4 Best Nightlife in East Anglia, England

Overlooking the university boathouses, this lovely old pub gets honors for its riverside views.

A favorite of student rowers, this small pub has an excellent selection of traditional ales.

This 16th-century coaching inn with a cobbled courtyard has lost none of its old-time character. It also played a walk-on part in scientific history when, on February 28, 1953, a pair of excited Cambridge scientists announced to a roomful of rather surprised lunchtime patrons that they'd just discovered the secret of life: DNA. (Unfortunately they forgot to mention their third colleague, Rosalind Franklin, who has been largely erased from the history of their discovery). A plaque outside commemorates the event.

While you're in Bury St. Edmunds, pop in for a pint of the local Greene King ale at the Nutshell, which claims to be Britain's smallest pub—measuring just 16 feet by 7½ feet.