Oxford University, likely founded in 1093, is the oldest English-language university and second-oldest university in the world. This famed school is located in England in the city of Oxford, in the county of Oxfordshire, a one hour train ride northwest from London.
We paid entry to Trinity College, one of Oxford’s 39 constituent colleges which was founded in 1555. We visited the Ashmolean Museum, the world’s first university museum, and the Museum of Natural History. Only accessible through the Museum of Natural History, the Pitt Rivers Museum was another draw. It houses Oxford’s anthropological and archaeological collections in densely-packed thematic cases, some of which look as if they haven’t been updated in a century.
The architecture of Oxford spans nearly a millennium, characterized by limestone building material and Gothic spires reaching up towards the sky. These architectural features resulted in Oxford’s nickname as the City of Dreaming Spires, first so described by poet Matthew Arnold.
And that sweet city with her dreaming spires,
Excerpt from Matthew Arnold’s “Thrysis,” 1865
She needs not June for beauty’s heightening,
Lovely all times she lies, lovely to-night!
We ate sushi for lunch, sipped espresso in a bicycle-themed cafe in the afternoon, and ate Lebanese food for dinner in a colorful and whimsically-decorated restaurant before catching a train back to London, already nostalgic about our time in Oxford.
