still felt like a step into a new and more marginal generation. The days of the weddings of my peers are now mostly over. (Though we do have two this year to celebrate.) It's time to turn our attention to the kids. I don't feel that old. Perhaps that's why I drank and danced with quite so much passion. Especially when those '80s classics came on.

Fortunately, there was plenty to distract me from broody contemplation of advancing years. The groom, our nephew, was giddily happy. His bride is a glorious addition into our family and her family and friends were great fun. The venue showed off the potential of the English countryside at its best to host special occasions like this.

British farmers and estate owners have had to sweat their assets for decades to get by, so it's no longer a surprise to see them venturing into the hospitality industry. Indeed, it sometimes feels like every barn in the country that pre-dates the 20th century has been tastefully restored and turned into a party venue. I've been to several excellent wedding receptions beneath their ancient timbers. But I've never seen a whole ensemble of farm buildings re-purposed as well as South Farm in Shingay. If you ever need to throw a party or a big corporate event in South Cambridgeshire, this is your venue.

I'd guess the L-shaped farmhouse, which has been beautifully restored, to be late Georgian. Though with places like this it's likely bits and pieces are much older. Three farm buildings to its side, set in a rough "C" shape, form a complex around a mostly-enclosed courtyard. on the other side of the house are beautiful gardens I'd guess get a lot of use in the summer. The primary facilities are a barn and a dairy, both beautiful buildings of dark timber framing and white walls, the dairy a smaller version of the barn across the courtyard. They're linked by a covered walkway which looks onto a working farm yard full of decorative animals like exotic ducks and a white peacock.  Suspiciously clean sheep grazed in a little pasture on the other side of the dairy. I suspect there might have even been some heritage breed pigs rooting around somewhere. If I ever win the lottery, this is pretty much the set-up I want when I follow in Marie Antoinette's footsteps to create my model farm.

Our bridal couple had the good sense not just to pick an excellent venue, but to marry on a Friday in a bit of the country rich with tourism opportunities. Thus Saturday saw us exploring Cambridge with Danish cousins.

With its stunning architecture, rich history, cultural blockbusters and exceptional parkland, Cambridge could easily keep a visitor busy for a week. Beyond students, there are enough affluent permanent residents to make it a great place for shopping and dining. But it's also, rather surprisingly, a tiny town at its core that allows a tourist to get a feel for the place and hit the highlights in just one day out.

We drove and left the car at the sparkling new multi-story car park attached to the Grand Arcade shopping mall. At £26.80 for the full day on Saturday, it was no bargain; but it was incredibly convenient; especially if you have dogs you want to get rid of half way through the day. You emerge in the heart of the historic centre, a stone's throw from the market square and Trumpington Street (the main road along which many of the most historic colleges sit). You're even closer to the tourist information centre in the Guild Hall on Peas Hill, where you can pick up the official Cambridge tourist map and mini guide for £2.50. If you're only here for a day or two, this is all you need ... and is particularly useful for its clearly-marked walking tours.

The logical starting point is King's College Chapel, a rare survivor from England's lavish, pre-Reformation days. In architectural language, it's the world's best example of late perpendicular English gothic .... a style that proves the English could be just as giddy and frivolous as any Italian painter or French designer. The fan vaulting here transports you to a magical land of fairies and elves; I think you have to leap forward 500 years to Gaudi's Sagrada Familia to find any other building that's so delicately otherworldly. It has also, by some miracle of fate, retained both its original stained glass and rood screen, features ripped out of most English churches in waves of religious violence in the 16th and 17th centuries. The iconoclasts left this chapel alone, meaning you can enjoy it pretty much as it was when Henry VIII dropped by. Except for a delicious Rubens altarpiece donated and added last century which complements the comforting opulence and rich colours.

The chapel is also famous for its traditional church music. You can hear some, and save yourself the £9 admissions fee, if you hang around for the nightly evensong service. That, however, wasn't going to fit into our one day blitz. Following the tourist office's walking route, we sauntered down Trumpington Street peeking through gates into quadrangles of various colleges, all blessed with their own distinct architecture. Some Gothic, some Georgian, some Victorian, some a mix. There are even a few modern additions, though most of the town centre retains its film-set antiquity.

