Oxford has a diverse economic base; education (particularly tertiary education) is key, while other industries include motor manufacturing, publishing, and a large number of information technology and science-based businesses.
The city is known worldwide as a university town, home to both the University of Oxford (the oldest university in the English-speaking world) and Oxford Brookes University.
Buildings in Oxford demonstrate examples of every English architectural period since the arrival of the Saxons, including the iconic, mid-18th-century Radcliffe Camera. Oxford is known as the "city of dreaming spires", a term coined by poet Matthew Arnold in his poem "Thyrsis".
First stop was Charlbury Road - I wonder if the current residents of number 4 ever get tired of the stream of Australians (Higgins family members who have lived here) who stop and take a photo of the house!
It was becoming obvious that the university is as famous for its tourists as it is for its studies! Apparently many an American comes to the city and asks where the university is, looking for a specific campus, not realising that with the colleges and faculties spread through the city centre, in many respects the city is the university and the university is the city.
With map in-hand we started to wander. We decided to do part of the suggested route, as we also have tomorrow here; we also decided to do it backwards, as that better-suited where we were and where we wanted to end up.
We headed through the covered markets, which are in a lovely building, and soon after we came across the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, the largest of Oxford's parish churches and the centre from which the University of Oxford grew. It is a lovely small church, however with a somewhat gruesome past as the site of the 1555 trial of the Oxford Martyrs, when the bishops Latimer and Ridley, and the Archbishop Cranmer, were tried for heresy and subsequently burnt at the stake just outside the city walls to the north.
The church has a tower that can be climbed for a small fee, with promised views of the city centre, so we climbed it. From the top, you do get a wonderful view of the Radcliffe Camera (the science library) and a few of the central colleges.
However, due to increasing difficulties with internet connections, I am unable to load photos into the blog for the time-being; so after much wailing and gnashing of teeth, I have decided to continue blogging, but without photos until and unless we get somewhere with better connection sometime.
Our next stop was through the Bodleian Library, which is a beautiful building in the heart of Oxford, with an extensive collection, closed to the public unless admitted as a reader.
As we had no accommodation booked, we decided to head back to the car and out of town and explore until we found somewhere, which we did at the Dashwood Hotel in a small village called Kirklington about 10 miles north of the city.
A few days later, I have some internet connection, so here are some photos from the day. Firstly - carvings on the side of the University Church of the Virgin Mary, and a view from the top of the tower: