Tuesday 29th April 2025

Sidenote: We arrived from London by train late the previous afternoon and had dinner at Kazbar, a fun restaurant and bar with Middle Eastern and Spanish tapas-style dishes. Highly recommended.

Before I start, I’d like to say, that I loved Oxford. The history, the books, the small extremely walkable city centre. I stayed in a small hotel right in the middle of Oxford and it was perfect. I stepped out my door and all the sights were within a quick walk. There are also very few cars in the centre of Oxford because there is virtually no parking so most people use the buses. It also felt very safe, unless you leave your bike—bike theft is the most common crime.

We started the day with breakfast at Oxford Brunch Bar. I had the Full Oxford and it was good. The restaurant was just in the next street from our hotel so we popped back afterwards to clean our teeth and potter around before meeting our friend from church at 10 am at St Michael at the North Gate. When we realised we were going to be in Oxford at the same time (he was staying there for 6 weeks) he offered to take me on our tour. G said hello and headed to the train station to start his work. A little background: our friend writes and illustrates children’s books, began his working life as a journalist, has studied in Oxford previously for six months and has a very, dry typically Aussie sense of humour. His advice when he heard I was going to Oxford was not to take a walking tour because they make things up. (I’m not sure which tour he meant so I can’t warn you away). His tour hit the spot—informative and entertaining, and I presume all true. I won’t include photos and descriptions of everything we saw because there’s a lot, plus some of them I went back to later in my stay, so I’ll show you them in later posts.

After our little wander I went back to my hotel to rest my feet and looked up the Bodliean Libraries website to check if any of the tours were available. There was one of the Divinity School and the Duke Humfrey’s Library at 1 pm so I booked a ticket and then rested until then. The Duke Humfrey library was opened in 1488 with a donation of manuscripts by Humfrey. Unfortunately most of these books were destroyed because they were “too Catholic” in 1550. In 1598 the library was refurbished and refilled with a new collection of books given by Sir Thomas Bodley, after whom the Bodliean libraries are named. The library is a legal deposit library, so it receives a copy of every publication in the UK. The library is spread over a number of sites, but this tour was just of the historic Duke Humfrey Library. The library was also a location for filming of the Hogwart’s Library scenes in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. I met the tour guide in the Divinity School who then took our group upstairs to the library.

After our library tour we went toured the Divinity School which is underneath. It is used for lectures, discussions and oral examinations. Originally all exams were oral and consisted of the student being grilled by the professor in front of his (of course it was always his) peers. There was no set time limit and they could go on for hours. EEK! I’m glad it wasn’t me. Apart from the main hall there is a council chamber and a room where disciplinary hearings were held among other things. All the rooms are very beautiful with amazing ceilings and dark wooden paneling and furniture. The main hall was the setting for the Hogwart’s infirmary scenes.

The tour went for an hour, then I wandered back to my accommodation for a little bit of time off my feet before heading out to do an interval workout around Christ Church Meadows. This flood prone area sits in the fork where the Thames and Cherwell Rivers meet. It is a picturesque green space right with a flat gravel path all around the edge which was perfect for my run.

I was still struggling with my fitness due to jetlag but I got it done then walked back to my hotel for a shower. Dinner was at the Plough Inn, right on the corner of the street my hotel was on. I followed it up with a golden hour walk through Oxford.

Steps: 23,270. Even with my run, the compact nature of Oxford means there is no where near the amount of walking required as when I was in London.