Friday outside of London: Oxford, Shakespeare, and a Castle!

Friday we went outside of London to Oxford and were given a tour of Christ Church. There is so much history everywhere we go and this was no exception, Christ Church is one of the 38 colleges that make up the University of Oxford. This college was initially founded by Cardinal Wolsey in 1524 but was overtaken by Henry VIII. The interesting thing about this particular area of time was that Cardinal Wolsey was the Dean of the School and he had three daughter's, one of them being Alice. In 1851, Charles Dodgson went to Christ Church, he met the Dean's children and soon began to tell the all stories. Some things seem to mimic a particular story by Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland. There are many connections that seem to be quite similar. There is a window in the dining all that shows some of the charcters in the stained glass window.

Outside view of Christ Church

The Alice in Wonderland Window

 

The dining hall is actually very familiar to those who are Harry Potter fans, the dining hall was recreated for the films because they couldn't actually use the dining hall at Christ Church.

 

There are also other interesting connections to Christ Church and novels, C.S. Lewis also went to school here and he wrote The Chronicles of Narnia. A lamp post and a door show the connections.





 

The school is very beautiful and I enjoyed learning all about it's very interesting history. After our very quick tour of Christ Church we were back on the bus to Stratford.

Here we were able to see the birthplace of Shakespeare, it was a pretty little area, we didn't spend much time there because we had to make time for the CASTLE!

 

Warwick Castle was a beautiful place, there was a lot of things to see with not a lot of time. It was built by William the Conqueror in 1068.  I hit the main places and saw a show. The ancient castle was extremely cool, especially on top of the tallest tower.

 

There was beautiful gardens and amazing shows and manikins.  There was a show while we were there, Flight of the Eagles, a man who had a few well trained birds that look a little weird perched on someone's arm.




 

It was a good day full of history and cat naps on a bus, which were much needed!  speaking of the bus, the bus driver needs an award or something that guy can drive a bus better than I can drive a car! He was in the city and whipping that bus around like a mini-cooper, it was impressive. We got back to the hotel and went to Covent Garden to meet up with Laura's cousin who lives here and went out to Maxwell's, which provided us with a pretty American experience, hamburgers and milkshakes! The food was very comforting and a reminder of home, although I could almost swear that they melted some chocolate and poured it into a glass for my milkshake, (very rich!) It was another day full of adventure!