Oxford city break guide

Oxford city break guide:
Oxford is an international city on an intimate scale. One minute you can be pushing through crowded shopping streets, the next diving down a serene cobbled alleyway, its ancient stone walls laced with wisteria, or stepping through one of the college gatehouses into an enclosed and enigmatic world.

Renowned throughout the world as a centre of learning, and latterly as the home of Inspectors Morse and Lewis, Oxford blends medieval charm with the buzz of a modern city. The city may have given her name to everything from a prestigious dictionary to a bitter marmalade, but it is the university that most people associate with the town. Over the past eight centuries eminent scientists, philosophers, authors, archbishops, explorers and politicians have emerged from its ivory towers.

You can walk across Oxford’s medieval heart in less than 20 minutes, though on your way don’t be surprised to find a famous face crossing your path, or to catch yourself eavesdropping on snatches of conversation that range from philosophy to politics to physics. Yet despite its lofty, intellectual air there’s a modern dynamism about the city, which bustles with small businesses, intriguing cafes, quirky shops and, nowadays, some of the best hotels and restaurants in the country.
When to go?

There is no best time to visit Oxford, as every season has its charms. In early spring the trees of North Oxford droop with blossom, though May is when Oxford perhaps looks her loveliest. The trees are in full leaf, the students are in celebratory mood and the famous “Bumps” (boat race) is taking place along the river. In summer the student throngs melt away, leaving the city to residents and tourists, and you can punt and picnic on the rivers Thames (or Isis, as it’s known here) and Cherwell.

Oxford has thrived not only because of its university but due to its connections. Unlike its great rival Cambridge, out in the austere eastern Fens, Oxford sits handily in the centre of England, with easy access to London and the international airports of Heathrow and Gatwick.

There’s an air of lazy romance about the city, although it’s also the time when crowds of boisterous foreign students clog the shopping streets. Autumn, when the university students return and the trees are burnished bronze, is mournfully beautiful and Christmas, when the streets are eerily quiet and the medieval buildings frosted in snow, can be magical.
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