And that sweet City with her dreaming spires, She needs not June for beauty’s heightening, Lovely all times she lies, lovely to-night! “Thyrsis,” Matthew Arnold, April 1866 A century after Arnold penned those words about the city of Oxford a latter-day pop manifesto urges us to “Open your mind, arms and heart to new things […]
Searching for Literary Oxford
We were in Wonderland and, like Alice, we were lost. Not down a rabbit hole, but on the teeming streets of Oxford’s city center searching for our hotel. We were overwhelmed by the traffic – cars, bikes and busses and the sidewalks crowded with the pedestrians. Beyond the traffic and the tourists, I saw […]
English Gardens: Haven’t I Seen You Somewhere Before?
Spotting British actors we’ve seen in TV shows and movies is a favorite pastime at our house, but even better is spotting the UK locales where our favorite shows and movies were filmed. Here’s a little rundown of where some of the more popular films and TV shows were filmed in England Pride and Prejudice […]
Oxford Walking Tour: Five Towers and a Meadow
Down through the middle of Oxford, home of England’s oldest university, runs a north-south axis that takes you past interesting churches, towers and colleges, to a gorgeous meadow. This axis starts with a road called St Giles’, it continues with Cornmarket Street, and then changes its name to St Aldate’s. Following this thoroughfare north to south provides […]
Oxford, England: Where Streets are Broad and High
To walk in the center of Oxford, a city just fifty miles from London, is to walk in the footsteps of the renowned University of Oxford’s many notable alumni, including: kings, saints, prime ministers, Monty Python performers, and the writers who brought us Narnia and Lord of the Rings. Rather than being set aside in a separate […]
Out and About: Day Trips Near London
With urban sprawl for miles and miles and a bulging population of over seven million people, London can be a bit too much for some tourists to handle. Happily, there are a number of nearby villages and hamlets that are perfect for a day trip and easily reachable via the transport networks leading out of […]