Our Day Exploring Oxford (100th Post!)

The final city Claudio and I visited together during his time in Europe was Oxford, a world-famous city that is considered to be one of the most beautiful in the UK.

I'd been to Oxford with my family many times before, as my sister used to live there, but I'd never really seen all the sights, as we'd usually gone there for days out shopping or theatre trips. However this time, we managed to really explore the city, and I feel like I know it a lot better now.

The sight we saw first was the castle, which isn't too far from the train station. I'd actually visited it back in March last year and blogged about it here, but this time our photos came out a lot better! The castle is quite an underrated attraction in Oxford, and I would say it's definitely a must-see.

Claudio needed to buy some Christmas presents for his family, so we popped into the Westgate Centre. After he'd bought everything he needed, we went up to the top of the mall where the bathroom is. There's actually a rooftop terrace up there with amazing views over the famous spires of the city.

Afterwards, we had lunch, and then it was time to explore some more!

We had some ideas of parts of the city we wanted to see, thanks to the Chilean programme City Tour On Tour. In this programme, the two presenters visit famous cities all over the world, and in the series about the UK, they visit many of the places we went to during Claudio's stay here: London, Bath, Lacock, Castle Combe, Brighton and Cardiff, as well as Oxford. In the Oxford episode, one of the attractions they visit is St Michael at the North Gate, a Saxon tower that's the oldest building in the city.

Just across the street from the tower, you can find 26-27 Cornmarket Street, another very old building that was mentioned in the episode. There's actually a Prêt à Manger there these days, which we went into later. It was cool to have coffee inside one of the oldest buildings in the city!

Then it was time for us to see some of the university's most famous buildings, including the Sheldonian Theatre.

The area of the city where the theatre is located is where many of the most iconic attractions can be found, including the Bridge of Sighs. Its official name is actually Hertford Bridge, but it has now come to be known as the Bridge of Sighs owing to its similarity to the bridge in Venice. Standing in front of it really does give you the sense of being in Italy.

Nearby you can find the Bodleian library, the main library of the university and one of the oldest in Europe. It occupies several buildings, including the Clarendon building and the Schools Quadrangle, whose entrance is known as the Tower of the Five Orders.

The best-known building of the Bodleian Library, and also the best-known building in the entire city, is the Radcliffe Camera.

It really is a grand and impressive sight to see, and it was one of our favourite attractions that we saw during the trip.

Other beautiful buildings in the area include All Souls College...

...and the University Church of St Mary the Virgin.

The next place we went to see was Christchurch college. It's generally considered to be the most attractive college of the university, and it even has its own cathedral and meadow. Usually it's open to visitors, but obviously it's been closed recently due to Covid. However, it was still very nice to see from the outside.

Next we went back to the central shopping area of the city to see another famous old tower, St. Martin's Tower or Carfax Tower, which is the only remaining part of the 12th century St. Martin's church.

Then we went to see the Ashmolean Museum. It's not open at the moment, but it's a very grand, Roman-style building, and worth just going to have a look at.

During our day in Oxford, we also enjoyed exploring the Covered Market and walking round the city's picturesque streets.

All in all, we had a great time exploring this beautiful and very European city. I actually had mixed feelings about Oxford before, as I don't like the snobby, superior attitude of the Oxford and Cambridge universities. In my opinion, they're not any better than the other universities in this country; you only have to look at the incompetence of the current government (most of whom studied there) to realise that. But it's true that the architecture of Oxford University is amazing to see, and I'd definitely recommend it as a destination to anyone visiting England for the first time.

Claudio and I thought this trip would be the last one we'd have before he went back to Chile. However, his flight was moved again, so we got to spend a couple more weeks together, including Christmas and New Year, which was really lovely. We also had time for another trip - I'll be writing about that soon.

On another note, I'm quite excited that this is my 100th post on this blog! Over the couple of years since I first set up Charlotte's Travel Adventures in October 2018, I've visited eight different countries - nine if you count England and Wales separately - and had many memorable and varied travel experiences, from floating in a lagoon in the Atacama Desert, to teaching English in Poland, to exploring my own local area in South West England. Blogging has really become a passion for me, and I plan to continue writing here for many years to come!