Oxford Part 2

We'd had lunch, and now had circled back to a more modern part of the city.

Even this, however, had 'that look'. Along this street we saw an old Medieval tower at St. Michael at the North Gate (1040), and we decided that dh would go up. I had one vertigo tower experience in Ulm, Germany years ago and didn't want to chance this one.

There were gorgeous views of the city and I was glad dh's pictures were able to capture that gray, foggy, day so well.

I stayed down in the shop outside the church and talked to the two people staffing the desk. We had a good time also, and it was a lot warmer.

The stalwart climber and photographer.

Back outside we saw this marvelous post box outside the post office.

But now it was getting time to find our way to Evensong. We could see our destination from outside the Christ Church gate but...there was no going in at this time. The entrance to the Cathedral was also on the other side of the quad. We'd find it.

We managed a stop in the Oxford University Press shop as we never want to leave a bookstore unvisited and then a pot of tea at The Bear Inn. This was the slowest cuppa tea we ever had, tho good, and by the time we got back down to Christ Church college, it was dark and we wondered how we would get in. Fortunately, a student came up and we all waited for the gatekeeper to return. It was a mad dash thru the night rain and while not as professionally sung as the Evensong in Canterbury, the singing of the students and guests made it a wonderful topping to our day.

Now there was only dinner. Sadly, Jamie's Italian was jammed and we didn't want to wait 45 minutes. Ok, not Jamie's but we did have Italian. My calzone and his pasta, both very good and nicer than the pictures show.

In the dark night, we waited for out bus, left around 8pm and on 'home' to London. I highly recommend this bus method for those who visit London and want to visit Oxford as well. If you actually want to see more of our Oxford pics, check out the Flickr set.

Oxford Express

A sweet woman who works with dh, came over for dinner before our trip and told us all about her years in Oxford as a student. She gave us a lot of good ideas, and so we booked the Oxford Express, and went as daytrippers to Oxford. The fares for over 60 were especially sweet @ 8 pounds each return.

Upon a rainy arrival, it seemed a good thing to have a cuppa tea for fortification. Patisserie Valerie hit the spot, and had my favorite teapot - Again!

We walked and walked, with both a guidebook and the college recommendations.

But most of the day it was a case of being a few minutes late, or on the wrong day or just not clicking with the colleges we had hoped to visit. But seeing the truly medieval look of Oxford was just about enough.

But we considered visiting the Bodleian Library but decided that a lot of these very special places would take most of our day, so we passed. Had we been spending a week in Oxford it would have been a different story. But just look at this architecture!

Lunch was a quick one in a bookstore right outside the Bodleian and I enjoyed watching this student(?) talking with her family (?).

Back outside, it was still raining and yet another site was closed.

We had spent a good time in the gorgeous Bodleian giftshop (no photos please!) and the Ashmolean had a great number of wants for me, that I wisely didn't buy, but appreciated. So now a walk down to the market, which was also about to close. More dry goods and stuff at this time of day but still enough food to remind one that it was a market.

We saw Jamie's Italian but it was too soon for dinner tho Italian sounded quite tempting on the chilly drizzly day.

So, what do we do for the rest of the day before trying to hear Evensong at one of the colleges???