At a glance

• From London: Oxford, about an hour by fast train from Paddington. Cambridge, about 50 minutes by fast train from King's Cross
• Size and feel: Oxford is a busy city with a university inside it. Cambridge is a smaller market town where the university dominates
• The big sights: Oxford has Christ Church, the Bodleian Library and the Radcliffe Camera. Cambridge has King's College Chapel and the Backs along the River Cam
• On the water: both offer punting. Cambridge's route along the Backs, past the colleges, is the more beautiful
• Free museums: both are excellent. Oxford has the Ashmolean, the Pitt Rivers and the Natural History Museum; Cambridge has the Fitzwilliam
• The catch: colleges are working places of study. They close for exams and graduations, and charge for entry

Cambridge: the river and the chapel

Cambridge was founded in 1209 by scholars who left Oxford after a dispute with the townspeople, and the rivalry has never stopped. Cambridge is smaller and greener, and its colleges back onto the River Cam, with lawns running down to the water. That stretch of riverbank and meadows is called the Backs.

• King's College Chapel: begun in 1446 under Henry VI, with the largest fan-vaulted ceiling in the world and Rubens' Adoration of the Magi behind the altar. Entry is by timed ticket for the chapel and grounds. Hear the famous choir free at Evensong during term.
• Punting on the Backs: glide past King's, Clare, Trinity and St John's and under the Bridge of Sighs. Hire a punt and push it yourself, or take a chauffeured tour, which is easier and comes with stories.
• The Fitzwilliam Museum: free, with Egyptian antiquities and old masters.
• Grantchester: a walk or punt upstream through the meadows to tea in the orchard.

Honest downsides: Cambridge can feel overrun in summer, the colleges along the river are almost all paid entry, and the station is a 20-minute walk from the centre.

The empire question: Rhodes, Benin and slavery

Both universities grew rich in the age of empire, and both are still arguing about it.

Oxford: the Rhodes statue

Over the High Street entrance of Oriel College stands a statue of Cecil Rhodes, the mining magnate and imperialist who gave his name to Rhodesia and left Oriel a fortune. Students began the "Rhodes Must Fall in Oxford" campaign in 2015. In 2020 the college said it wanted to remove the statue, and an independent commission it set up recommended removal. The college then decided not to proceed, pointing to costs and planning obstacles, since the building is listed. The statue is still there, with an explanatory sign nearby. Rhodes's fortune also funds the Rhodes Scholarships, which have brought many African students to Oxford. Read the background in our pages on Britain and Zimbabwe and Britain and Zambia.

Cambridge and Oxford: the Benin objects

In 2021 Jesus College, Cambridge, handed back a bronze cockerel, the Okukor, taken from Benin City in the British attack of 1897, and became one of the first British institutions to return a Benin Bronze to Nigeria. Both universities' museums, Cambridge's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and Oxford's Pitt Rivers and Ashmolean, still hold objects from Benin and have agreed to return them. In 2022 Cambridge also published a report on the university's links to slavery. More in Benin Bronzes, Asante gold and African treasures in British museums.

The verdict

Choose Cambridge for one perfect, relaxed day: the chapel, the river and punting on the Backs, all compact and beautiful. Choose Oxford if you want more to do: the finest free museums, Christ Church, the libraries and a real city around them. With only one day and good weather, Cambridge wins by a little. With bad weather, Oxford's museums make it the better choice.

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