Oxford was our Third Choice

Whilst S was off having fun in Paris G and I were going to go off and have fun in London.

We booked a night away through Air BnB but unfortunately the host needed us to change our arrival time to one which just didn't work for us so, mutually, we decided to cancel.

We then spent some time pouring over a railway map to help us decide on an alternative destination.

Frome was chosen and new plans were made.

Then the day before we were due to go the host, very apologetically, cancelled due to a double booking.

So what to do.

Looking at the weather forecast things didn't bode well.

Rain and thunderstorms were predicted for lots of areas.

But it looked like if we headed east instead of west we should be ok.

The idea of a night away was shelved and a day trip to Oxford was our new plan.

With no set plan beforehand we ended up having a wonderful day out.

On arriving in Oxford we made our way from the train station towards the city centre.

As we walked over a bridge I spotted one of my favourite things, an information board.

On investigation it showed a map for the Oxford Canal Heritage Trail, it looked interesting so we set off.

The trail is 3km long and we didn't make it quite to the end as we wanted to make sure we had time to see other parts of the city.

If you are ever in the area then I would definitely recommend wandering along the towpath.

We can also recommend The Hayfield Deli should you need some refreshment along the way.

To combat problems with graffiti in their local area a project was undertaken to decorate Frenchay bridge with various murals. This a snapshot of just a few of them.

We took a bus back into the centre and were enticed into visiting Balliol College gardens after seeing this tantalising glimpse.

The weather was kind to us all day, no rain or storms, just wall to wall sunshine.

So this shady seat was very welcome,

especially when the views were like this

From there we wandered past more of the colleges

onto our next discovery which was the Botanic Gardens.
The huge glasshouses were fascinating, this is where we saw the tiny pineapples and the cotton plants.
The beds outside were chock full of big blousey poppies which we took loads of photos of.
Situated by the river it really would be a perfect spot to enjoy a picnic lunch.

From there we sought out somewhere to stop for coffee and cake.

This turned out to be our downfall as once we had stopped we found we had pretty much tun out of energy!

We took a bus back to the train station, seeing lots more of the city (including a castle!) on the way and knowing that we had we would need at least one more day out in Oxford to explore it further.