Day Twenty One Part Three: Oxford

After leaving Stonehenge, which again felt a little rushed, but that was mostly because we goofed off taking so many pictures, we headed for our final stop of the day, Oxford.  It was a truly architecturally beautiful old town, with a lovely river running right through it.  I would love to have a chance to go back on a lazy summer day.

 Some of you may know that before I met Richard I was planning on attending Oxford or Bristol University to get my Master's degree in history, so it was really nice to stroll around the town and think about what it would have been like to be a student there. This is my "I finally made it to Oxford!" picture.

To be honest though, I think it was much nicer to stroll around as a tourist with my sweet hubby than it would have been to be completing still more years of schooling all on my own. One really fascinating thing about the town were the ASTONISHING number of bicycles! I could not figure out how someone could locate their own in the heaping piles! Getting somewhere first could have a definite disadvantage...


We happened to arrive on matriculation day, so there were all these students striding about in their matriculation robes, very Harry-Potter-esque. And at 3 o'clock in the afternoon there were already parties of them who were completely sloshed. Hurrah for British day-drinking!




The architecture of Oxford was everything that it was supposed to be. I wish I could tell you more information about the pictures I am including in this entry and in the Oxford Special Feature, but I honestly have no idea how awesome most of them are, just that they ARE awesome, picturesque and famous. Yay Oxford.

The famed Oxford Library

 Although one very cool thing was a old courtyard surrounded by arched doorways, over each was hung the name of the particular school or discipline that was housed there.  I have to admit a bit of a thrill to stand under these arched doorways where so many of the great scholars also stood.

I was really hoping to get more of a C.S. Lewis feel for the school and town, but no such luck. I think you might need to book a specialized tour or something for that. As for our less-than-fabulous tour guide, she spent 30 minutes rattling off about building in mixed Spanish and English with NO cool stories! :( of which I'm sure Oxford only has about 5 billion. After that we had 'free time' to check out some random bookstores along the main drag for about an hour. Seriously? Seriously?! We sprinted through Windsor and Stonehenge so we could spend an HOUR on souvenir stores and fudge shops?

Ok, so normally I am a fan of fudge shops.  And I did find some of the specialty fudges offered highly amusing. But since the guy behind the counter had symptoms of, I don't know, the plague maybe? I was not about to consume anything there.

Boozy Fruit N Nut Fudge (sorry, iPod is not high quality pic!)

 There were some really cool old buildings on the main cobblestoney touristish street, that probably had some good stories behind them, if we had had a decent tour guide.

 By far the most entertaining element of Oxford was the street performer we came across, definitely one of the better ones we have seen.

We left Oxford and headed back to London on the bus. While on this fun little crazy daytrip we had become friends with fellow-American Dan, who was in England for business, and decided we would all try and go see Les Mis in the West End once we got back into London.