Exploring Oxford (1)

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We started our exploring with a town walk. The walk was billed as a free walk, and was run by the same company as our walk in Cambridge. The company was set up by students, who ask you to join the walk and if you would like to give them a gratuity at the end, they will accept whatever you give. You are asked to pay what you think they are worth. Our tour guide was Jamie, and he was very entertaining! He had graduated a few years ago, and so knew Oxford well. He guided us around the sights, giving both history and geographic information. With the information from the walk we were able to decide where to go back to look in more detail. We saw a number of the oldest colleges - Balliol, Merton, Christ church, Queens, Oriel and Hertford. We also saw the libraries-the Bodleian and the Radcliffe Camera - the Bridge of sighs, the examinations hall and the Sheldonian theatre and more. The walk took us nearly two hours, ending up next to the Botanic Gardens. We went off to find lunch in Waterstones, a large book shop full of students. We decided to go to The Ashmolean Museum after lunch, to continue our explorations. This is a museum, built originally to house the collection of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University of Oxford in 1677. Since then the collection has been added to and it contains paintings, crockery, artefacts from Neolithic man, Egypt, many religions, sculpture and much more. There was so much to see that our feet and brains got tired before we got to the end of all the displays! At this point we decided to go back to the hotel and sit down for a while, before walking back into Oxford to Christ Church for evensong. Evensong was again slightly different to others we have been to in the last few weeks. The choir sang well, and we were also able to join in some hymns tonight. We finished the day with dinner back at the hotel. Tomorrow we will continue our explorations in Oxford. We are now close to the end of our travels. Just two more days!

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