Oxford

Saturday dawned fine and clear so off we went to Oxford. Driving along the motorway we discovered that the road was not too bad as motorways don't have silly round abouts. It took an hour and forty minutes to drive there and then we parked in the free parking outside the town and caught the bus in. Very groovy arrangement as it means you don't have to cope with weird traffic and parking. So our first stop after coffee and a cookie was the Ashmoleon museum. There we saw the Egyptian collection including a mummified kitty, a complete shrine and some amazing jewellery.



The museum also had an excellent collection of very old musical instruments, fine china and silverware.



Of course after all this walking around one has to quench one's thirst and what better way then an ancient and very groovy pub. It is called the Eagle and Child, built in the sixteen hundreds, and was the meeting place of JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and C Williams. We had a pint of Adnams, it was ok very hoppy but not great unfortunately. After this brief stop we then headed to the next excellent museums - the Oxford Natural History Museum and the Pitt River Museum, which are in the same building. These places were amazing as they had skeletons of dinosaurs and other extinct animals. They even had some poor animals that, though they had a nice life in zoos and died of natural causes, were now stuffed. Though I must say patting a real cheetah was something. You could touch a number of the exhibits, but none were quite as soft. They also had some gross stuff like real shrunken human heads, which were quite nauseating (along with the children's tribal heads). I guess you can't have everything.

After this it was a walk through the town on to the two of the University colleges. We went through Merton which was lovely though the library was closed, a shame really as it is one of the oldest in the United Kingdom. The college was built in the thirteenth century, and JRR Tokien taught there. We then went to a place that they used for at least two of the Harry Potter movies and it did look like they were filming the day we there - Christ Church college. There was some big fuss at any rate as no one was allowed in the Great Hall!



After this it was time to go home though we did do a quick spin through the covered market place and sad to say it was a bit disappointing. oh well :P