Friday 16 September 2022

Arriving in Oxford

 

By midday Sunday, having packed up our tents at Cropredy and eaten our breakfast at Banbury Wetherspoons, we arrived at Oxford train station.

While making our way towards the city centre, we soon passed a first, grand, academic-looking place:

A grand-looking church was tucked just around the corner:


My first real visit to Oxford was exciting for me, because Jude Fawley arrived here (Christminster) with all his academic and theological dreams in Jude the Obscure, one of my favourite Thomas Hardy novels.

After 15 minutes or so of walking with our heavy rucksacks on our backs, the tower below signalled that we were in Oxford city centre:


And beautiful old buildings started to appear like on a conveyor belt:


In particular, the Museum of Oxford caught our eye:


Thankfully, a kind man on the reception desk found us a colourful map, and circled where we could find the famous Inklings pub, plus St. Barnabus church in the Jericho district of the city. 

He also explained how we could walk down to Abingdon to try and get Travel Lodge accommodation for the night.


Everywhere we looked seemed to be magical:


We were going to find some great places in this prestigious city, without really accessing its deeper inner walls:


Still, it would've been nice to have visited Christ Church Cathedral (above), but the tickets were sold out for the day.


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