Day 20 - Oxford

Day 20 - Oxford

The very first thing we intended to do was a tour of the Bodleian Library, but we had to kill some time before the tour started and so, in the way of these things, we stumbled across a market, escaping with our wallets barely intact.

The Bodleian Library itself was astonishing.

I'm pretty much suffering from awe fatigue at the moment and the Bodleian offered no relief. The sheer amount of history encrusted within and without the walls is breathtaking. We were allowed brief, grudging access to the medieval collection, books so rare and dangerous that they were chained to the shelves, lest they start their inexorable journey to the wilds of Ebay.

I remember looking over and seeing an original volume of Samuel Johnson's dictionary. My iphone quailed before its authority.


We weren't allowed to take photos of the books, but over the road from the Bodleian is Blackwell's which, despite having a mere three floors of books, also boasts the infamous Norrington Room. I have tried to give an idea of the scale of the Norrington Room below:

Despite our awe being struck so consistently and comprehensively it had concussion, we dragged it, bruised and protesting, into the Ashmolean. We thought the Edward Lear exhibit would give it a soothing balm. We had underestimated the Ashmolean. Lear was not just a purveyor of nonsense rhymes, he was a talented painter of landscapes and wildlife, which made up the bulk of the exhibition.


The rest of the Ashmolean is staggering. Our awe had now assumed a foetal position.

Here's one example: a Stradivarius

We had just enough cognitive strength to make it to dinner, then back up all those stairs to recharge for the drive tomorrow.