Oxford: Colleges, libraries and punts

Oxford is a working university spread through the middle of a small city, which is why there is no campus to find. The colleges are walled quadrangles behind gates on ordinary streets, and half the pleasure is walking through an archway onto a lawn that has been there for centuries. The centre is small enough to cover on foot in a day, and the free museums are better than most of the paid attractions.

Getting There and Around

• Trains from London Paddington take about an hour, which makes Oxford an easy day trip
• Coaches from London run through the night and cost a fraction of the train
• The centre is walkable end to end in fifteen minutes; you will not need a bus
• Park and ride sites ring the city, because driving into the middle is deliberately awkward
• Buses run west into the Cotswolds if you want villages instead of colleges

What to See

• The Bodleian Library and the Radcliffe Camera, where the interiors are only seen on a tour
• Christ Church, the grandest college and the priciest to enter; go at opening or skip it in summer
• The Ashmolean, Britain's oldest public museum, free and far quieter than it deserves
• The Pitt Rivers Museum, a dimly lit hall of cabinets that is unlike any other museum here
• Blackwell's, where an ordinary shopfront hides an enormous room of books in the basement
• The Covered Market for lunch, and the Bridge of Sighs on New College Lane for the photograph

Colleges and Costs

• Each college sets its own hours and entry fee, and many close to visitors during exams
• Several of the smaller ones are free, and the quadrangles are the point rather than the interiors
• Check what is open before walking across town; locked gates are the rule, not the exception
• Punting on the Cherwell is the other Oxford ritual: hire by the hour and expect to be bad at it

Where to Eat and Stay

• The Covered Market does the cheapest decent lunch in the centre
• Jericho and Cowley Road are where students eat, and both beat the tourist streets on value
• The old pubs are the local institution, and the best known are tiny and hidden down alleys
• Beds cost more than the city's size suggests, so many people stay in London and visit for the day

Come on a weekday if you can. Oxford in August is a slow crowd on a narrow pavement, and the colleges worth seeing are the ones you can actually get into.