The sight that pulls the most visitors in this stretch, however, is the most modern: a striking mix of timepiece and public art display called the Corpus Clock, installed in 2008. Looking like something that should be in Hogwarts, this series of gold disks turns steadily, topped by a giant, grasshopper-like creature who's eating the minutes as they tick by. He's called the chronophage ... literally, "time eater", and he's there to remind us how quickly the days go. A poignant message for university students, who will need a couple of decades to grasp it properly.

Turning right on Silver Street brings you to the River Cam, where you can gaze at the Mathematical Bridge (a sophisticated 18th century exercise in geometric design) and catch students piloting tourists in flat boats called punts. A circular walk from here takes you along a bit of the river known as "the backs" where you can saunter through parkland and look over the water to some of Cambridge's showiest architecture and most famous colleges. The view of Kings College chapel and quadrangle from this side is one of the quintessential views of the town. Eventually you turn right again and return to the town centre, where more enticing peeks down lanes and through gates remind you that much of the magic here is still the preserve of students and teachers, screened from prying tourist eyes.

Time for lunch. At least a third of the stalls in the market square now offer food. From giant woks of oriental delights to Indian curries, sausages to burgers, you can get anything you fancy here as dedicated vendors vie for gourmet street food stardom. It's a very long way from the clothes, housewares, fabrics, bric-a-brac and music stalls that occupied the square when I worked my first British assignment here in the early '90s. We were looking for something more atmospheric, and desperately needed to sit down for a while, so headed for The Eagle.

It's rare to find a properly traditional pub in a high-traffic tourist area, but such is The Eagle. A coaching inn dating back to 1667, it's still a pleasing warren of smaller dining and drinking areas with traditional decor. The old courtyard is now, inevitably, a beer garden with heat lanterns to work the space throughout the year. The back room, known as the RAF bar, has a more modern history. Cambridge was surrounded by both American and British air bases in World War II, and this is where many of the airmen relaxed. The walls are covered with their graffiti and insignia from diverse flight groups and operations down the years; it's still a point of pilgrimage for modern flyers and aviation buffs. Scientists hung out here, too. Yet another piece of modern history sees The Eagle as the place where regulars Watson and Crick announced they'd discovered DNA. The pub has a home-brewed ale called "Eagle's DNA" to celebrate the fact.

In addition to being picturesque and historic, it's also a great place to eat in the best pub tradition. Fish and chips, burgers, curries and pies loom large on the menu, but all seem to come from the heart and hands rather than the freezer. Pies are even proper, hand-raised versions rather than the stew-with-a-pastry-lid shortcuts that are more typical these days. Unsurprisingly, The Eagle is as popular with locals as it is with tourists, so booking a table in advance is a very good idea. (We didn't, but got lucky when a large group didn't show.)

We'd contemplated a postprandial meander along the river through Jesus Green and Midsummer Common, tipped by the tourist office as a beautiful walk. But the weather was closing in so we left the dogs sleeping in the car and went for an indoor option.

Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum is far more than your typical university collection. It's one of the great museums of the world, packed with Old Masters, Medieval and Renaissance treasures, priceless classical antiquities, spectacular furniture, exotic Far Eastern collections and rare manuscripts and coins. With over a million objects on display, an art lover could spend days here. But since it, like all of the UK's National Collections, is free ... you can pop in and have a quick wander to get a feel for the place. (Donations are appreciated.)

The Fitzwilliam also features one of the grandest museum entry halls in the world. It's a 19th century neo-classical pastiche worthy of a Roman emperor's most opulent fantasies. Mosaic floors, multi-coloured marble walls, towering columns, classical statuary, sinuous ironwork, monumental stairs, balconies for posing, all topped by a magnificent stained glass dome. The hall just reopened last year after a multi-year restoration and is noticeably improved, with the stained glass gleaming and gold leaf glittering. It's one of the best rooms in Britain. Even if you're not interested in art, step through the front door to drink in this wonder.

