"The city of dreaming spires" turns out to be just a tiny town. Okay, with spires and all, but still a tiny town.
That's what strikes me most about it. The city center is mostly made up of the university grounds, that is, the colleges (Christ Church, Merton,etc) and these are tiny themselves. I was certainly expecting something... bigger at the least.
The architecture is beautiful and the history is overwhelming, but everything is still tiny, even the spires. Though they do seem to dream big, those spires. It fascinates me how important some small cities can become (Venice, another example).
So, yes, I took a couple of good looks around the University Colleges, walked the streets, read the history, met some very nice people, took my pictures, saw a couple of falling stars during the meteor storm, and generally had a lot of fun. And of course, climbed to a couple of high points, to look at the city from above. I will provide photographic evidence of that as soon as I get the chance.
The thing is, the city is quite pretty, when seen from the appropriate angle, preferrably from one of the church towers (several of them are visitable). I climbed the one in Radcliffe Square and it is most recommendable, and cheaper than the other, more famous one, the name of which has slipped my memory. It is also recommendable to leave the big backpack you might be carrying somewhere, so that you don't end up carrying it all the way upstairs, and blocking the way with it, as I did.
So I managed to see a whole day of Oxford, though divided into the night of the 4th, the evening of the 5th and the morning of the 6th. Now onwards! to rival Cambridge.
No comments:
Post a Comment