Week One, August 10 - 17; -- Oxford, England --  the city of many of the oldest universities in the world.

Week 2: August 17 - 24; The Hereford Three choir festival
Week 3: August 24 - 31; Our tour of Wales and visiting the Webbers.

 

The top floor of this building was our home for 7 days, August 9-16. It is named "North Light", clearly because of the beautiful view of the Tom Tower out it's north window, which is illuminated in the night hours. You will see much more of the grounds of Christ Church, of which Tom Tower is the grand entrance.  We arrived on Sunday afternoon and after parking our car, and climbing the 59 steps to the 2nd floor level, we waited for Elaine's sister Claire and husband Jerry to arrive for a two day visit. While they re-parked their car, we walked into the city of Oxford for a short shopping tour. The dusk walk back showed the north view of Tom Tower. --->  Monday.  After a good night's sleep, and a nourishing breakfast, the four of us embarked on a walk of Oxford, a city of noisy rowdies and University dons.

For the detail freaks, this digital photograph was taken with a Nikon Coolpix 5700 at a shutter speed of 4.02 seconds at F3.2, whilst resting on a lentil bean bag on the North Light window ledge.

We walked north toward Christ Church and turned in at the entrance of the grounds. This "stitched" picture shows the tower to the left and the cathedral in the center. We will see much more of the grounds and cathedral later in the week.

This is a sample of the beautiful flower gardens that embellish all of England. Elaine is walking across the street to Blackwell's bookshop which occupied much of our time later in the week. Walking further, we passed a college which was lined with sturdy walls to keep students in or passers-by out.  The entrance to St. John's College. The Oxford University Museum of Natural Science. We will be here later in the week to post some pictures of the interior. Elaine thought this was an interesting row house with  chimneys. Not like the Baltimore type with white steps. A second before taking this, the bloke on the right was using  The boathouse at Magdalen College.  Walking back on High Street, we passed the tower of St. Mary the Virgin, a place where we climbed and took many pictures. You will see these later.

Christ Church has a connection with Alice since Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) was a Christ Church maths prof. This is the Sheldonian Theatre where all the honorary PhD's from Oxford are presented. The statue on the left is one of the many displayed on the pillars of the Sheldonian. The sign on the fence to the right announced the concert we would be attending on the following Friday. More of this later. The tops of the walls were laced with sharp glass and other things to keep persons from climbing over them. Parks Road with a single cyclist. A clock tower across the street.  Unnamed but truly impressive. Next, we decided to explore some of the Oxford university parks. Better follow the rules!  his cell phone.  A step back from the 19th century. Those were really brilliant reds, even though they clashed. This is the Oxford Fish and Seafood Restaurant.  My bean bag allowed me to take a spectacular picture of the inside of the St. Mary the Virgin sanctuary.

OK, call me an organ freak, but this magnificent instrument deserves an entire row of this web page. Not a digital enhancement, but a true telephoto picture with my 8X optical zoom with the Nikon Coolpix 5700.

After this, Claire and Jerry broke off and decided to have lunch in the flat. We popped into a pub for a bite and some brew. Entering these courts, all the street sounds with their blaring horns fade away into quiet, academic solitude. That evening, we treated Claire and Jerry to a dinner in honor We told them they could choose any dinner place in Oxford,

Some pub this would have been. Actually, it is the eating hall of Jesus college which was situated nearby. In 1971, I attended a Computers in Number Theory conference which were held in these spaces. Memories!  of their 45th wedding anniversary. Ours is due in 2005.  and they took us up on it and flew over.

So ends our first full day in Oxford. That last picture of the Trout Pub was the first I knew that my speed light on the Nikon was not operative. The earlier pub picture was the last time my flash worked. On Tuesday, I found out at a camera shop that the fault was the Nikon and the flash wouldn't work for the rest of the trip. Then, we visited our friends, the Lapworths and while taking pictures of them, I noticed that my Nikon always went to super-telephoto, making all photography impossible. After getting back to North Light, I realized that I had set something wrong and I could photograph without the flash. But I had a few depressing hours figuring out how I could survive the holiday without any megapixels whatsoever. We did visit Blackwells and bought  more books than I expected. We took that night picture which starts this page, and in the morning took the daytime picture of the same sight seen to the right. We will be able to see both those towers from St. Mary's tower in the next set of views. So, join us for  Wednesday's River Walk and Tower Views.