Twins that travel
Identical twins exploring the globe
Our Oxford guide!
Posted on November 3, 2014
Tomorrow, we’ll be doing a very exciting takeover on Dame Traveler’s Instagram account! We’ll be showing our favourite spots around the beautiful city of Oxford, England. So, to tie in with our little jaunt around this city, we thought we’d also do a blog post on the dreaming spires for our lovely readers!
A mini guide to a day in Oxford
1) We’d firstly recommend you rent a bike so you can zip around nice and quickly. Riding a bike is a beautiful way to see Oxford and will save you plenty of time if you want to squeeze a lot in. For our visit last weekend, we rented some bikes from Walton Street Cycles.
2) Armed with your bike (remember to ask for a basket so you can shove your bags in it) start the day nice and early to beat the crowds and head to the Radcliffe Square to view the beautiful Radcliffe Camera! This is a reading room of the famous Bodleian Library, and pretty amazing looking. Oxford students can study in the Rad Cam, although we found it too much of a goldfish bowl when we tried!
3) From here, walk the few steps to the Bodleian Library (also know as the “Bodley” or “Bod”). This is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. It even has an underground tunnel (you can book a tour of this) that leads from the Bod to the Rad Cam. How very Harry Potter! Speaking of Harry Potter, the Duke Humfrey’s Library is the “Harry Potter” library and again can be visited on a tour! Although beautiful, from a practical studying point of view, the Duke Humfrey’s is not the best place for hard-work as you can only take a pencil and paper in. No pens, no water. We didn’t last that long!
4) Next, have a peak around some of the University’s colleges. We recommend you avoid the more obvious such as Christ Church (Harry Potter hall) and Magdalen and explore some of the smaller and more beautiful colleges such as Lincoln or the gardens of Worcester. Mini fact: there are 38 Colleges at Oxford and 6 private halls, if you’re a student at Oxford, you will belong to one of these.
5) After lunch, head to the Pitt Rivers Museum and Oxford University Museum of Natural History! Take a look at the very creepy shrunken heads in the Pitt Rivers. Both are great places to go if you have children!
6) Finally, to end the day and rest your weary legs, treat yourself to some high tea at The Grand Cafe! This is said to be the site of the first coffee house in England!
NB: If you’re looking for a real “pub” experience in the evening, head to The Turf Tavern. This tiny 13th centruy pub is usually packed full of Oxford students and sightseers and does great fish and chips 🙂
What’s wrong with home?
Posted on October 28, 2014
This is a question we’ve been pondering for a while and one we haven’t really gotten to the bottom of… Last weekend, I (Laura) went on a little trip to the Peak District (UK). Was I bursting with excitement? No. Would I have been bursting with excitement if I was getting on a plane somewhere else? Yes (aside from the flying terror we’ve blogged about before).
Peak District
It was, however, something of a revelatory weekend for me. No passports, security checks, smelly planes, or terrifying few hours floating in the skies – just a short drive and voila: I was somewhere completely new. We stayed in the cosiest cottage and spent the weekend enjoying long dog walks and pub dinners. By the end, I felt totally relaxed and no different to if I had spent the weekend far away. What was also surprising (to me) was that my weekend pics on Instagram were hugely popular. Whilst I thought they were OK, verging on boring, people genuinely love them. To me, they were pictures of some fields, cottages and cows – British stuff we see most days. But to others they were a world away from where they are and so exciting. Maybe even beautiful?! We both lived and studied in Oxford for a few years, another place that although beautiful, isn’t somewhere we would choose to visit regularly. Yet, ironically, people travel thousands and thousands of miles to see the dreaming spires every summer. It’s frustrating not to be able to see what they can see.
Peak District
So, the moral of this slightly rambling blog? Although travel is amazing – it also takes the magic away from home. We get so fixated with other places, we forget that where we live is pretty special in itself. And what better way to beat the post-travel blues then by genuinely enjoying the sites and sounds of your own home? We’ve therefore decided to persevere with trying to see a little more of the country we live in, through the eyes of a tourist. In fact, we’ve decided to make a new years resolution to explore more of the UK next year, and try to appreciate what we have on our doorstep*. In the meantime, if anyone has any tips on enjoying your own country and satisfying the “itchy feet” problem without leaving home, let us know (you’ll save us a fortune). *Although, let’s add a disclaimer here that we will still be travelling to other lands. There’s not enough sunshine in the UK to cope with the entire year.
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