Monday, August 08, 2005
Day 74: London to Oxford, via Windsor
August 8: Blue sky, sun shining - at least I know the sun can exist in England, even if it's not seen all that often!
Met up with my Contiki tour this morning - tour manager is Dean (Aussie), Danny (NZ) is our driver. There's 29 of us doing the tour at the moment, but we supposedly pick up 13 more in Scotland... then lose a good few before heading to Ireland and picking up some more. My tour lasts 15 days - very excited!
Only 6 guys out of the 29 of us... most people are Aussies, with a few Canadians, Americans, one from NZ, one from Singapore, and one from India who's been living in England for 10 years. Nice bunch of people.
To my surprise, they weighed our luggage before we boarded the bus but I managed to sweet talk my way out of mine being too heavy as I'm doing a number of Contiki tours and have 7 weeks luggage on me!
We did a brief orientation tour of London from the bus (including Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, London Eye, Hyde Park, Marble Arch, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, St Paul's Basillica, BBC, Aussie Embassy and more) before heading out of town.
The drive to Windsor was only an hour or so. Had a walk down to Eton to see the famous College where Prince Harry and William studied, and saw the castle for a second time (here a few years ago). Loved Queen Mary's Doll House, State Apartments and also seeing the guard changing ceremony. The royal family has a very nice home here, full of riches, beautiful tapestries, armoury and more.
We then headed onto Oxford, where we did a guided tour through town. Got to see Oxford University's Church of the St Mary the Virgin, their library, Cornmarket St, Ratcliffe Camera (walked passed the Sheldonian Theatre where they hold graduations but ran out of time to go inside) and went into the Woddam College grounds.
On my own, I saw Merton College, one of the oldest in Oxford, and also Chirst Church College - the college upon which Harry Potter's (movie) dining hall is based, and where other scenes have been filmed. Very excited to get in here as last time I came it was closed. Today it was closed for filming by a Japanese documentary in the morning, but opened in the late afternoon!
Saw the dining hall with pictures of Alice in Wonderland in its stain-glass windows and many portraits of famous people, the main quadrangle (Tom Quad), the cathedral and more. Great experience. Also saw the 'no peel' door - explain another time.
Interesting to learn that Oxford time is traditionally 5 minutes later than London. Explain that one another time too :-)
Checked into the hotel and had a group dinner for the first night of our tour. Looks like roasts and puddings are the norm in England!
Early night.
Met up with my Contiki tour this morning - tour manager is Dean (Aussie), Danny (NZ) is our driver. There's 29 of us doing the tour at the moment, but we supposedly pick up 13 more in Scotland... then lose a good few before heading to Ireland and picking up some more. My tour lasts 15 days - very excited!
Only 6 guys out of the 29 of us... most people are Aussies, with a few Canadians, Americans, one from NZ, one from Singapore, and one from India who's been living in England for 10 years. Nice bunch of people.
To my surprise, they weighed our luggage before we boarded the bus but I managed to sweet talk my way out of mine being too heavy as I'm doing a number of Contiki tours and have 7 weeks luggage on me!
We did a brief orientation tour of London from the bus (including Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, London Eye, Hyde Park, Marble Arch, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, St Paul's Basillica, BBC, Aussie Embassy and more) before heading out of town.
The drive to Windsor was only an hour or so. Had a walk down to Eton to see the famous College where Prince Harry and William studied, and saw the castle for a second time (here a few years ago). Loved Queen Mary's Doll House, State Apartments and also seeing the guard changing ceremony. The royal family has a very nice home here, full of riches, beautiful tapestries, armoury and more.
We then headed onto Oxford, where we did a guided tour through town. Got to see Oxford University's Church of the St Mary the Virgin, their library, Cornmarket St, Ratcliffe Camera (walked passed the Sheldonian Theatre where they hold graduations but ran out of time to go inside) and went into the Woddam College grounds.
On my own, I saw Merton College, one of the oldest in Oxford, and also Chirst Church College - the college upon which Harry Potter's (movie) dining hall is based, and where other scenes have been filmed. Very excited to get in here as last time I came it was closed. Today it was closed for filming by a Japanese documentary in the morning, but opened in the late afternoon!
Saw the dining hall with pictures of Alice in Wonderland in its stain-glass windows and many portraits of famous people, the main quadrangle (Tom Quad), the cathedral and more. Great experience. Also saw the 'no peel' door - explain another time.
Interesting to learn that Oxford time is traditionally 5 minutes later than London. Explain that one another time too :-)
Checked into the hotel and had a group dinner for the first night of our tour. Looks like roasts and puddings are the norm in England!
Early night.
# posted by mishij @ 9:45 AM 
