Film Truck Under the Bridge of Sighs
I am quite sure that the impulse to make a day trip to Oxford came not only from an interest in history and tradition but also from any number of books, movies, and television shows, including Deborah Harkness’s All Souls Trilogy, which is near and dear to my heart, and the venerable Inspector Morse TV series, but perhaps especially its follow-on series Lewis (known as Inspector Lewis here in the States). I’m so glad there is to be a ninth series — it will be broadcast in the UK in October and I hope soon after in the US — and can’t wait to find out whether it includes any places I’ve now seen with my own eyes.
We traveled there on a breezy morning via the Oxford Tube, which is really a bus and which I can recommend if you have plenty of time and/or someone interesting with whom to pass the time of day, as I did. Our comfy bus was a double decker and we sat right in front for great views. The bus drops you in the High Street and you can easily walk to just about anything you would want to see in a day. It’s also a lot cheaper than taking the train.
In the time we had, we were able to wander through the streets, peer into colleges, take a short but excellent tour of the Bodleian Library, and have a bite to eat and a browse at Blackwell’s Bookshop. It was a short, sweet visit — enough to whet my appetite for more and I dearly hope to return sometime next year.
Oxford really does beggar my vocabulary of descriptive words, so here are a few photos. By the way, all my photos from this trip were take with an iPhone 5s. I still love an SLR camera, but you can’t beat this for traveling light, though you might need some sort of supplemental battery pack.
NB: In some cases I’ve used location data to caption these pictures and I’m not certain that all of the descriptions are accurate. Please let me know of any errors.
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