Day Trip to Oxford!

Your mom and I took a day trip from London to Oxford, home of "the oldest university in the English speaking world" (and second oldest surviving university in the entire world) as well as many of our favorite British detective mystery shows.

Our train left from the classic Paddington Station in the heart of London. It was, as it is always characterized, a hustle and bustle of tourists and business people making their way from Point A's to Point B's all over the UK and Europe. We weren't headed too far, as Oxford was only 60 miles away. 

The train was fast! The trip was over in a blink as we gawked out the windows and soaked up some of the countryside zipping by. 

From the train station we had breakfast in a dive cafe and started hoofing it into the heart of the town. We first passed by these old town government buildings and jail which had been converted into some modern shopping, dining, and hotel type places. The blend of the ancient and modern architecture, we learned, is controversial, and some complain about any alteration at all of these building relics. 

Every nook and cranny of the town has interesting history. Every peek down every alleyway reveals another treasure, too much to really soak up in just a single day. 

We figured an old town like Oxford could hide some amazing vintage and used clothes or souvenirs, so we stopped in this unassuming vintage clothing shop to see what might be inside. It turned out to be essentially a huge pile of clothes with almost no bare floor to stand on. A tiny woman was reclined in one pile like it was a beanbag chair, fiddling with a dress. I got the creeps! 

The students were undertaking their final exams for the semester, and part of the tradition is that they take them wearing the old-fashioned university robes. Here some students - likely relieved after finishing a big test - pass under the "Bridge of Sighs," an iconic piece of Oxford architecture.  

Being a big library fan and book nerd, your mom was particularly excited to visit the Bodleian Library, a massive monument to the collection of books. We'd come back later for a proper tour.  

We forked over a few pounds to tour some of the campus, including this courtyard which has garnered some additional fame in recent years after being used as a shooting location in the Harry Potter movies. Old, small doors around here were labeled with college department names: Philosophy, English, etc. 

That stone wall at the edge of this gorgeous park is the Oxford City Wall, one of the longest lasting remnants of Oxford from when it was a medieval town in the 13th century! Now this grassy area is reserved for studying students. 

We stumbled upon some punters! We decided this looked like fun and took a punt around a shallow, slow moving river. We opted to have someone pilot for us, and it seemed like the right decision after we saw some folks really struggling to steer theirs without a pilot. Our guy was an Oxford native who was in town and working for the summer here. 

The punting trip offered some nice views, but I was treated to perhaps the best sight of all. 

Robemakers. That's something we've ever noticed along the streets of any of the American cities we've visited.  

We got back onto the campus in time for a tour of the Bodleian, and although no pictures were allowed once we got inside the place, we got some excellent history lessons. This library dates back to when every book as entirely hand penned, and if anyone wanted a copy, it required being written by hand all over again. Thus, they were quite valuable at that time and were truly prized. Even to have just a dozen of these hand-written books was quite a treasure, and this library started out just that way. This is a picture of the ceiling directly below the original library. It was built up there to keep the hand-written works safe from floods or any other natural disaster.   

Across this courtyard from the library, we climbed the narrow and ancient stairs of Saint Mary's Church to get this amazing look at the Radcliffe Camera, another part of the library that was closed to visitors due to the students studying for finals. 

From the other side of the Church, we were treated to some gorgeous views of the rest of the town. 

  

  

We had to stop for a pint at The White Horse, a pub made famous many times over by one of the many British detective mysteries we love to watch, Lewis, which is set in Oxford. Inside there were pictures of the actors drinking here and filming shots in the same seats we sat. We even noticed a film crew outside one of the campus buildings, so we liked to imagine the actors were just out of sight doing their thing. We did some research, and with the amount of murders occurring in Oxford in these television shows, the town would have a murder rate ten times that of New York City! Of course, in reality there's not even one murder every year. 

Back at Saint Mary's Church, we enjoyed a classic tea on the lawn near to some ancient grave markers dating from many centuries ago. 

Then it was off to The Eagle and Child (or "The Bird and Baby"), another pub famous in the area, this one for its connection to some widely famous English authors - including J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis - who, in the 1930's and 1940's, met here to discuss their work. We sat and enjoyed a pint feet away from their meeting spot!  

For dinner we took our only taxi trip of the entire trip out to another spot we'd recognize from the detective shows we watch, the Trout Inn along the Thames. 

It was a bit rainy, but we had a nice dinner under a big umbrella and soaked in the ambience of the Thames streaming by only feet away. It was an excellent, peaceful way to end another busy day of sight-seeing. 

A few train rides later, we were back "home" in Shepherd's Bush to rest up for the next leg of our adventure.