Our recent adventures, in pictures
To make up for the lack of photos in my previous post, I thought I’d make an entry consisting almost entirely of photos, to help you see what Ori and I have been up to recently. If you want to see any photos in more detail, click on them to go to their pages in the gallery.
First of all, a few photos of our neighborhood called Headington. I haven’t yet taken any photos of the most beautiful parts, with the centuries-old stone cottages and half-timbered pubs, but here’s one that illustrates Headington’s position atop the Headington Hill:
Note that I was roughly level with the top of the nearby 15-storey “skyscraper,” and that a wonderful panorama of the Oxfordshire countryside is afforded by this vantage point.
From Headington, one can take a fairly direct route into downtown Oxford via some streets and then a pedestrian/cycle path that crosses through fields and over the River Cherwell. One can often see livestock in the nearby fields, and at several points you cross “cattle grids,” which are metal grates designed to permit the passage of pedestrian and vehicular traffic while deterring animals from wandering (because their hooves would get stuck or fall through the bars).
Speaking of cows, it really is amazing to us how much of Oxford remains completely rural. As I’ve said, Headington is separated from Oxford by a few fields, but that’s just one example. Another is Port Meadow, a large open space to the northwest of downtown that has been used for more than 1,000 years as a place where farmers can graze their cattle and other animals.
Port Meadow is enclosed by the River Thames and the railway, and is absolutely beautiful in the late afternoon.
There are even some ruins in Port Meadow, of the 12th-century Godstow Nunnery. We were foolish, riding the train for an hour and hiking through the Cotswold countryside in search of quintessential, pastoral, medieval England, when the truth is that it’s all right here in Oxford, no more than about a 20-minute walk from the center of town.
I’ve mentioned the Cherwell before, and the Thames (known as the Isis in and around Oxford) appears in the images above, but there is one other bit of water that is an equally important part of the Oxford urban landscape, and that is the Oxford Canal.
The canal provides a lovely walk (along the towpath) from Summertown/Wolvercote to its termination point near Oxford’s railway station. While walking along it one day, it occurred to me that it provides an experience a bit like the one you find in Venice, with water, boats, no cars, and peace and quiet in an otherwise urban setting.
We saw countless narrowboats, which are indeed quite narrow, plying the waters of the canal. Some of them are even occupied by people who appear to be trying some kind of alternative, low-impact lifestyle, judging from the wind turbines, solar panels, and miniature gardens they’ve cultivated next to the towpath.
Near the end of the canal, as it joins the Thames/Isis, there is the Isis Lock, which permits narrowboats to make the change in elevation between the two watercourses. We’re told that the canal is deliberately higher than the river so that any flooding would overflow harmlessly into the Isis, rather than endanger the houses built on the edge of the canal.
And of course, downtown Oxford itself remains absolutely spectacular. If you’ll permit the comparison, I’d say it’s a bit like Venice’s Grand Canal, which also has so many interesting structures to look at.
Every time I’m on High Street, I can’t help but stop and stare at the wonderful buildings that make up this town. Our appreciation of downtown Oxford has been enhanced by a book from the public library, Oxford Then and Now, by Vaughan Grylls, which gives interesting historical tidbits and certainly helps in picturing Oxford as it was at the advent of photography.
As I write, Ori is off to her first day of work at the Ashmolean. It’s a chilly (well, 9ºC) autumn morning, and Oxford’s leaves have certainly begun to turn and fall. Until next time…
First of all, a few photos of our neighborhood called Headington. I haven’t yet taken any photos of the most beautiful parts, with the centuries-old stone cottages and half-timbered pubs, but here’s one that illustrates Headington’s position atop the Headington Hill:
Note that I was roughly level with the top of the nearby 15-storey “skyscraper,” and that a wonderful panorama of the Oxfordshire countryside is afforded by this vantage point.
From Headington, one can take a fairly direct route into downtown Oxford via some streets and then a pedestrian/cycle path that crosses through fields and over the River Cherwell. One can often see livestock in the nearby fields, and at several points you cross “cattle grids,” which are metal grates designed to permit the passage of pedestrian and vehicular traffic while deterring animals from wandering (because their hooves would get stuck or fall through the bars).
Speaking of cows, it really is amazing to us how much of Oxford remains completely rural. As I’ve said, Headington is separated from Oxford by a few fields, but that’s just one example. Another is Port Meadow, a large open space to the northwest of downtown that has been used for more than 1,000 years as a place where farmers can graze their cattle and other animals.
Port Meadow is enclosed by the River Thames and the railway, and is absolutely beautiful in the late afternoon.
There are even some ruins in Port Meadow, of the 12th-century Godstow Nunnery. We were foolish, riding the train for an hour and hiking through the Cotswold countryside in search of quintessential, pastoral, medieval England, when the truth is that it’s all right here in Oxford, no more than about a 20-minute walk from the center of town.
I’ve mentioned the Cherwell before, and the Thames (known as the Isis in and around Oxford) appears in the images above, but there is one other bit of water that is an equally important part of the Oxford urban landscape, and that is the Oxford Canal.
The canal provides a lovely walk (along the towpath) from Summertown/Wolvercote to its termination point near Oxford’s railway station. While walking along it one day, it occurred to me that it provides an experience a bit like the one you find in Venice, with water, boats, no cars, and peace and quiet in an otherwise urban setting.
We saw countless narrowboats, which are indeed quite narrow, plying the waters of the canal. Some of them are even occupied by people who appear to be trying some kind of alternative, low-impact lifestyle, judging from the wind turbines, solar panels, and miniature gardens they’ve cultivated next to the towpath.
Near the end of the canal, as it joins the Thames/Isis, there is the Isis Lock, which permits narrowboats to make the change in elevation between the two watercourses. We’re told that the canal is deliberately higher than the river so that any flooding would overflow harmlessly into the Isis, rather than endanger the houses built on the edge of the canal.
And of course, downtown Oxford itself remains absolutely spectacular. If you’ll permit the comparison, I’d say it’s a bit like Venice’s Grand Canal, which also has so many interesting structures to look at.
Every time I’m on High Street, I can’t help but stop and stare at the wonderful buildings that make up this town. Our appreciation of downtown Oxford has been enhanced by a book from the public library, Oxford Then and Now, by Vaughan Grylls, which gives interesting historical tidbits and certainly helps in picturing Oxford as it was at the advent of photography.
As I write, Ori is off to her first day of work at the Ashmolean. It’s a chilly (well, 9ºC) autumn morning, and Oxford’s leaves have certainly begun to turn and fall. Until next time…
