2013-06-04 Blenheim Palace and Oxford

June 4, 2013 - Tuesday

Another beautiful day in Witney.  We woke up to sunshine and blue skies, which made it a great day to visit Blenheim Palace.  But first, we had to get breakfast.  The decision was made - full English breakfast at a pub.  So, we headed off to Witney, with me at the wheel.  My first foray into driving on the other side of the road with Petros sitting beside me to remind me to keep him on the curb side.  It wasn't too bad - I only hit the curb a couple of times and maybe brushed up against some bushes a few times.  The main problem with driving on the other side is the tendency to drift to the left, hence, making contact with the curb and bushes.   The good thing was that it was early and there were not many other cars around (and we were in the countryside).  The roundabouts were okay once I got the hang of it.  

We were not sure which pub to eat at so we wondered around looking at various places for a while.  We finally decided on the Angel Pub, a 17th century traditional free house on Market Square.  As it was such a beautiful morning, we decided to have out breakfast outside at the front of the pub.

Our English breakfast at the Angel Pub

After breakfast at the Angel Pub, where we did get our English breakfast with fried toast (shudder-tastes great but it is a sponge for grease), we drove to ResMed in Milton Park, Abingdon, which is not too far south of Oxford, to pickup a part for Irene.  After that, we drove to Woodstock, found the entrance to the palace and paid the exorbitant fee of 21GBP each for admission.  We went inside the palace and walked around the main floor and saw the Churchill exhibit, the room he was born in and the various other rooms on the floor.  After we had enough, we went out to the garden for a nice long walk.  We walked by the rose garden, which was not in bloom, so I did not bother to go in.  However, Irene did. We saw a pheasant on the way to the Cascades, a man-made waterfall.  The garden was designed by Capability Brown and included a lake. We walked by the lake from the Cascades back to the palace.  It was a really nice day for a walk. 

Main entrance to Blenheim Palace

Panorama of Blenheim Palace

Blenheim Palace from the garden

Another view from the garden

The Cascades

Sisters on the grounds of Blenheim Palace

We worked up a nice appetite from the walk and decided to have a late lunch at the palace cafe.  We had bacon and chicken club sandwiches and coffee cake in the cafe.  Everything was made from locally sourced ingredients and tasted fresh and was absolutely yummy.

After our light lunch, we decided to walk towards the gates that we could see at the side of the garden that we had not yet explored.  Along the way, we could see a small island in the lake and a pretty bridge.  The gates lead to the pretty village of Woodstock.  We spent some time walking around the little village, where we saw numerous buildings with wisteria in full bloom.  We also saw a church and did some window shopping before deciding to leave and drive to Oxford.  

On the path to Woodstock from the Palace

Building in Woodstock

Beautiful wisteria blooming on house in Woodstock

We walked back to the Palace parking lot and retrieved our lovely rental car and drove into Oxford.  We got into Oxford after 4:00 pm.  Irene and I went to the tourist office to get directions to a parking lot.  We decided to go to the nearest one even though the girl at the office told us it would be more expensive.  We'd rather pay that walk further and we did not have a lot of time to look around.  It took us a little while to find parking lot and then to walk back to the centre.  

We walked around, looking at the colleges from the outside as most of them were already closed.  We walked by the Bodleian Library, Radcliffe Camera, Brasenose College, All Souls College, University College, The Ashmolean Museum, St. Mary the Virgin church, St. Edmund Hall and Magdalen College.  Radcliffe Camera is the most recognisable building in Oxford and it was completed in 1749 by James Gibbs, with money bequeathed by the physician, John Radcliffe.  It is now a majestic circular reading room for the Bodleian Library.  Bodleian Library, located in the heart of the historic part of the city, is the most famous library in the world.  IT has over 100 miles of shelving and a copy of every book published in the UK and is the research library for the Univeristy.  It can take up to 6 hours to retrieve a book and deliver it to the reading room via its underground network of tunnels and stacks.  The Ashmolean Museum is the oldest museum in the UK.  It was established in 1683 by Elias Ashmole on Broad Street the house the artefacts and curios collected by the 17^th century naturalist and royal gardener, John tradescant.  It was relocated to its present home on Beaumont Street in 1845 and has a fantastic collection of archaeological artefacts and paintings by Constable, Gainsborough, Manet, Rembrandt and Titian. St. Mary the Virgin is the “official” University church.   There are 38 colleges in Oxford, and 8 of them are for graduates only.  This includes All Souls, which is the most exclusive of the graduate colleges and is for Fellows (senior academics) only. 

