Situated by the River Cam in the East of England, Cambridge can trace its ancestry back to the first century BC when an Iron Age Belgic tribe built a settlement in the area. The Romans took over around 40AD, and later the Saxons and Normans occupied the site.

It was early in the 13th century that the first scholars arrived in Cambridge and the foundations were established for what would become the University of Cambridge, one of the oldest and most successful universities in the world. In 1284 Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely, founded Peterhouse, the first college, and several more colleges were established in the next centuries. Today the university has 31 colleges, three of which are for women only.

The university has more Nobel Prize winners than any other institution. As many as 81 affiliates - academics, former students - of the university have won the Nobel Prize since 1904, and they have won in every category, with 29 Nobel prizes in physics, 22 in medicine, 19 in chemistry, seven in economics, two in literature and two in peace.

Yet the city by the Cam is not only about colleges and academics. It has long been a bustling market town with plenty of cultural and social activities going on. The medieval city centre is beautiful, with narrow, winding streets, the market square, little parks and gardens and many charming old buildings, and it is surrounded by green open spaces and the river.

In addition, Cambridge has a wide variety of excellent pubs, bars and restaurants, and the nightlife is good fun too. It is hard not to be taken in by the city's charms, which no doubt helps to explain the fact that some 4.5 million people visit Cambridge every year.

Cambridge is not a very big city, but thanks to its university it has exerted a considerable influence on the world through the people who have had formative experiences there, from Sir Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin to John Cleese and Eric Idle.