I just returned from Lauras and Marks wedding in Oxford and must say I am impressed with how many venerable university buildings can be crammed into one little city.
After a scary, uneventful flight and a bus ride I arrived in Oxford last Thursday about lunchtime, dropped off my luggage in the B&B and started a first reconnaissance.
Friday greeted me with rainy weather which explains the white sky in the picture below.
After several cups of Chai I headed for an extended walk which eventually included Brasenose college (the site of the wedding ceremony), Radcliffe Camera (an impressive building housing a library) and a 2-hour retreat into the Blackwell bookstore. One store below ground, Norrington Room sports 5 kilometres of bookshelves; need I say more? I am all the more very proud to announce that I bought only two books.
The Museum of the History of Science beckoned me to enter and marvel at its large collection of astrolabes originating from around the world and lots of other instruments that furthered human knowledge.
Saturday presented Oxford with sunny weather, fit for a wedding. After a stroll through Christ Church Meadow (and a short nap) it was time to attend the wedding which was held at Brasenose Chapel. Laura and Mark are such a lovely lovely couple, without any doubt they’ll be very happy together.
Dinner and dancing took place at Oxford Centre. I was placed at the Carinthian table (together with friends of Mark’s time in Austria), and we sure had lots of fun.
On Sunday I visited J.R.R. Tolkien’s grave (since I slept in a B&B about 300m away). The headstone bears a touching reference to Tolkien’s tale of neverending love, referring to Tolkien as Beren and to his wife Edith as Luthien.
Seeing a very nervous rabbit darting about the graveyard while standing in Oxford (Lewis Carroll was a mathematician at Christ Church, after all) made me want to encounter caterpillars and strange cats.
Soon afterwards it was time to take the bus back to Heathrow, where another frightening, uneventful flight (thanks, aterpillar) took me home.
Yes I hate flying. Nevertheless I will have to return to England for another visit sometimes, including Oxford, Cambridge and London.
Looks like a really nice place to visit. As for hating flying: Eurostar? It’s only 15 hours from Vienna (and more expensive too I guess) :-)
2 books or 2km of books? ;)
Nicely written! And you would have visited his grave even if 3km away, right?
btw, the word “flight” was gobbled up by the “aterpillar” ;)
Greetings from Stockholm!
Eurostar: been there, done that in 2009, and the experience was a bit underwhelming :)
Tolkien’s grave I would have visited even if a 5h walk would be necessary to reach it :)
Greetings to Stockholm and the grammaticaterpillar!
So you’re a 5 hour Tolkien fan! ;)
Tomorrow I will wave in your general direction from the airport :)
Greetings to the grammaticat in Vienna!
Make that “trafficat”!
Don’t underestimate the slope of the 5h walk’s path :)
Up Mount Doom? :)
I liked Vienna! ;)
Exactly, and the lava, and the orcs…
Airports are the same everywhere :) you should visit the city proper.