Up and at 'em! Parked in one of the (cheap) park-and-ride lots on the outskirts of Oxford and walked into the town centre.
After a wrong turn, we managed to navigate our way to the Pitt Rivers museum of anthropology where we met up with Jasmine, James' cousin. The museum is quite an experience; there's a little bit of everything, in hundreds of different flavours! A magpies nest of tools, clothing, ornaments, weapons, charms, statues, and so forth.
Incidentally, in the same building you also have the natural history museum.
James reckoned he quite likes this door:
After lunch Jasmine left us, and we took a brief look at the Ashmolean museum. This is the oldest museum in Britain; started up in the late 1600's. Had some nice Anglo-Saxon bits. And a hall full of marble statues.
We wandered about town for a bit, stopping it at the odd book shop, until we ran into the old Bodleian library. The new location was closed, but the old one was free to explore.
Imagine our delight when we stumbled across the "Magical Books" exhibition that is currently on. It contains a number of old alchemical texts, herbals, and mystical books.
But the absolute best was the strong focus on children's fantasy with all sorts of ephemeral from Philip Pullman, Alan Garner, Susan Cooper, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien. Best of all was the origial watercolour illustrations Tolkien did for The Hobbit!
By this time we had decided we've done enough sightseeing to deserve a beer and stopped at a tiny old place down a back ally. After a pint, we relocated to join up with Milo from Linacre School of Defence.
After a wrong turn, we managed to navigate our way to the Pitt Rivers museum of anthropology where we met up with Jasmine, James' cousin. The museum is quite an experience; there's a little bit of everything, in hundreds of different flavours! A magpies nest of tools, clothing, ornaments, weapons, charms, statues, and so forth.
Incidentally, in the same building you also have the natural history museum.
James reckoned he quite likes this door:
After lunch Jasmine left us, and we took a brief look at the Ashmolean museum. This is the oldest museum in Britain; started up in the late 1600's. Had some nice Anglo-Saxon bits. And a hall full of marble statues.
We wandered about town for a bit, stopping it at the odd book shop, until we ran into the old Bodleian library. The new location was closed, but the old one was free to explore.
Imagine our delight when we stumbled across the "Magical Books" exhibition that is currently on. It contains a number of old alchemical texts, herbals, and mystical books.
But the absolute best was the strong focus on children's fantasy with all sorts of ephemeral from Philip Pullman, Alan Garner, Susan Cooper, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien. Best of all was the origial watercolour illustrations Tolkien did for The Hobbit!
By this time we had decided we've done enough sightseeing to deserve a beer and stopped at a tiny old place down a back ally. After a pint, we relocated to join up with Milo from Linacre School of Defence.
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