Oxford

Visited 20 July 2003--------

Report by Shimmer

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We had a rough itinery and at least had some idea what to expect, but our trip to Oxford didn't start out too well as the coach driver gave us an out of date location for the Tourist Information Centre. This caused a lot of confusion as the signposts hadn't been changed either and we found ourselves walking in circles until we stpooted a noticeboard that had the new location of Tourist Information on it. Our driver also put us off the Ashmolean Museum so we put it last on our priorities list when it should have been further up judging by what little we saw of it at the end of the day. Hmmm, maybe we shouldn't take advice from someone who drives coaches for a living!

It soon became apparent that we should have gone on a Saturday in winter instead of a Sunday in summer. There were too many tourists and some of the more interesting shops weren't open. Still, we had a pleasant day, we had a look in the History of Science museum which was interesting but misleading. A more apt title would have been "a collection of some old astrological instruments most of which are pretty much indistinguishable".

We were planning to walk around the Botanical Gardens, but we just ended up looking over the fence at them. Sod paying £5 to get in, I had hoped they were free entry! The plan to have a special meal in the town was scuppered by lack of eateries and late opening times of the pubs, so we ended up having a top quality jacket potato in BHS! After that we had a stroll round the uninspiring shops and had a bit of a rest in the field near the bridge.

The public toilets in Oxford were a little strange,can't say I've been to lavs before that have polished metal plates instead of mirrors and recepticles for used syrunges in each cubicle. Does make you wonder what goes on in Oxford away from the tourist-friendly facade!

It's a lot more pretentious than London too, so I'm glad I went to university in London, I would never have fitted in in Oxford, shops are a shitload better in London too. Oxford seems little more than a souless tourist trap for Americans, and I'm not just saying that because of the DNA incident (cheating Oxford bastards!).

There was one bonus though, the rest of the coach party had paid extra to go on to Blenheim Palace instead of spending the whole day in Oxford as Sarah and I did. However, the coach driver picked us up and got to Blenheim Palace earlier for the rest of the group pickup, so we had half an hour there gratis! It's a really impressive place, great scenery and awe-inpsiring buildings. We spotted it on TV a little while back being used as a location in the film "The Avengers", the only decent bit of the whole film that!