Oxford
During my stay in UK "The city of Dreaming Spires" ,as fondly nicknamed by poet Matthew Arnold, was my first choice of visit. The city houses the oldest university in the English speaking world, the university of Oxford. Apart from it's medieval architecture the city also has a strong connection with Harry Potter and author J.R.R Tolkien, the creator of middle earth. I was travelling with one of my friend, Sumanta Dey and we had our base in Coventry. We took the morning service towards Bournemouth from Coventry Station. A morning ticket cost us around 24£ for two adults. Here is a tip about UK, the earlier you book your tickets the cheaper you get it. Also, coaches are far cheaper than rail tickets most of the time.
On reaching Oxford our first destination for obvious reasons was the famous university. Pretty flowers and old European telephone booths braced our way. The city is an architectural wonder and also exhibits a culmination of multiple styles such as Anglo-Saxon, English-Gothic, Palladian architectures.
The street sides along the university are marked by book shops and Harry potter souvenir shops. If you are feeling wealthy enough to live your harry potter dream you could grab a wand for 12£. Also, look out for interesting signboards along the way. One such signboard led us to the Bodleian library. The library is the main research library of Oxford and also one of the oldest in Europe. Apart from being featured in the Harry Potter films the library also showcases an unique exhibition absolutely free. Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth explores Tolkien’s legacy and brings his works revolving around wizards, elves, hobbits and creatures to life. For a middle earth fan like me the exhibition is a must visit. On completing our tour of the Bodleian library we moved on to see some other historical landmarks around the university such as the bridge of sigh and University church of St. Mary the Virgin. There is a hop out hop in bus service available in the city, however, we decided to walk and find our way around. Walking allowed us to capture the essence of the city and well, it is one of the perks of being a budget traveler. ;)
The next stop was the University of Oxford Botanic Garden, the oldest botanic garden in Great Britain and one of the oldest scientific gardens in the world. If you are on student concession you would get a ticket for £16.50. As expected the garden greeted us with a plethora of colorful flowers. We could hear soothing bell chimes coming from the church while exploring the place. Since, we visited on the weekend a good amount of crowd was enjoying the park. We spotted families singing and merrily boating down the river.
By the time we finished botanical garden it was afternoon and we were hungry. UK tip number two, the best place to grab a bite is McDonald. The price is reasonable and they provide free WiFi and washroom services. Post lunch we visited the neo-classical style Radcliffe Camera. The building demonstrates Palladian principles perfectly, with pillars and a dome in a straightforward, symmetrical repeating pattern. By now we were devoid of most of our energy and decided to visit our last destination for the day, Oxford University Museum of Natural History. We headed towards the museum via Covered market. The Oxford University museum houses many of the University of Oxford's natural history specimens and provides the only public access into the adjoining Pitt Rivers Museum.
This blog would not end if I started describing the museum and I would not like to make this a painful read :P. So, that's all from the Oxford trip. We had booked a Megabus coach for our return back to Coventry costing 10£ per adult. Just an insiders tip, there is a good street kebab shop near the coach station. You could grab kebabs and chips for 3£ and trust me it is quite yummy. :D