Additional Oxford

We only had two half-days in Oxford, and Oxford is a town that really deserves at least a few days if you are visiting. So rather than ticking off a list of ‘top-ten must dos in Oxford’ our trip was a combination of taking advantage of the situation (we were meeting a friend for afternoon tea at the Randolph, the Ashmolean Museum was over the road, so our plan was to go there first thing) and picking one or two things to do with our limited time on Friday. That ended up being an open-topped bus tour and lunch in a pub I had wanted to visit for some time.

Oxford is a city for walking, and you can easily visit all the main sites on foot, whether following  a printed guide, an audio one, or just doing a bit of research and grabbing a map. But Willem claimed he really, really, really wanted to go on one of the open-topped buses, and since I knew I would be expecting him to go to one or two places purely because that was something I wanted to do, I thought it only fair to take the time to get on the bus.

Enjoying the open-topped bus tour on a sunny day.

The open-topped double decker tourist bus is now a ubiquitous sight in most cities due to the success of the City Sightseeing business. And the buses in Oxford are no different. The weather was absolutely glorious, so we sat up top, earphones plugged in to hear what was an interesting, if not extensive, commentary on the places we passed. While there is no mention on the website about it, Willem was allowed on for free (nice bonus), and I was charged £12 for my ticket (50p less than the website states for an adult ticket). We rode the entire ‘loop’ once before getting off, though one of the benefits of these buses is that you can hop on and off at designated stops for the whole 24 hours (or 48 hours, depending on your ticket) for the one price. Perhaps this would be useful in a more spread out city, but as I said above, the ‘touristy’ parts of Oxford are all pretty compact.

Dreaming spires, viewed from the back of a bus

An advantage of the bus is that you get an interesting viewpoint from the top floor looking down on things, and you can potentially see over walls and gates into colleges and gardens that are not viewable from street level. One additional nice touch is that kids get a free ‘kids pack’ which is a little activity booklet and small felt-tip pens. Though probably not the best idea for on a tour bus – its a bit too bumpy on the bus for writing, and you probably want the kids to be taking in the views rather than concentrating on a word-finder puzzle! My suggestion is stick the freebies in your bag for a quiet time after your tour.

Willem's artistic shot of Bodleian architecture.

Of course a bibliophile in Oxford is close to heaven, and there were three places I felt were worth a visit in our limited time. First was while waiting for the tour bus – The Bodleian Library. Unfortunately children under eleven are not permitted on the tour that is required to see the ‘good’ bits of the library, but there was still plenty for us to look at. Firstly the architecture is sublime, and looked particularly beautiful in the morning sunlight.  Willem thought the Old Schools Quadrangle was nice, but was not impressed that all the other tourists were ignoring the ‘Silence Please’ signs (these signs also appear on a lot of the rather nice souvenirs in the shop, and I was tempted to buy a coffee mug with this message on it, only I already have too many coffee mugs …) And we were allowed in to the Divinity Room and Exhibition Room. And the shop. Any bibliophile (or someone looking for a gift for one) should not miss it. While not particularly large, it is filled with beautiful and clever things, many of them very reasonably priced (including the cheapest postcards in Oxford the day we were there – beautiful quality in a pack of  10 for £1.50!).

Another bibliophile must-visit is the Blackwells store on Broad Street (there are actually a few of them, including the music specialist and art specialist stores, but I am talking about the one across from the Bodleian). This tardis of a shop is amazing – a not particularly large street frontage belies the huge, cavernous store behind. The huge Norrington Room (10,000sq.ft.) is supposedly the largest room devoted to book selling in all of Europe. It is underground (under the Trinity College Gardens to be exact) and is a beautiful space. The store actually ranges over various levels and rooms and has around 250,000 books in the store. While Blackwells in best known as a publisher of academic books, this store really does cover the whole market, and you could easily get lost for hours browsing. And they get extra points from me for being not at all disturbed when Willem stretched himself out on the floor and quietly read some books in the junior fiction section while I looked around. Admittedly it was not particularly busy, but it is nice to see a bookshop that realises there are children who are a) not destructive and b) if they are reading are probably going to be responsible for purchases, so not necessarily sponging (and yes, we took advantage of the 3 for 2 promotion before leaving 🙂 )

Re-enacting 'The Inklings'. Going by the pose, I would say this is meant to be after a few pints.

Last stop before catching the train to London was the pub for lunch. But not just any pub – The Eagle and Child has some pretty impressive history. What appealed to us most is that this pub was once ‘the local’ of C S Lewis, JRR Tolkien and other writers who called themselves ‘The Inklings’. The Rabbit Room where they met to chat, pontificate and drink, is still there. When we arrived someone was sitting at ‘the’ table, so we took a table in one of the cosy front rooms (the original part of the building, at the front, is very much what you imagine a traditional old pub to be like. Or what I expect anyway) and ordered lunch. The food is great, and not at all expensive. The staff, at least the day we were there, are fantastic too – young but not too cool for school. The other table in our room was soon taken by some visitors from the US, who were extremely happy when a bartender came in and gave them a ceramic beer mug with the pubs name and sign on the side of it – it seems they had asked if they could buy a souvenir and he popped into his office and found ‘this old thing’ and said he was happy to give it to them for free as  ‘I need to start clearing stuff out anyway’. This thing looked old but in a great condition! Once we had finished lunch ‘the’ table was spare, so I asked the bartender if we were allowed to take photos. The response was ‘go mad’ so I got a shot of Willem sitting in the Rabbit Room — he insisted that he was pretending to be JRR Tolkien talking to C S Lewis. The bar staff and the older gentleman who had just left the table were polite enough to stifle their giggles, but I think they all found it rather entertaining.

Oxford is an amazing place — while I will continue to argue it is not as pretty as Cambridge, it has a depth of history and culture that deserve visiting, and there are a range of things to see and do, which would keep family members of differing ages and attention spans happy. If you are in England, make sure you take time to visit the dreaming spires. You won’t regret it.