Vacation in Oxford

As our final days in the UK approached, Mandi and I took a short jaunt down to Oxford, the place that had originally inspired me to come back to study in Britain.  After an excruciatingly uncomfortable 12-hour night bus down to London, we discovered that the bus station charged an exorbitant amount to hold our luggage until our bus to Oxford, so we traipsed around London with two overflowing backpacks and a canvas bag.  Rather exhausting.  Buckingham Palace was, sadly, fully booked, but we got a good look at the houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. 

The bus up to Oxford was far more comfortable, so we snagged a few much needed hours on the way.  Getting into Oxford in the afternoon, we set up base camp at our hotel and marched immediately to St. John's College, where I had lived for the British Studies at Oxford program.  It was just as I remembered it, but this time I had a wife to accompany me!  We walked around the city centre and ended up across the street from my old rooms at the Eagle and Child pub, where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, among others, met regularly to share and discuss their work.  It was a favorite for me during my first visit and so it was required dining for us during this one.  Still the best fish and chips I've ever had!

Our full day began with shoe shopping, since Mandi neglected to bring appropriate footwear, but afterwards we visited the Oxford market stalls and the covered market, where we bought a cookie from Ben's.  We took a look in Blackwell's bookshop, the divinity school of the University's Bodleian Library, and generally just strolled about. 

Eventually we visited Christ Church College, one of Oxford University's most prestigious and elite colleges, and the site of the inspiration for the Hogwarts Great Hall.  The Queen herself dines in the Christ Church hall occasionally!  After that, we walked along to Magdalen College, the place where C.S. Lewis taught for over 20 years.  Magdalen has always been my favorite, and Mandi loved it as well.  We walked around the deer park and around Addison's Walk, where late one evening Tolkien and Hugo Dyson convinced a then-unbelieving Lewis that Christianity was the True Myth, God's own story become reality.  It was an instrumental point on the road to his conversion.

The next day, we had to run to catch our bus out to begin our C.S. Lewis day.  First, we visited Holy Trinity Church, where Lewis and his brother worshiped for 30 years, and where a small plaque commemorate their regular seats.  There is also a Narnia window.  Lewis's grave lies in the Churchyard.  Afterwards, we walked over to Lewis's house, the Kilns.  He founded a nature preserve behind the house and we took a stroll through it before our appointment.


The day before, I had called the house (owned by the C.S. Lewis Foundation and home to visiting scholars and conferences) to book a guided tour, but was informed that sadly, we had missed the tour day and they did not offer any tours on Friday.  I hung up and told Mandi, and we were both dejected.  But we decided to call back and explain our situation, and throw ourselves on their good graces to even let us have a peek inside.  Wonderfully, the woman offered to let us have a quick look inside the main two rooms.  We arrived and came inside to discover that the expected visiting scholars had not yet arrived.  That meant that we basically got our own private tour of the whole house!  We were overjoyed.  Mandi and I actually agree that Lewis's house is really wonderful and we would have liked to live there.

On our trip back up to London and on to Edinburgh,  we made a short stop at Heddon Street where David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust album cover was shot (Mandi's dad is a huge fan), and then rode home.  A great and relaxing vacation, and I got to share one of my favorite places with my favorite person!

 

Our video of Oxford

A tour of the important C.S. Lewis sites from our last day

The old Divinity School.  Used in the filming of Harry Potter.

Recreating my old photo at the Natural History Museum

Gardens in Christ Church college

In the great hall of Christ Church college, the inspiration for the Hogwarts great hall.

Magdalen College, where C.S. Lewis taught.

In front of C.S. Lewis's house.  Those are his bedroom windows.

In C.S. Lewis's sitting room.

The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo

The Tattoo is a world-famous annual visitor attraction, featuring military bands from all over the world.  This year, the theme coincided with the Queen's diamond jubilee.  It featured a drum corps from Switzerland, the Norwegian King's Guard, the US Naval band in a tribute to superheroes (including my favorite), the Australian military, and of course lots and lots of bagpipes!  We hear the fighter jets and fireworks from the show every night, so it was great to finally see what it was all about.  I felt like this was Scotland giving us a grand send-off, as Mandi and I only have a few more weeks here in Edinburgh. 

This video is quite long, so feel free to skim.  The tribute to comic books begins at 9:00, and Superman starts at 11:20 (I know that's what you came here to see). Don't forget to watch in HD!

 

The Queen's Royal Yacht--Britannia

The Royal Yacht Britannia was Queen Elizabeth's personal ship, carrying the royal family in luxury all around the world for state visits and vacations.  Elizabeth and her family loved the boat because it was an intimate, private, and cozy retreat from state life.  They were quite emotional when it was decommissioned, but now we commoners get to catch a glimpse of royal marine life.  Take a tour with us, and make sure to watch in HD:

Highlands and Islands

Our Scottish friends Andy and Emma took us on a lovely road trip last weekend.  We took in a massive slice of Scotland that was sorely needed before we head home in two months. 

Our ultimate goal was the Isle of Skye to the northwest of Scotland, but before that we took a ride on one of the last working steam-trains in the world.  The Jacobite Steam train runs from Fort William to Mallaig on the coast, and the railway was featured in the Harry Potter films.  We had a fun ride--a steam train experience is much different than a more modern one.  The sounds of the chugging engine and the steam whistle combined with the verdant landscape rolling by outside made for a great journey,

When we reached Skye, we snagged some fish and chips to eat beside the sea and then drove over to the town of Plockton on the mainland.  Plockton is famous for its palm trees, which are of course quite unusual here in Scotland.

The next day we drove along the coastline of the island, through heavy mist hanging low on the tops of the mountains, to see the Old Man of Storr (invisible, unfortunately, through the fog) and the waterfall at Kilt Rock.  On the way back we stopped by the Talisker whisky distillery and sampled some fine highland draught.

On our way back we stopped at the battlefield of Culloden, outside of Inverness on the mainland.  Culloden was the site of the last battle on British soil, fought between the king's troops and the highland supporters of the rebel claimant Bonnie Prince Charlie.  The highlanders were slaughtered and Charles fled, never to regain his supporters.

Make sure to watch our video below in HD! All of our videos are filmed in HD, so take advantage.

 

Jousting Tournament at Linlithgow Palace

Linlithgow Palace was the residence of the kings and queens of Scotland during the 15th and 16th Centuries, and the birthplace of Mary, Queen of Scots.  While the Palace is a sight in its own right, we made the journey for a different reason--jousting!

For those who don't know, jousting was a popular martial sport played by knights on horseback with lance and shield.  Points were awarded based on whether the rider touched his opponent's shield with his lance, shattered his opponent's lance, or unseated him from his horse.  We had a lot of fun, the costumes and armor were fantastic, and I left wishing jousting were still a sport. 

Versailles

The palace of Versailles was the site of the court of Louis XIV, the most famous and powerful of the kings of France.  Louis' extravagant tastes ensured that Versailles would be the model for many subsequent royal palaces throughout the rest of the world.  The Treaty of Versailles, ending World War I, was signed here, and it boasts a garden that stretches for almost 2000 acres.  We got in for free again since we were under 26, so we chose not to pay to enter the (rather boring) French gardens and opted instead for the public areas of the park, especially the "Hameau de la Reine," also called the Queen's hamlet. 

This is a model farm built by Marie Antoinette as a way of participating in the idealized peasant life held in esteem by French culture at the time.  While some may see the desire to live the peasant life undermined somewhat by the fact that you ordered a perfectly idealized farm to be built on your garden estate, to Marie it was more of an escape from the court life at Versailles and a more pleasant and intimate setting for meetings and conversations.