Oxford and Blenheim Palace

Today Anton braved the driving again, and off we went in Mike's car to the city of Oxford.  Actually, off we went to the Park and Ride.  I had always imagined the University of Oxford to be one big campus, but in reality it's a large number of smaller campuses spread throughout the city center.  We found a do-it-yourself walking tour, and explored Oxford on foot.  The architecture of the centuries old buildings is stunning.  Our favourite was ChristChurch Cathedral, where a friendly priest told us the story behind a particular memorial plaque, of a whole fleet of warships that was drowned when they headed towards a light that wasn't the lighthouse.  And can you imagine, the dining hall where they filmed the Great Hall from the Harry Potter movies was actually closed to the public because it was lunchtime?  No wonder there were so many Japanese tourists milling about.
To top off our time in Oxford, we had lunch at the Eagle and Child pub, which is where C.S. Lewis and J.R. Tolkien used to hang out with their "inklings" crowd.  Unfortunately, my salmon cake was breaded, but Anton's chicken potpie was good.

After retrieving the car from Park and Fly, we drove over to Blenheim Palace.  This is a 2000 acre home built in 1705 (it took 28 years to complete).  It was given by the royal family to John Churchill, the first duke of Marlborough for a military success he had.  It's been passed down through the family, and now the 11th duke lives there.  They are related to Winston Churchill, who was born and married there. We toured through the palace itself, and took the little train over to the "Pleasure Gardens".  They had some pretty lavender gardens and a butterfly house, and a fairly large hedge maze that we got lost in.

Back to Banbury where we discovered that Mike's wife Susie does exist.  In all our back and forthing we hadn't seen her once yet since she returned from the weekend in Scotland.  Wouldn't that be nice?  A weekend in Scotland.  Now to packing up and getting ready for a very long day travelling tomorrow.  Off we go to Kenya!