Thank you for visiting our wonderful city! I've lived here since I started studying at Lincoln College last October. It's an incredible place: it doesn't become any less grand even after living here for a while, and I never tire of (as you say) overhearing the most interesting things in our college's dining hall, in coffee shops, and around the city.
Of course, you can't miss the Ashmolean, and in terms of colleges I'd look even further beyond Christ Church, and Magdalen. The Turl Street colleges (Jesus College, Exeter, and - dare I plug my own? - Lincoln) are all just lovely if only to wander around. All Souls is also really interesting.
A minor grievance from students is visitors treating the place like a city-size museum and walking along the (narrow) pavements really slowly. Please don't be that person. We're trying to get to lectures.
31
I wonder if the Giant Tortoise has ever found a way to go between the quads on Oriel. The passages were already a very tight fit, when I saw it many years ago.
4
Great piece about a brilliant city. Perhaps next time your in town you may find the time to visit The Oxford Artisan Distillery or what the locals call TOAD. Grain to glass distillery using ancient populations of heritage grain grown within 50 miles of the city. They have a 25 year license with the Botanic Gardens and OU to make there spirits and the Physic Gin is delicious and the English Rye Whisky is coming up soon! The spirit of Oxford on a glass!
13
So nice to see blue skies in the photos. They were dingy grayish brown in the 60s. As a fellow American studying anthropology there at that time commented, the only nice thing about Oxford was being able to hitchhike to Africa.
3
Good to see that you wrote about Port Meadow, but you missed out the best bit of Port Meadow (and the most magical place in Oxford, in my book). Go to the village of Binsey (not up to Godstow), and have a drink at the Perch, then follow the lane on the far side of the village green as it winds its way through fields towards Binsey Church, a small chapel by the well of the original St Frideswide's monastery that first made the Oxenford a site of religious pilgrimage for those who fled Paris in the 12th century or so.
Or, if you want to see a really really old academic institution (the oldest in the world; don't believe all the Eurocentric propaganda), go to Fes in Morocco where they founded the University of Al Quaraouiyine in the 9th century... and it's changed a whole lot less than Oxford has.
10
The Bate Collection near Christ Church College has a remarkable display of historic musical instruments. We were lucky to visit when a class was hearing a demonstration of ancient saxophones and we attended a retirement concert in which several of the old horns, flutes, and other instruments were played.
9
When asking for directions to Magdalen College, you should be aware that that the English pronunciation of "Magdalen" sounds like "Maudlin". Why? For the same reason that Worcestershire (as in the sauce) sounds like "Wusteshwa". It's just what happens to languages over centuries of development.
12
I spent 18 months in Oxford at the university doing study abroad from my school in the U.S. My suggestions? Go to Evensong if you visit in term time (New College and Christchurch get top billing, but all the colleges have them. I particularly like Merton and Hertford). Checkout the Blackwells music store (just up the street from the bookstore), for the latest CD's, some recorded in Oxford. Definitely go to the Pitt Rivers museum, but also visit the Ashmolean. Go punting in the spring or check out the deer park. There are also some open lectures during term-time so check those out as well.
37
Skipping a view of the hare, quail and even deer hanging off the eaves at Feller Sons and Daughters in the Covered Market would be a missed opportunity. And then you have your pick of cheese and oat biscuits at the Oxford Cheese Company behind them.
16
Spent a Summer studying there in the 1980's. A magical place. I was lucky to get to know many locals (mostly by hanging out in pubs like the White Horse) who made the city a much more special place. My advice, spend as much time walking around all the colleges. The gardens are amazing. The small museums are incredible.
21
By a longstanding tradition (like about 600 yrs) Christ Church is never called Christ Church College, even though it is one of the constituent colleges of the university. This is probably because its chapel is also the city's cathedral. It's also called The House by its alumni. Being an Episcopal cathedral is unique amongst the dozens of college chapels in either Oxford or Cambridge. If you elect to attend evensong at Christ Church, you don't have to pay the tourist entry fee. The dining hall at Christ Church was used as Hogwart's floating candle dining hall in the Harry Potter films. I was married in the chapel in 1981 - my wife was the first woman to be allowed to embark on a doctorate at Christ Church - change comes slowly there!
