University Town

Warsborough Bed and Breakfast Cottage
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This morning we started the day with a delicious breakfast and a brief chat to the other visitors to Warsborough B&B. There was a couple staying there from Adelaide - their son married an english girl and they always stay at this nearby B&B. We agreed that we were very lucky to stumble across this little gem.

With instructions from our host Elizabeth, Joe and I boarded the local bus and rode it to the terminus in the middle of Oxford. On the way we spotted what I would call typical english row houses. The bus stopped right next to a tall spire in-set with statues. We walked straight into the visitors bureau to see what options we had available to us with the 3 hours before heading off. We decided we would not have time to wait for the 11am, 2hr walking tour, so opted for the good old hop-on-hop-off bus. Once on-board we headed to the open-top storey and just about froze our ears off!! Even though it was a clear day, a cold change had blown through overnight and I think it was only 8c. The wind of the bus made it even colder! We listened to the automated commentary until a guide came on board. Funnily enough he has lived in Ferny Grove in Brisbane! He gave us a good commentary of the buildings we passed of the 3o something colleges in town. He also listed names of famous actors, polititions and other notoraries which attended some of the colleges. It only took an hour to complete the full loop, so once we disembarked, had a quick look at another walking tour option. The guide was about to leave and said that even though his tour went for 90mins, we could leave at any time and pay him for the time attended. We thought this was a great alternative so followed along.

Time to get an education.. Oxford style..

Front Garden of our Bed and Breakfast
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This turned out to be a good choice, as we heard some very interesting history about different colleges and buildings on our trek. One thing that surprised us is that even though there are lots of colleges, they are all deemed to be part of Oxford university - so the colleges are really like frat houses. No matter what college you go to you graduate from Oxford University.

Our first stop was the building used for all graduation ceremonies at the university. This year however it was closed for renovation,  the first time since the 1600's. Next on our walk we passed a replica of the Bridge of Sighs from Venice - here used as a walkway to connect two college buildings. We then gained entry to one of the colleges. Here we first say the main courtyard - where the students are fined if they walk on the grass - only the associates (the lecturers) are allowed to walk on the grass. After this we were taken  into the dining room. Here students can choose to eat a 3 course dinner for 30 pounds, but it is always a formal affair and they must wear their gowns. Not sure if I would be doing that too often. It was then into the college chapel where we were not allowed to take photos. The next garden we saw was the common, where students were allowed on the grass (but not us) - and definitly no ball sports or frisbees - only sport that can be played here is croquet. We were however allowed to put our feet on the grass of a small internal courtyards, which students can use for study and contemplation of life.

Oxford Houses
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It was time to leave the tour and head back to our car parked still at the B&B. We got off the bus too early, but enjoyed a short walk in the early afternoon sun. It was then off on our way towards York, with a couple of planned stops on the way. Now the day was really going to get interesting.

First stop was to be at the grave of Winston Churchill - just 15mins out of Oxford in the town the Bladen. Using the driving instructions I had from google, we tried to find his final resting place, but he turned out to be most elusive. We did drive past the front gate of Blenheim palace which looked most impressive from the outside - but decided there was no time to stop. After nearly tearing our hair out trying to find this graveyard, we gave up and stopped at a local pub for lunch. Here they had free wi-fi which we decided to use to try and situate ourselves and this damned grave site. It turned out that we had driven passed the street on our way to the pub. After enjoying lunch, we headed back and found the small laneway that had absolutely no markings regarding access to the gravestone. The map we had from google showed this as the only access road, so I thought this strange that this would not be more openly marked for tourists. We walked up the church lane and located the grave, which had been replaced in recent times due to tourist damage and souvenier hunters. Two and a half hours had now passed to do something that should have taken us 20mins!!! arrrghhh.

Beautiful College building
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We then headed towards Stratford-Upon-Avon. This went much more smoothly and after just over an hour, we were standing in the pedestrian mall looking at a court jester statue. Joe however was not so happy, as he was starting to feel quite sick after eating lunch. He had really bad indegestion and had a lot of stomach pain - but battled on hoping that it would clear.

Further down the mall we entered the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust building where we decided to pay the admission fee and go on in to see the displays. The operator had pity on us given it was already 4:30pm and only charged us half-price, but did it covertly so she wouldn't get in trouble. After walking through the displays, we went outside into the rear garden and then were taken by a guide into the actual house where William Shakespeare was born. Here some details about his mother and father and family were recounted to us, and then we were free to walk through the downstairs and upstairs rooms in the house, which were furnished with replica furniture. The tour of course ended in the obligatory gift shop, which we gave the short shift.

Sandstone College
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We headed back to the car and started off on our drive to York. The GPS reported that we were not going to get there till 7:30 pm, so we rang our hosts for the even to advise our arrival time. This turned out to be quite wrong as the traffic was horrendous, and with Joe feeling worse, we had to stop a number of times. Even though I was driving at about 120km/hr, half the cars were whizzing past me in the right lane. At one point a small daihatsu charade bolted passed me doing who knows what speed. The hire car had speed warning beeps when you went over 125km/hr, so I felt somewhat constrained by this, which was probably a good thing.

Spire in Centre of Oxford
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At 7:30pm I rang the B&B we were heading to and told them we were still quite a ways away, with the GPS reporting we would not be at our destination before 9:30pm! The fellow advised a key would be left for us in a "secret" spot. This all worked well with us arriving about this time. This night we were staying at a guest house in close walking distance to the centre of York. Unfortunately it was no where near as nice as last night's accomodations, with the bed feeling like you were sleeping on an outward sloping plank of wood. The toilet didn't flush that well either, needing to be pumped at least 3 times to get it to flush - arrghh!

Copy of Bridge of Sighs
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Joe was still in substantial stomach pain and it didn't seem to be getting any better. He was not able to get to sleep and had a very fitfull night sleep, spending a fair bit of time in the bathroom trying to relieve the indigestion pain. Consequently neither of us got a lot of sleep, adding to the uncomfortable feeling of our room. Hopefully by the next morning Joe would be on the improve.