Lyra's Oxford

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

I had been planning it for months, but I went on my last free day. It couldn't have been better. It was terribly cold, but the sun was out.

I took the Oxford Espress coach from Marble Arch. I couldn't find the HDM companion book Lyra's Oxford from the library, so I was armed with only printed-out maps from the web. I took a two-hour walking tour from the information office. We went around the city, but only entered one college: Exeter. All the colleges but one (Christ Church) were open to visitors that day, as the students had gone down after the term.

Two days later, Viv gave me a copy of Lyra's Oxford. Surprise, surprise: Exeter is indeed Jordan college in the books. Much of the Ashmolean Museum is closed, so I can't say I've seen what Lyra has seen. The best bit: going up the tower of St Mary's (not for claustro- and acrophobes) and watching the starlings fly over the city.