27
The “ultimate British college town” is pretty epic comment bait
10
The only graduate who's come out of that place that's been worth his/he salt is Inspector Morse.
Take a look at the mediocre, privileged tribe trying to lead the country and you'll know what I mean.
9
@george eliot In the novels, Morse attended St John's but didn't graduate.
15
58 Oxford University graduates or lecturers have become Nobel Prize winners...
40
With all due respect [I'm a Cambridge alumnus] Oxford isn't the ultimate British college town. Cambridge is. Simples.
23
@Tansu Otunbayeva
As an Oxford alumnus living in Cambridge, I'm maybe conflicted, but Oxford was founded first. Cambridge was set up by a renegade group of students and masters who fled Oxford after getting mixed up in the murder of townsfolk. Having said that, they've done well in the last 800 years. And a Cambridge alumnus founded Harvard.
36
Nary a pub is mentioned in this article. What about the King’s Arms, the Turf, the Eagle and Child, the Lamb and the Flag...?
39
And what is an education?
Oxford isn't a haven from the domination by the extremely wealthy, it is, and has been, where cutthroat capitalism gets it permission to wander the earth, looting and pillaging.
Its sorting hat keeps the very poor, poor, and the very intelligent poor, greedy and pliable.
But then, it isn't Harvard or Stanford, so there is that.
I would go on about national health care and the devastation of the poor in America, and the useful stupidity of the wealthiest colleges, but why bother?
It isn't, at the final call, about our corporate overlords, it is about the elites and their educations. The day that Oxford, or Harvard, or Stanford, courageously put their students in the streets to affect meaningful change for the poor and the powerless is the day I believe that education of the rich is even a good idea.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
9
@Hugh Massengill — you prefer your rich uneducated?
16
@Hugh Massengill Hugh: I was not rich, with not a penny spent on my education (I was state-school educated), and am an alumnus of Magdalen College (class of 2005), the college pictured at top of the article.
Please pause for a moment and consider if your apparent blindness to the possibility that an Oxford education is a badge of merit and not merely of privilege isn't, in fact, just another form of prejudice.
I think perhaps you need to broaden your mind a bit -- perhaps you should go to Oxford...
26
@Larry D
Well, I could joke that I was referring to Sir Walpole...from Wikipedia...
"Before reforms in the early 19th century the curriculum at Oxford was notoriously narrow and impractical. Sir Spencer Walpole, a historian of contemporary Britain and a senior government official, had not attended any university. He says, "few medical men, few solicitors, few persons intended for commerce or trade, ever dreamed of passing through a university career." He quotes the Oxford University Commissioners in 1852 stating: "The education imparted at Oxford was not such as to conduce to the advancement in life of many persons, except those intended for the ministry."
But in truth, I was just expressing my fear of the educated classes, who over time have created their own species, and rule over those us uneducated masses.
Our lives are measured by a measure stick that separates us into classes. That is a bad idea.
Hugh
3
How can one Endeavour to spend 36 hours in Oxford with not a single mention or sighting of Inspector Morse?
45
@Steve Griffith We missed him! It was, indeed, A Remorseful Day!
10
And if you happen to be in Oxford on Saturday, the 15th of June, come see Franklin's Tower (the local Grateful Dead cover band) playing from around 9 p.m. at the White House pub on the Abingdon Road, first pub on the right after you cross Folly Bridge walking south down St. Aldates (which becomes the Abingdon Road) from the town centre.
9
All good stuff but worth having two or three extra days to get the most of your trip by going outside the city. Before this within the city there is now a WestGate shopping center (usual brands including Zara) but which has a top (third) floor open area with a good choice of restaurants and (big point) a view of at least a few of the Oxford dreaming towers (plus a TV aerial !) you can admire with a drink outside assuming weather OK. It really is worth doing some pre-visit history swotting up - the Ashmolean Museum (oldest in UK ) free is worth even a 30 minute visit and if you have done some homework you will know that the St Giles Martyrs monument is not a buried cathedral (a joke played on ignorant visitors) and know a bit about who it commemorates and why it was created nearly 300 years after the event.
