Eynsham and Oxford - May 19 & 20 - Days 4 and 5

After London, it was decided that we needed to spend less time in big cities, so we spent a couple of days exploring near where Helen's granny lives.  She lives in a little village called Eynsham, and the first day we got there, we went on a tour of the village which was narrated by Helen's granny and went something like this:

"This is a neat little bakery.  This is the Co-op, you can buy groceries here if you need anything.  This is where Helen's family lives, but they're moving soon.  This is the church, and this is the square where we hold our country market.  And that's it really.  All the rest is pubs."

In case you're interested, there are 8 pubs in Eynsham and about 300 people.  Maybe less, I didn't count.  But it's a neat village with lots of neat walks and history, since it's built on the site of a former abbey.

Heather went on a walk to the Thames to a lock, through a field of cows.  Cows are very large and very stupid.

Heather also went and followed the Eynsham historical trail, which revisited some of the former sites of the abbey.  None of them are there anymore, but they know a lot about where things USED to be...

The parish church.

The former fish ponds for the abbey.

A body of water.  

The next day, Heather decided to take a tour of Oxford.  Rather than pay to visit the inside of any of the colleges (there are about 37 of them), she went and looked at the outsides of many, many buildings.

There was Christ Church College, where Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland...

There was The University Church of Saint Mary, which has a cool tower with a great view at the top of it...

not to mention some pretty cool gargoyles and things. 

There was the Bodleian Library, which is host to over 8 million books...

The Museum of the History of Science (FREE TO VISIT! Woohoo!)...

The Oxford Natural History Museum, home of the Oxford Dodo (the Oxford Dodo has been in a museum since about 1650 or so, and was improperly stored in the 1800's, so all that's left now is a leg and its beak, but it's been reconstructed so it looks like a whole bird)...

The Pitt Rivers Museum, which was attached to the Natural History Museum and is CRAMMED full of things about everything.  It's very chaotic and overwhelming, but kind of fun.