See photos from our time at the University of Oxford here.
The town of Oxford and the university are entwined. You can walk back and forth from town to campus without really realizing it. I loved seeing the awkwardly placed lamppost, faun-shaped doorframe, and lion door that are said to have inspired C.S. Lewis and paying my respects at the memorial to the Oxford martyrs (Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer, and Nicholas Ridley) burned at the stake during Queen Mary I’s reign. Legend also says that the building across from the site of the stake still shows the scorch marks from that fatal fire. Mac’s birthday was during our trip, and I could not think of anything to buy him. One of my friends suggested visiting the famous Blackwell bookstore, so I hustled over there before we left and found a copy of JRR Tolkien’s The Silmarillion. What better place to buy your Tolkien-loving husband a gift than a bookshop that Tolkien patronized himself?