Outside Oxford a 45 minute bus ride takes you to the Market Town of Witney with an excellent Blanket Trail (you do know what a point blanket is and who in North America bought them in masses don't you, and what a tenterhook is to be hanging on ?!) and if you have a car Minster Lovell gives you a nearly Cotwold Village and a ruined Minster by the Windrush that shows why you needed to support the winning side during the war of the roses [ "The cat the rat and Lovell the dog......") (pub does teas as well ). Detective Morse lovers should expand beyond the city to Woodstock too. Make your visit to Oxfordshire not just Oxford - you will be pleased you did!
14
I always make sure to stop and take a minute to read Ms. McClanahans's travel writing. She quickly hits all the important questions a traveler needs to know but embeds enticing location details beyond the basics. I've followed several of her articles around the world and never been disappointed. Would love to see her publish a photo book someday!
4
Excellent summary - and all walkable. Arbequina is near the start of Cowley Road: it would be a pity not to wander up further and see more of the 'town' as well as 'gown'.
10
I always make sure to stop and take a minute to read Ms. McClanahan's travel writing. She quickly hits all the important questions a traveler needs to know but embeds
enticing location details beyond the basics. I've followed several of her articles around the world and never been disappointed. Would love to see her publish a photo book someday!
where is the pub that the troika (Tolkien, Lewis carroll, C S Lewis) of gay-ness met?
3
@PeterH Tolkien, CS Lewis, and some others would meet at the Eagle and Child, calling themselves as a group the "Inklings." While Carroll also spent a lot of time in Oxford, he was dead by the time JRR and CS became adults. I'm not sure if he frequented a pub or not.
13
The Eagle and Child, on St. Giles.
12
It's called the Eagle and Child (locals nickname it The Bird and Baby) and it's on St Giles Street, in the city's centre. A lot of dons still drink there.
17
Visiting Oxford is a Fantastic experience. You can become immersed in it and begin to understand how the “powerful and the great” were confirmed in the belief that they were exceptional. It oozes Britishness even though it is as diverse as it gets.
You missed the Old Bank as a place to stay. I’m surprised. It was truly the best and the view from the top floor room was magical especially with the fog!
5
@Justice Holmes We stayed at the Old Bank, too, and loved the location for exploring. The staff was great, and the food at Quod was quite good.
1
I've lived in Oxford for many years, and feel deep affection for my adopted city. This NYT weekend itinerary hits most of the sights I show to visiting friends. Jolly well done!
23
I'm happy to see that you included the option of rooming at one of the colleges. That was a highlight of our stay at Oxford two years ago. Book early, because rooms go fast during the school term (we were there in October 2017) - they're listed on the University Rooms website a few months in advance. And don't be surprised if you get a fraud alert from your credit card company after you book. The company that handles things is called "Speedy Booker."
We opted to book a room at St Hugh's College, one of the newer colleges at Oxford (founded in 1886), because they offered free parking. We ended up taking the train from London (a little over an hour for the limited service from Paddington station). They seemed to have a separate little wing in their main building for guest rooms, with the several individual-use bathrooms down the hall.
Our room included a free full hot English breakfast in the dining hall with the students, and the option to buy dinner there as well. St Hugh's is on the north end of campus, about a 15 minute walk or 5 minute bus ride from the center of things.
10
My Mum hails from Oxford, so it was a regular haunt growing up. Port Meadow and Blackwells are still both wonderful - though surprised no mention of a certain professor of Anglo-Saxon who is buried in Wolvercote churchyard, one Mr Tolkien.
However, has the author been there recently? Austerity has not been kind of Oxford - many shops are shuttered in the Covered Market owing to the council raising the rents to cover their cuts and spending millions building a new - leaky - roof. There are tents of homeless in the side streets and High Street, and the High Street is also now filled with shops selling cheap tat, and crowded with tourists stepping over the homeless and around the tents to take a selfie with a red phone box. It’s quite miserable, for a city that boasts a globally esteemed university and draws thousands of tourists per year.
22