I could have spent hours wandering the galleries beyond, but soon it was 5pm, the museum was closing and we had to get back for the third consecutive night of wedding festivities. I might have joined the parental generation, but my best days aren't that different from those in university. Consume culture and wonderful sights during the day, consume food and alcohol with fun people at night. Life is good.

If you're spending more time in this part of the country, you might want to visit the magnificent ... but very different from each other ... stately homes of Wimpole and Ickworth.  The more technically inclined (or those interested in World War history) will love the Imperial War Museum at Duxford, one of the best aircraft museums to be found anywhere in the world.

Embracing the "small plates" fashion in London? Head for The Shed or Caravan.

Combining tapas-style small plates with high-end dining was radical when Gordon Ramsay introduced the concept at London's Maze in 2005. When I reviewed it two years later it was still unique, and still one of the hottest tables in town. The restaurant has been on a downward trajectory in recent years however, delivering a deep disappointment on a return visit in 2010, losing its Michelin star in 2015, changing its concept and scheduled for closure early this year.

The small plates revolution that Maze kicked off, however, has grown steadily to become a "new normal"; so much so that at least half of my Christmas-season holiday meals took place at restaurants built around the ethos. Establishments don't even bother to promote it in their marketing these days. You can just be reasonably certain that if you're confronted with a large menu on which most of the dishes are around the £10 mark, you're probably expected to order numerous items per person to graze and share.

I'm still not totally convinced by the trend. While it does help the greedy or indecisive to sample a wider range of what's on offer, I rarely come away from these evenings fully satisfied. And the bill usually feels pricier than what you'd pay for a standard three course meal. (Though this could be due to the fact that the grazing nature of the experience encourages more alcohol consumption.) There were two notable exceptions, however, in my pre-holiday dining rounds: The Shed and Caravan.

The Shed is the restaurant I dream of having in the Hampshire countryside, near my house, at which I'd become a regular. It's essentially a big garden shed decorated with old farming kit, oil barrels for table bases, the bones of an old John Deere tractor framing the bar. The menu celebrates English produce, is rigorously seasonal and scrupulous about citing its sources. Much of Shed's larder was bred or grown within a hundred miles. Dishes are simple in concept yet elegantly presented. At this time of year there's lots of game. The menu splits into "slow cooking" and "fast cooking", the former celebrating those succulent, traditionally meaty dishes that fall off the bone or vegetables that caramelise to sticky sweetness.

Sadly, this exquisite representation of the English countryside isn't in that countryside, but in one of London's priciest neighbourhoods ... on the borders of Notting Hill and Kensington, on a small lane snuggling up against the northwest corner of Kensington Palace Gardens. So you're likely to rack up a bit of a bill as you snack through delights like a single Lulworth scallop with caramelised artichoke served on its glorious shell, Sussex beef with truffle duxelles, heritage carrot hummus (top photo) or pheasant with spiced red cabbage. All in snack-sized plates to encourage you to share and order more.

We were particularly fond of the pulled pork "cigars", melt-in-your-mouth meat rolled into crispy, flaky pastry. While the scallop, however, pinpointed the drawbacks of the small plates idea. Each of us would have welcomed two or three of them as our own dish, rather than a third of one scallop, no matter how delicious the morsel. Fortunately, when it came to desert, their honeycomb crunchie dipped in chocolate, sitting on a little cloud of meringue, came out with individual pieces for all.


The Shed has an excellent wine list including ... as you'd expect ... a well-curated range of English options.

I can see why this place has been popular with Londoners since it opened in 2012. If you spend your day in the urban jungle, The Shed instantly transports you to the green and pleasant land beyond the M25.  If only the country pubs in my neighbourhood could meet this standard.

While The Shed celebrates England, Caravan draws its inspiration from almost everywhere else. Founded by three New Zealanders, they deliver a menu that is fusion in the extreme: Asian, Italian, South American, Eastern Mediterranean ... whatever you're in the mood for, you're likely to find a hint of it here. The casual, all-day dining vibe means the venues can feel as much like coffee shops (they roast their own beans) or trendy bars as they do restaurants. I've eaten at two of their five outlets, South Bank and City, and both have been consistent with quality, service, variety and fun.

