We're in Oxford - but where's the University?

Off to Oxford, like thousands of seekers of educational enlightenment before us. Very picturesque city, with clean streets, amazing buildings, and tons of 20-somethings walking the streets. In a guide, I was interested to see that one of the most common questions that is asked in Oxford - by Americans I'm sure - is "Where is the Univerity?" Well, the answer is "Nowhere" and "Everywhere!" Oxford is basically a university city, made up of a couple of dozen expensive colleges that make up the "raison d'etre" - the reason for being. The rest of the city basically services the colleges and the thousands of students who come every year.

We enjoyed our time wandering around Oxford for the afternoon. Here are some photos of this beautiful city.

We climbed a couple of towers to see the skyline, and weren't disappointed.

We went into the world's oldest museum, the Ashmolean, and saw this painting from 1645, by a Dutch guy named Aert van der Neer. It's called "Winter Landscape with Figures on a Frozen River". Here's my point. Are those figures in the foreground playing ice hockey??? It looks awfully similar... could this have been the start to our game?

A cool half-timber and plaster house on a main street. This was the only one of this style that I saw, surrounded by stone buildings.

One of the colleges in Oxford.

The Radcliffe Camera - not an actual camera, or even observatory as it looks like, but an extension of the science libraries, holding a series of reading rooms.

Beside the Radcliffe Camera is St. Mary's cathedral.

Another beautiful view.

We actually weren't allowed into any of the colleges that we saw closeup, so I had to be content with sneaking into an open doorway and taking a photo of the "inside" of one of these priviledged places of higher education. Looks pretty nice in there!

That was our visit to southern England. The next day we left for Paris. See you there!

Jimy MacJohnson