One of the reasons we are fond of London is the terrific transportation system that not only makes getting around the city so very easy, but that also gives great access to the rest of the country.  In the 45 days we have spent here recently, we just took our first taxi within the city the other evening.  And we have enjoyed a number of day trips outside of the city via the trains.  This trip our intended destination was Oxford.

So mid-week we headed to the Paddington Station to take off to Oxford for the day.  Oxford is home to one of the world’s most celebrated universities and is known as “the city of dreaming spires.”  You will be sick of spires and other historical buildings if you review all the pictures accompanying this post.  Anyway, educational institutions in Oxford (Ox-ford, the river crossing for the oxen back in the day) date to the 12^th century.  This is where you come to study when you are a Rhodes Scholar.

Most of Oxford’s great buildings feature the honey-colored limestone from the Cotswold Hills and they supposedly look familiar because of all the television and movie filming that takes place here including something called Harry Potter.

I will let you research Oxford to the extent you are interested and try to let the photos speak for it at least a little bit.  It deserves your visit and it deserves another visit from us.  It seems much larger than Cambridge, a city we have day tripped twice, and a single day did not allow us to cover it all.  We will try to return.

We had a lovely lunch inside St. Mary’s Church and an afternoon break at the purported “oldest established coffee house in Europe,” the Queen’s Lane Coffee House.  Dinner back in London at an inexpensive place called Thai Square.  Not bad…not great.

More on the rest of our London stay later.