Boats, Bikes, and Balloons: Getting Around in Oxford

As in "that other university city," punts are nearly as ubiquitous as long, black robes. Actually, during my recent visit, there weren't many robes around. I remember my first visit was around exam time and everywhere you looked undergrads glided through the streets of Oxford on their bikes, black wings flapping behind.


Obligatory "people in foreign countries ride bicycles" shot. The basket's just a bonus.


Longer travel time but considerably more leg room than the Virgin aircraft I used.

Red All Over

It's always been my experience that British people are intensely proud of their history and heritage, stretching back into the ancient, unrecorded past; yet, they seem strangely oblivious to the "every day-ness" of it, absentmindedly dropping a letter into a Victorian postbox.

All the postboxes in the UK belong to the sitting monarch and bear the royal crest of whomever is on the throne at the time, whether Victoria Regina, Edward VII, George VI, or Elizabeth II. If you spend your life reading and researching the Victorians, coming across something marked "VR" is a little more exciting than most people find mail boxes. Walking around Oxford is like a hundred nerdy-Christmases rolled into one.