K so today we had three stops to make. First we went to
Oxford which is a little over an hour outside of London. WE were meeting up
with our tour guide but we arrived late so we had to rush threw the tour of
Christ Church which is one of the most exclusive colleges in Oxford. Our bus
dropped us off in the center of Oxford and Christ Church is on the North side
of Oxford. We were split into 2 groups, our tour guide was very determined to
get us back on schedule. There are 38 individual
colleges that make up Oxford, when you graduate you receive a degree from
Oxford but you attend classes at one of the 38 colleges and these colleges
answer to Oxford.
Alright so a brief history lesson so my blog meets the standards for the class. Christ College was founded in 1523 and was originally given to Cardinal Wolsey who was under King Henry the 8th. When Wolsey couldn't get the annulment for King Henry in his 1st marriage Wolsey was removed from power and King Henry took over the college.
There is so much history at Christ College that I wasn’t aware of. 1st Louis Carroll was a math professor at Christ Church College, he was also a photographer. Louis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland. For those of you don’t know, I have been obsessed with Alice in Wonderland since I was little. Alice was inspired by the Dean of Christ Church’s daughter, Alice Lindale. Carroll use to tell stories to the Dean’s daughter’s and Alice was very imaginative and gave him a lot of ideas for his books. The world of wonderland was inspired by the grounds of Christ Church because that’s where Alice grew up. As our tour continued we learned of other things that gave Carroll his inspiration for his books. There were these statues in the fire place with elongated necks which happens to Alice in his books. Also, Alice’s father was the inspiration for the white rabbit. He was always running late and looking his pocket watch. The reason he was always running late because Christ Church runs about 5 minutes ahead of time because it runs on Greenwich Time. Another FF about time in Oxford, the bell at Christ Church rings 101 times for the original 101 students that attended Christ Church, It rang at 9:05 to signal the students that it was time to return to campus before the gates closed for the night.
Another cool thing about Christ College was that part of Harry Potter was filmed here. The staircase the 1st year students walk up and meet Professor Magonnical in the Sorcerer’s Stone. Totally got a picture at the top of the staircase and took a video for my fanatical Harry Potter friends.
Another cool link to Oxford is this street we walked down
that was the inspiration for the Narnia books. C.S. Lewis walked down this
street every day. The lamppost that is feature in the Lion, The Witch and The
Wardrobe was on this street, along with a door with a lion’s head on it which
inspired Azland, also next to the door there were entry way carvings that
inspired Mr. Thomnas. After we left this alley we were in Radcliff Square
(which was not named after Daniel Radcliff).
We left Oxford and went to Stratford Upon Avon and we only have about 45 minutes there and we were all tired after our cardio tour threw Oxford. It was pretty cold out and we just wanted to get inside and get something to eat. The tour for Shakespeare’s birthplace was supposed to take about 30 minutes or longer. I wish we would have had more time but we had to be back on the bus to head to Warwick Castle.
We arrived at Warwick and it is your stereotypical castle,
huge tower’s, a mote, beautiful gardens and a huge courtyard. This is big
tourist spot because you are able to walk all around the castle grounds. We
went up in a couple of the towers, threw the garden and the little zoo they
had. We had only about an hour and half at the castle which I could have spent
all day at.
It was a long crazy busy day but it was worth every second.
No comments:
Post a Comment