Since this was a trip with all of our children- an adult, a teen, and a second grader- each had a say in what with saw on our 13 day, England with kids trip. My older two wanted to see Oxford University and the surrounding town. My middle daughter especially is a big C. S. Lewis fan. And my husband had read all of the Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings books aloud to the kids through the years. So it only made sense to book a Lewis and Tolkien tour in Oxford, where those books were written.
Without renting a car, actually getting to Oxford was a bigger deal than I imagined. The subway doesn’t go that far. There are trains, but they are expensive! We discovered the most economical way to travel to Oxford was by bus, specifically the Oxford Tube. Despite the name, it really is a bus. They pick up at specific spots in London. You must carefully read the bus stop signs, since they share stops with city buses. It is about an hour and a half ride from Notting Hill. There is no need to buy tickets ahead of time. A few minutes before the bus arrives will do. However, figuring out how to navigate their website and app is something to take a look at the day before. It was still thirty pounds per person to travel to Oxford.
We took what I thought was an official Oxford Lewis and Tolkien walking tour. Turns out it was by a company called Oxford Official Walking Tours. It was a dry as a dusty book page. Our guide, while a nice fellow, was soft spoken and tended to start talking before the whole group was able to catch up to whatever place he stopped at.
Without a tour Oxford would have been less interesting, though. There were lots of open doors to get a peek at individual colleges and their picturesque lawns. I tried to book a tour of The Kilns, the home of C. S. Lewis, now home to scholars dedicated to his work. But they have limited hours and I was just not able to coordinate a time. So while I was not a fan of our guide’s delivery, we did see all of the sites that I had hoped to see.
The sites were fascinating, of course: The famous pub where the Inklings liked to meet, The Eagle and the Child, is currently closed, but we stopped by that spot and several others. We saw where Lewis and Tolkien likely met, the colleges where they each taught, and the famous Oxford spots: the Bodleian Library, Blackwell’s Bookstore, and the city center. The coolest spot was just outside University Church of St. Mary, the ornate door that seems to have inspired Narnia, with the perfect lamp post just a few steps beyond that. One feels they too could write an excellent novel here.
We worked up quite an appetite on our tour and had a lovely lunch at Vaults and Garden, right in view of the Radcliffe Camera, the unique round Baroque building, next to the historic Bodleian Library. Sharing space with a small graveyard, we lunched on the open terrace. The tea and scones, the scenery, the warm summer day, it was all exactly the right feel for our last lunch in England.
Try the Cheese Rarebit, the souffle, and the cream tea. We enjoyed all of it. The tables are small and the ground uneven. Could be annoying, but actually adds to the charm. Just basking in the Oxford atmosphere there was delightful, like our own little garden party in a friendly little graveyard.
Afterward we went to Blackwell’s Bookstore. It has lots more than just textbooks nowadays. It had a very thorough children’s section, where I found lots to interest my seven year old. We each just had to buy something from there. So lately come from our York Viking adventure, we bought our seven year old a book on Vikings. We also bought a sticker book to occupy her on the 9 hour flight home: Usborne’s Victorian Dollhouse.
We had also heard about the very charming Alice in Wonderland shop in Oxford city center (Lewis Carroll was an Oxford alumni). It was adorable. And it was very expensive. We found The Oxford Covered Market which had some unique wares. They had various Jane Austen and Beatles items that my older girls had not seen elsewhere. Whittard’s provided tastings of teas and hot chocolate and we provided Whittard’s our appreciative business. Of particular tasty note was the Sticky Toffee Pudding Hot Chocolate.
We headed back to London the same way we came, and finished off our trip with Pakistani food at Original Lahore Restaurant. It was a bit spicy for our little one, but we enjoyed it. With that we headed back “across the pond” as my seven year is now fond of saying.
