Oxford

In the morning, we took the bus from Abingdon, where we had spent the night, to Oxford.
We got off very close to the Oxford Museum and spontaneously decided to visit the free exhibition.

At very modern stations, various aspects of past and present life in the city were highlighted, and notable figures like Lewis Caroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland, were introduced.

We then continued into the city center and passed some of the 39 colleges along the way.

The university is divided into various colleges, each housed in large building complexes around a courtyard.

Many of them can be visited - if you pay the entrance fee.

With its ancient buildings, Oxford is a popular filming location for various movies - such as “Harry Potter”, “James Bond” and “The Golden Compass”.

We had booked a “Harry Potter” tour, during which a young man from Oxford (fittingly named Harry) entertainingly guided us through the city.

In addition to the key sights, we learned not only about the history of the city and the university but also a lot about Harry Potter.

The Divinity School was closed that day, so we instead went to “New College”, founded in 1379 (and thus not so new anymore).

Here, not only the cloister but also the courtyard was used for film scenes in “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”.

After the city tour, we also visited Christ Church College, where we received an audio guide to explore the university independently.

The tickets were sold out, and we were allowed entry only because we had booked the entrance alongside the city tour.

Christ Church College is Oxford's largest university institution and one of the most well-known as well.

Consequently, all accessible rooms were quite full of people. Particularly, Asian tourist groups seem to enjoy visiting the college…

In the grand dining hall, there was a little traffic jam as everyone was photographing around one of the large tables.

Here, students eat during the term - quite a fancy cafeteria.

The dining hall is not a filming location, but the scenes in the Great Hall of Hogwarts were likely modeled after this.

To conclude, we walked through Christ Church Cathedral, which serves as both the chapel of the university and the cathedral of Oxford.

After a break for food, we took a tour from our newly acquired book “Oxford Filmlocations”.

We passed by the “Bridge of Sighs”, constructed after the model of the famous bridge in Venice. In Oxford, only students sigh who can cross the bridge between the university's buildings.

We also passed by the former residence of J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote the “Lord of the Rings” books and worked as a professor in Oxford.

C.S. Lewis, who was actively involved with Tolkien in the writers' group “The Inklings”, was also a professor in Oxford and was inspired here for the story about “Narnia”.

Unfortunately, it started to rain, so we skipped the last tour that would have taken us through a park.

However, we did stop by the pub “Tavern Turf”, which had been recommended to us by the tour guide in the afternoon.

On the way back, just before the bus stop, I realized I had forgotten my handbag (having only had a small beer) and we had to go back to fetch it… A later guest had already handed it to the waitress, and so I easily got it back.

When we returned to the bus stop, the bus to Abingdon was just there, and we made it after a little sprint.