University Church of St. Mary the Virgin

Radcliffe Camera

All Souls College-taken through a gate

Magdalen College has the most extensive grounds of the Colleges.  It has its own river walk, cloisters, three quadrangles and a 15^th century bell tower. When we got to Magdalen bridge just past the College, we decided to take a chauffeured punt along the River Cherwell.  Our punter was Sam, a student who was going to take 2 years off after finishing his A-levels. He told us a little about Magdalen (pronounced maudlin as in 15^th century English) and pointed out places of interest such as the Magdalen Grove and the Great Meadow along the river.  He also told us about the deer grove and the river walk.  He showed Petros how to punt and then let him take a turn at punting.  Petros said the punting stick itself was heavier than the punt with all of us in it.  Sam hit a bit of the snag not far from the pier and had to work really hard to dislodge the punt, which seemed to have become wedged on some branches hidden in the water.  

Sam, our chauffeur/"puntster" (and yes, he did duck for the bridge)

Petros trying his hand at punting

Punting on the Cherwell River beside Magdalen College

Petros and Florine enjoying the ride along the river

After that, we walked back along the way we had come to find the pub that Sam had recommended for our dinner.  In our discussion about a place for dinner, we found out that Sam was not of legal drinking age but could get beers at Chequers and some of the other pubs.  He said as long as he stuck to beers, he was not likely to be asked for ID.  We finally found Chequers down a little alley as Sam had described.  It looked like a typical pub – all dark wood and a busy bartender.   It took us a while to figure out that we had to order our food and drinks at the bar. The food was then cooked and brought to the table by the lone server.  Petros had a local ale and the rest of us shared a jug of Pimm's (with lemonade, fruit and mint, but this one had no mint as they were out of it - no big loss).  Dinner was pretty good for pub fare - beef rib pot pie, venison burger and ribeye steak.  We also had a dessert of Eton Mess (without the strawberry sauce as the pub had run out).

It worked - we bit and got the pitcher of Pimms.

Florine's very tasty beef rib pie

Rib eye steak for Kat and Irene

Petro's venison burger

Petros ordering our dessert, the Eton Mess, at the bar.

Sign for the Lamb Inn

After dinner, we drove back to Witney.  As we got closer to the farm, Petros wanted to see what pubs were in the vicinity.  I remembered the information for the Old Stables included a couple of nearby pubs.  We drove into Crawley, the next village after Witney and found The Lamb Inn.  We popped in for a drink (local ale for Petros and ciders for the rest of us) and like the menu so much that we made reservations for dinner for the following night.  We spent quite a long time at the bar chatting to the 2 guys who worked there and ran the bar.  We found out quite a bit about the pub, how it had just re-opened about 5 weeks ago after being taken over by Anthony Pitcher, a young chef (28 years old) who had trained under Jamie Oliver and had been the chef at a restaurant in Oxford.  We also found out that his parents were coming to dinner tomorrow night so we probably won't be able to get the corner table that Petros had wanted.  I drove back to the Old Stables as Petros (who would not drink and drive) had a blended malt whiskey, Monkey Shoulder, in addition to his half pint of beer. 

Petros, at yet another bar; this time at the Lamb Inn.

And that was the end of a fun-filled day.

Where we stayed:  The Old Stables