Their jalapeño cornbread is probably the best I've had outside of Texas. Jamon croquetas (left) would make any Spanish bar owner proud. Feeling Italian? Try the nduja, cavolo nero and scamorza pizza. The menu can sometimes read like an exotic ingredient trivia contest: nam pla, hispi cabbage, ong choi, daikon, labneh, yuzu. You can tell the staff is used to explaining the menus. After three meals here I wouldn't worry much about the unknown: everything is great, making this a wonderful place to experiment.

I also like the way Caravan does both small plates and traditional dining. I've been here with a corporate group, ordering one of everything on the small plates menu and grazing throughout the evening. Just before Christmas I returned and treated it like a traditional three-course meal: small plate, large plate, dessert. Their confit duck with pomegranate and mint pesto, and their pork schnitzel with fried duck egg and mustard dill cream, are about as good as comfort food gets.

It's hard to believe Caravan is a chain. In fact, I didn't realise it the first time I ate here, so quirky, seasonal and distinctive is their whole approach. I wouldn't mind one of these turning up in North Hampshire, either. In the mean time, it's become a safe, go-to option in London whether I'm doing a festive graze with a big group, or an intimate meal for two.

Welcome to Paradise. Just £1,500 a night. (Or a grounded flight.)

My mother, who's raison d'être was travel, had two firm rules.

Joanlee's Rule No. One: Always be kind to travel and tourism staff

It's shocking how awful tourists can be, often ranting at airline employees or hotel workers for things
that are entirely out of their control. And yet these are the people who control room assignments, upgrades and the quality of your whole experience. Like any human, they're more inclined to favour people who've treated them with respect.

Joanlee's Rule No. Two: Always dress presentably enough to look like you might be in first class

Travel staff are all about protecting their brand. They don't want anyone in the premium sections who can't act like they belong there. For your best chance of an upgrade, look and act worthy of one.

I don't know if following these rules was the direct cause, or if we just won a lottery, but we ended up spending our last night in Antigua in one of the island's most expensive and exclusive resorts. We weren't supposed to be on the ground at all, but local engineers needed more than two hours to figure out how to remove our plane's engine casing to replace a part, and by the time they had us ready to fly, the pilots had gone over the limit of time they're allowed to work at a stretch. So we were stuck for the night on a Caribbean island in high season, in need of approximately 170 rooms to hold exhausted and hungry passengers who'd boarded the plane at 3pm and been released back into the terminal four hours later. I honestly thought we might be sleeping at the airport.

Another two hours passed. The Virgin Atlantic flight crew rolled trolleys off the plane to do what they could for us. Unfortunately, health and safety rules had demanded the trashing of all the hot food, and customs restrictions prevented the serving of alcohol, but they were there for us. The captain, who had given us regular status updates throughout the attempted repair, was working the crowd. He stood stoically as people complained, and greeted each new passenger with a smile and heartfelt concern. I told him this was the best management of a significant flight delay I'd ever experienced. A PR triumph. I meant it.

Around 9pm, they allowed anyone who had somewhere to go to reclaim their luggage and head off until summoned by text message to return. Those of us without options waited in the terminal while Virgin Atlantic and the airport's information desk searched for housing options. An hour later, we were invited to grab our luggage and then queue up for room assignments. Piers went for the bags while I headed for the queue; confident I'd spot him in the crowd thanks to height, double-breasted blue blazer, old school rugby shirt and panama hat. Eventually at the desk, a member of the flight crew smiled at us, said she thought we would enjoy ourselves, and sent us to Hermitage Bay.

We had another 40 minutes to wait for a taxi, since, unsurprisingly, few of the island's force were on duty by this time. Which gave me time to search the internet and quickly see that the lady at the desk wasn't kidding. The number of "best" lists this 5* hotel appears in boggles the mind, most notably Conde Nast Traveller's Best All Inclusives in the World.  Another quick search told us the room rate ... had we walked up on our own ... would be £1,500 a night. Their web site also informed us that "while the hotel is close enough to accommodate day trips into town or excursions around the island, a private, unmade road separates Hermitage Bay from the rest of the world, contributing to its seclusion." Translation: you will have a bone-shattering journey from the airport before you even pull off the main roads, then be subjected to two miles of slow navigation and jarring bumps over perilous terrain in near complete darkness before you reach our heavily-guarded gate, where a sleepy security guard may be a bit slow to respond to your presence.

