Day 4: Newbury (Daytrip to Oxford)

Woke up really bright and early after our third night in Newbury to head over to Oxford for the day. It was so cold the night before that the car windows had frosted up so we had to wait a couple of minutes for it to defrost.

When we arrived at Oxford, we were pleasently suprised to find out how tourist-friendly it was. There were maps posted at numerous places and thus it was easy to find out exactly where we wanted to go and never lost our way. We first went to see the Radcliffe Camera which was just an architectural attraction. We then headed to the Church of St Mary the Virgin where we were told that ascending the tower would offer us splendid views of the town. The stairs were winding and really narrow and even I got vertigo. I mean, they had to attach a rope to the wall for people to hold on to for support!

The seemingly endless track was worth it though. we really got a bird's eye view of Oxford and I really loved the place. It looked like a life-sized version of my little Durham town. A distinctly English landscape. Laura and Luke both started wondering what things would be like if they had applied to Oxford instead. I just kept thinking of my JC E Lit teacher back in Singapore and "the Oxford Voice".

Anyhoo... There I am looking out over the town.

And here's an example of some of the sights:

The viewing walkway was really narrow as well, which was a nightmare when other people tried to get by you. A huge problem was that there was only one way up and one way down, so you're bound to run into that problem where you have to squeeze somewhere to let someone else through... That made going down those narrow stair a problem. As we were heading down, a group of large English folk were walking up and they kindly stopped to let us by. They were also gracious enough to stand at the broad part of the stairs. You know how in a spiraling staircase, the steps get narrower as they approach the middle? Yup, that left us to tread down the narrow part of the narrow stairs gingerly. It was hard for me with my size 3 feet, think about Laura with a size 6 and Luke's is like double my size. One of the females also took it in her stride to hold us as we move past her, supposedly for support. Really, so you gain your balance, then have someone reach out and grab you causing you to nearly topple over, and hear her say "there you go"... NOT HELPFUL!

After the church, we headed over to this "Japanese" noodle bar for lunch. I just had chicken noodle soup, which tasted so great after all the fried english fare I'd been fed for the past couple of month. I actually felt healthy again for awhile. No oil or stuff like that... And just what I needed - hot soup!

After lunch, we headed over to Christchurch College since I read that when in Oxford, it's a must to tour a college. It was a pretty nice building and all, but we decided not to go in since they charged 7.50 quid and we wanted to go into the Ashmolean Museum as well (which was free entry). Before hitting the museum though, we had a pit stop where I had a delicious brownie and Laura and Luke had ice-cream. How Singaporean isn't it, that I remember what food we ate where daily =)

So, we first went to see the Sheldonian Theatre (pictures up at picturetrail.com, type "stacyvacation1" under member name), then walked past a graveyard in the middle of town. Curious...

The Ashmolean... The first museum we visited on our trip. A sort of baby step to get us into the museum way of mind =) It's not a big museum by any means, and had about a 50%-50% ratio of artefacts and paintings. Seeing as how we only had 2 hours there, I first glanced over the Greek and Roman Sculptures before deciding to go up and see the paintings first. I realise that I much prefer seeing paintings that ruins and ancient artefacts. Luke and Laura are the other way around (though they also enjoy paintings and conversely for me).

I remember on the train to Florence, I was coming up with dichotomies to see what everyone's views of things were. You know, stuff like "bird in the sky or fish in the ocean". So when I asked "inside with a gallery of painting masterpieces or outside among sprawling ruins", Martin and I chose the paintings and Laura an Luke the ruins.

But sidetrack aside, the Ashmolean had a Monet and a Van Gogh, but they weren't all that good... Every artist has their masterpieces and duds. And museums like the Ashmolean can write things like how they have a Van Gogh, but really, it's not a huge draw factor...

I think what I loved best in the Ashmolean was the Camille Pissarro paintings. I'd never heard of this painter till I got to the Ashmoelan and his works immediately stood out. So there's an example of one of his paintings below. Idiotically, I failed to take down the title of the painting so...

Here's a close up of a section so you guys can see the brushwork. I love how he uses these short strokes and dots to compose the entire picture. I don't think it's pointillism exactly which is dots of contrasting colour that the eye will merge into tones, since the colours aren't that contrastive here... But correct me if I'm wrong, I'm still trying to learn =)

The Ashmolean was our last stop before heading back. It's been our plan since we're travelling in winter. In order to maximise our daylight, we hit all the outdoor sights and buildings and nature and stuff the first thing in the morning. Then we'll go to a museum at around 3 or 4 in the afternoon, stay for 2 hours (I know, I know, NOT ENOUGH TIME!! But we didn't have much time in each place and didn't have that luxury), emerge when it's dark and go for dinner.

Before entering the train, I ended the day with a nice apple spice tea to warm up the body in the cold winter night. Very nice =)

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