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My day trip to Oxford!

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5 Feb 21st, 2006 

59 Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful

Advantages:
A beautiful city, full of history and architecture

Disadvantages:
So much to do and so little time !

Recommendable Yes:

Detailed rating:

Value for Money

Sightseeing

Shopping

Nightlife

Ease of getting around

rabbiter

rabbiter

About me:

Been using this site for 8 years now.. and to say I'm 19 I think thats pretty impressive. Not a heav...

Member since:15.05.2001

Reviews:63

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Don't ask why I wanted to go to Oxford; it was possibly watching the beginning of Balderdash and Piffle, where they talk about the beautiful architecture of Oxford, well being one of those boring children who is fascinated by architecture I asked to go. So it was decided that when half my family disappeared on several holidays to Germany that the remaining half of us would take the two hour journey down the M1 to visit this historical town, and it was a very nice visit.

Oxford is quite obviously in Oxfordshire, a very picturesque part of England. It is accessible by coach, railway and obviously motorway. However it is not recommended that you drive directly into Oxford, we decided to go by park and ride, which was very satisfactory. We went to the Water Eaton park and ride which is only 15 mins from the city centre, it is also quite cheap at £2 per adult and free for children, I'm not sure how old a child it, but I was counted as a child making that part of the journey only cost £2!

The bus travelled by the Banbury Road and I spent this time music plugged in ears, starring out of the window at the beautiful late Victorian gothic style houses, all massive and very beautiful, surrounded by bountiful green trees, a welcome sight in the depths of the British winter.

It took only 15 mins to get into Oxford and we dismounted the bus outside St Mary Magdalene's church and admired the Martyrs Memorial, and my dad pointed out the hotel across the road, The Randolph featured in Inspector Morse and famous for its teas. But we didn't go in for a tea, and continued on our journey.

We walked up and down a few streets admiring several beautiful buildings; however we really didn't have a clue what they were. By this time we were starving so we went to that renowned Oxford restaurant Pizza Hut!

After a lovely lunch we decided that we really wanted a tour around Oxford. There are plenty of ways to tour Oxford, you can take a bus tour, a walking tour, or buy a tour book and do your own tour, in fact we found lots of tour books, even a one all about Morse's Oxford. We decided on taking the bus tour though, well it wasn't really that hard to decide, the weather was miserable, I was wearing a short skirt and insensible shoes, and the bus was waiting for us! Tickets for the bus tour cost £9 for an adult, £4 for a child and £23 for a family (2 adults and 3 children max), the beauty of these tickets is that you can get off at several stops and your ticket is valid all day, it will also give you a discount to many other tourist attractions.

The tour bus showed us the main features of Oxford, including the fantastic library with 11 stories and its own underground railway! Obviously we didn't see all 11 stories and the underground railway, but we heard about it. We also saw many of the colleges that make up the University of Oxford. Throughout the tour you are given lots of interesting facts about the city, and this is available in 8 different languages. AS we weren't going to be in the city for long the tour allowed us to see all the major places of interest as well as clueing us up on lots of very interesting history, including why Oxford students are never late for lecture! The tour took around an hour in total and we didn't decide to get off at all.

After the tour we went to the shops, old and historic as Oxford is, it still has its fair share of modern shops, including all the high street names, Schuh, River Island, Gap etc. we didn't really feel like shopping much though, due to the fact that we all went to town (Nottingham) yesterday and are now feeling very poor. Our poorness didn't stop us from going into Waterstones though and picking up some interesting books, not to do with Oxford, but I felt like some new reading sources. As well as the high street names there are the posh shops, you know the sort that you only find down south which stock their shops with about three items beautifully arranged and only stocked in très petite.

With this short shopping trip over it seemed time to go home, my legs were getting cold in my short skirt that seemed to like blowing up in front of all those Oxford lads!! We walked some way down Banbury road until we found the bus stop and then waited 10 mins for a bus, having only just missed the last one. The tickets, well ticket, we had got earlier was a return, so in all the journey to and from the park and ride cost only £1 for all of us each way, bargainous!

It took us 2 hours each way to get into Oxford and in total we only spent about 3 hours in the city, so it was more travelling than touring, of course we could have stayed longer, but my asthma is playing up a little bit, so we took it careful and didn't do too much to exert me.

While in Oxford we only scraped the surface of all the possible things to do, there are thousands of museums, beautiful parks, interesting towers, fascinating architectural wonders and bountiful history, more history than even Nottingham! Actually Nottingham doesn't really have that much information does it? If the day hadn't been so miserable we would have explored further that city with all its little streets, beautiful buildings and found out more about one of the most historical cities in England.

There are also lots of places to eat; obviously there is Pizza Hut and similar places like Burger King and MACDONALDS! But there are also many prettier, posher places unique to Oxford including this quaint place on Banbury road which I think was called something like Gee's Restaurant, originally a Victorian conservatory and converted into this beautiful restaurant specialising in modern British food.

For more information on Oxford, places to go and things to see I recommend that you visit http://www.oxfordcity.co.uk/, the official site of the city, a very nice site, easy to navigate and full of information.

This was my first visit to Oxford and while I cannot tell write you an essay worthy of War and Peace, I hope I have helped you to decide whether to go to the city.

My final verdict
*************
I loved my visit to Oxford, it was extremely enjoyable, the three of us had a great time, that is a past 40 year old man, a 10 year old girly girl, and me a mardy teenager. We enjoyed especially the bus tour and I particularly liked the beautiful architecture. We were all amazed at the amount of bikes in the city, everywhere you look are bikes. We found the public transport efficient and well priced. All in all, we had a great time and I would definitely recommend visiting the city, I know I will go again in the future.

Thanks for reading, Rach xx
 

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Comments about this review »

Craigshadow12 30.07.2007 01:47

Great Review! I take my hat off to you :D. Craig :♥D

kurt187 09.10.2006 14:43

A+++ lol! good review! xx

Lofnorsk 22.09.2006 16:37

Very entertaining! It seems you like shopping quite a lot! I can't stand it, but maybe that's because i'm rubbish at it...I've never been to Oxford but i used to live with a girl whose parents lived there, next door to Alan Rickman. She used to bump into him when he was putting his rubbish out, but she said he never spoke. Oh well...

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