Historical walking tour of Oxford with Rob

Our excellent guide Rob Tanner

At 3.45 p.m we all met at Martys' Memorial to start our walking tour of this amazing city. The city is known worldwide as the home of the University of Oxford, the oldest university in the English-speaking world. Buildings in Oxford demonstrate notable examples of every English architectural period since the late Saxon period. Oxford is known as the "city of dreaming spires".

It is more than surprising but the University of Oxford has no known foundation date. Teaching at Oxford existed in some form as early as 1096, but it is unclear when a university came into being. Nowadays when there are two old competing  universities: Oxford and Cambridge, the students of Oxford tend to say that Oxford has worse teachers and students but the only thing that is good about it-  is maramalade!!!! Probably I have to find it!

It turned out that there are lots of different colleges (38) under the University of Oxford.  Oxford's earliest colleges were University College (1249), Balliol (1263) and Merton (1264). Students. basically live inside the college area having their one-to-one teaching-learning hours on the spot, having meals with their tutors in the same room. Of course, tutors having better food and much better wine than students. Students only go to University building in case they have some bigger lectures in common. It turned out that ex-PM Tony Blair, the US president Barack Obama and even Mr Bean have studied at Oxford Universitry. Mr Bean still lives here! And it also turned out that Obama was caught smoking marihuana at one of the pubs near Oxford University! What a silly billy person! The name of the pub is Turf Tavern! Worth visiting! 

Balliol College

In the olden times you had to be rich and a man to study at Oxford University, nowadays you must have £9000 (in case you either a Brittish por the member of the EU) to study there, but in case you are extraodinary clever you can even study for free.

The buildings of the university and all this area looks gorgeous and that's why the surroundings and its  buildings both out- and inside are used for filming. Iconic university buildings include the Radcliffe Camera, which is to house Radcliffe Science Library and the Sheldonian Theatre, which is used for music concerts, lectures, and university ceremonies.

By the way, did you know that Oxford has the British largest bookshop- Blackwell's Bookshop founded in 1879 by Benjamin Henry Blackwell.   I visited it today, bought "The House of Silk" by Anthony Horrowitz and two DVDs. There are about 5 km of shelves full of books in there. The shop looks really tiny but there are different floors up and down. Amazing. Want to go there again! Need to buy another suitcase!

Blackwell's Bookshop

Rob told us that there's a department store Boswell &Co which has laready been at the same place since 1738! I'm definitely going to visit it one day!

Me and my groupmates Marta and Justyna from Poland  ended up in Prison to buy tickets for "Much Ado About Nothing" by Shakespeare. We're going to see it on 14 July.

The Sheldonian Theatre

The Radcliffe Camera

Inside the University territory