Oxford City Break

Recommended days	2
Budget	£
Difficulty	Easy

Oxford is a city I really should have visited before but its anti-car transport policy has always put me off. This weekend we decided to try an Oxford city break and stayed nearby and caught the park and ride bus into the centre.

Having just come back from Hong Kong you’d have thought we were used to crowds but Oxford was ridiculously busy! I think most of Beijing had actually relocated and brought their cousins with them!

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The architecture was splendid with some iconic buildings such as The Radcliffe Camera and Bridge of Sighs. There was no real chance of getting a clear view of any of the buildings so we spent most of the time in museums. The Natural History Museum was excellent as was the Pitt Rivers although it was so damned dark my old eyes couldn’t read much of the info.

Natural History Museum

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Magdalen College

Magdalen College was interesting to walk around and see one of the famous quads but it again was populated with the contents of every High School in China.

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St Micheal’s Church

We visited one of the old Saxon churches in the town (St Micheals) , or maybe the only Saxon church, and climbed the tower for some views. It was nice to be away from the people and imagine dropping gas grenades from the roof, but maybe that’s just me!

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Ashmolean

Final stop was to meet Stuart at the Ashmolean, have a wander and then end up with a cream tea on the rooftop terrace. The museum certainly lived up to its reputation and was well laid out with a huge variety of fascinating exhibits.

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I think this is a great place to visit in the rain as the museums are superb but unless I could walk around at 5AM I won’t bother bringing the camera again! Although I did still want to visit Oxford Castle the next day we decided we couldn’t face the crowds so we visited nearby Blenheim Palace instead. A wise choice.

2018