We
visited Oxford at the beginning of August. It’s somewhere that’s been on my
list of places to see for quite a while. With the sun beaming, we walked into
the centre of Oxford to see all the tourist spots first before they got too
busy – starting with the Bridge of Sighs.
Bridge
of Sighs
Also
known as Hertford Bridge, the Bridge of Sighs is referred to as such because of
its supposed similarity to the famous Bridge of Sighs in Venice. Even as early
as we were, the area around the Bridge was very busy with tourists and students, but I still managed to get a photo underneath it. There are several walking
tours around Oxford which you can pay to join and learn about the history of
the city.
Radcliffe
Camera
The
Radcliffe Camera is the earliest example of a circular library in England,
built between 1737-49, and is one of Oxford’s most recognisable landmarks. The Camera
is one of the things I most wanted to see in Oxford (not just because of its
blue roof!) Unfortunately, the library isn’t open to the public, but you still
get to admire it from the outside. We also looked around St. Mary’s Church,
which can be found opposite the Camera.
Bodleian
Library
The
Bodleian is the second largest library in the UK, with over 12 million books and
other items. It is also one of the oldest libraries in Europe, dating back to
1602. There are different tours around the library, but we just paid to go into
the Divinity School because there wasn’t a time slot convenient for
us to go into the Bodleian, so I’ll definitely be doing that when we come back.
The picture below is of the ceiling’s amazing architecture.
Oxford
Colleges
The University
of Oxford has 39 colleges, so obviously, we didn’t look round them all! Three of
the ones that we did visit were Christ Church, Pembroke and Magdalen College.
Christ Church has 175 acres of land, including Christ Church Meadow, which is
open to the public and is where we spotted a couple of deer as we walked round in
the evening.
Botanic
Gardens
The
botanic garden is the oldest in the UK and one of the oldest scientific
gardens in the world. Founded in 1621 on the banks of the River Cherwell, the
gardens now contain over 5000 different plant species.
Punting
The
one thing I’d decided we had to do before leaving Oxford was to go punting. There
are a couple of places to go punting on the River Cherwell,
and I’ve written about our trip in another post.