Once in, however, we glided down a verdant lane between lush tropical gardens to arrive at a Polynesian-style, open-sided welcoming pavilion, where I almost expected Mr Roarke and Tattoo to be waiting. (If that's a cultural red card, read more here.) Instead, a small team was still awake in the otherwise silent resort to guide three lucky couples to our destiny in swift, silent golf carts. Alighting onto gravel paths and surrounded by a concert of chirping crickets, singing frogs and the murmur of the sea somewhere nearby, we wound up some stone stairs ... staff carrying luggage, of course ... to end up at the front door of our villa.

It was a lot to take in, at nearly 1 am and after the madness of the day. A free-standing, Asian-style
pavilion built into a jungle-covered hillside. Our own generously-sized plunge pool, part of a wide verandah that wrapped around two sides of the building and featured a collection of cushioned sofas, chairs and tables. We could have comfortably hosted a cocktail party for a dozen. Inside, in an interior of black ebony and billowing white draperies, a towering four poster, looking towards a wall of plantation shutters that could be opened completely to take in the view. Through a door, the bathroom ran the width of the building, with an enormous free-standing tub. Beyond that, an outdoor shower allowing you to wash while communing with the flora and fauna. And, making no distinction between airline refugees and real guests, there was a club sandwich and a plate of exquisitely carved fruit waiting to banish memories of airline snacks.

We had just 12 hours to enjoy this paradise. I hated to waste time sleeping. (Even though the thread count on the sheets and the feather density of the pillows was exquisite.) By 6am I was back on our verandah, listening to the birds wake up and watching dawn's fingers paint the sky. I headed for the sea, which was close enough to hear but obscured by vegetation. The beach here is a wide, gentle curve of powdery sand stretching at least 300 metres. On the western, Caribbean, side of Antigua and sheltered by hilly promontories, embraced by the arms of a broader bay, this is the stuff of dreams. Unlike our original hotel, there was no sea grass here. I waded out more than 50 metres and was still waist-deep with smooth sand beneath my feet. And I was entirely alone.

Like all of Antigua's beaches, Hermitage Bay is technically public. But getting here, if you weren't a guest of the hotel, would necessitate either a very strenuous hike or drop-off by boat. Thus even when people started coming onto the beach mid-morning, the ratio of empty sand to human being was impressive.

Eventually I climbed back up to our jungle eyrie to entice my husband to breakfast. This took place in   the rambling, open-sided, beach-side, Asian-style pavilion at which we'd first arrived the night before. Hermitage Bay is all-inclusive, but you won't find any buffets here. Meals are in a full-service restaurant, served by gracious locals who look to be wearing couture designed specifically for the hotel. Our waitress encouraged us to sample a range of delights from Caribbean eggs to French toast. A side of avocado was a must; they'd just ripened and been plucked from the garden. The pastry basket was tempting, but was it too much? No, she insisted. And, sure enough, the pastries were bite-sized miniatures of all the classics, flaking to buttery shards on our tongues.

We retreated to our villa for the rest of the morning. Lounging on sofas, soaking in the plunge pool, watching birds flit from one colourful bloom to another. All accompanied by gentle music floating over from the spa next door. Our return to the airport came far too quickly, but the hours of the delay will live in memory forever. Poor Ocean Point. Twelve hours at Hermitage Bay became our headline experience on Antigua, despite nearly two weeks at the other resort. Which raises an interesting question.

Is it actually worth spending three times as much, but going for 1/3 of the time, to have a more exceptional experience? I'm not sure. And I can't imagine ever feeling that I could justify a rack rate of £1,500 a night. But if Virgin Atlantic ever wants to disrupt my travel again for such an experience, I'm in.