Friday's Flashback: Day 5!

Saturday morning dawned cold and clear.  We were very much refreshed after our stay at Blenheim Edge Guesthouse and excited about the new day.  KJ found a car park, and while he was figuring out how to pay for it (always a challenge because the meters accepted credit cards but sometimes had trouble with ours) I ventured into a public toilet.  Eww.  There were individual rooms in a permanent structure, and I guess it was because it was closed in, but, oh my, the smell.  It was so gross.  

Now that you're kind of grossed out, we'll move on to the fresh new day on the streets of Oxford.  We walked across a bridge and came upon Magdalen College, where C.S. Lewis taught.

It was really wonderful to think about the people who regularly walked these streets over the past hundreds of years.

 

"Firs' Years!  This way!"

{That's what my husband said when we saw these guys.}

I mentioned in my post from England that we found out we were there on Matriculation Day.  This prevented us from going inside a lot of the places we were hoping to, but that was probably for the best.  We had a 1 p.m. appointment at C.S. Lewis's home that we were slightly late for as it was.

 

 Famous Bodleian Library

I do wish we'd been able to go inside; there were scenes from Harry Potter filmed here.

 St. Mary's 

KJ paid for me to climb up to the top of St. Mary's tower.  I began my journey with these stairs.

 

Next I had these steep stone stairs to climb, finally emerging through a small opening at the top, which quickly became very crowded and somewhat claustrophobic.  The ledge was very narrow.

 

 at eye-level on one of the little landings

It was a steep climb, but I think it was worth the view.

Click on the picture for a beautiful look at Oxford.

 You can see how little space there was between the wall and railing.

I'm glad I went to the top.  St. Mary's is a beautiful (and very old, of course).  I'll have a few pictures from the inside on Monday.