London to Cambridge by Chauffeur

The Cambridge run is straightforward on paper and irritating in practice. The M11 is dull, the parking in Cambridge is worse than dull, and the centre is closed to most traffic by bus gates that catch out visitors with tiresome regularity. A chauffeur removes all three problems at once and puts you at the porters' lodge rather than in a multi-storey half a mile away with an hour on the clock.

From the North Circular the M11 runs almost due north past Harlow, Bishop's Stortford and Stansted, and the surface is good the entire way. Junction 11 brings you in past Trumpington and the Biomedical Campus, while Junction 13 suits the northern colleges and the Science Park better. The A14 handles anything continuing east towards Newmarket. It is a route that rarely produces surprises.

An hour and a half is enough to clear an inbox or to say nothing whatsoever, and both are perfectly legitimate uses of it. May Ball guests spend it revising plans; parents spend it trying to remember where they parked in 1994. On the return, particularly after a long ceremony or a considerably longer dinner, the value of a quiet car and nobody to entertain becomes obvious.

Cambridge days often involve several fixed points — a ceremony, a lunch, a college drinks reception — with unpredictable gaps between them. We treat those as a single hire with the car on call rather than as separate bookings that never quite line up. Overnight stays, early Stansted departures and a return leg the following morning can all be arranged in the same conversation.