Day 20: Cambridge to Oxford - Grampies Go To England and France Fall 2022 - CycleBlaze

September 26, 2022

Day 20: Cambridge to Oxford

The Long March

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After the exuberant weekend, Cambridge seemed to be getting down to business this cool morning. But getting down to business just meant the drifts of cyclists seemed more focused on getting somewhere. I suppose we were in this category too, because we were heading to the train station for some serious commuting.

We joined the traffic jam of cycle commuters. As usual, the holdup is waiting for the pedestrian crossing signal.
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That yearly total implies about 4,000 per day.
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Keith AdamsHow does that thing count cyclists, I wonder?
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1 year ago

Cambridge has been a shock to our systems, which have become accustomed to bicycles being rather shunned in England. But not only is Cambridge swarming with them, we see lots of "enthusiast" type models, like Baksfiets. In this random photo you see not only a child carrier but also the guy turning is on a tandem.

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At the train station there was a constant flow of cyclists in and out. At one point there were three Bromptons lined up to go in, but I missed the shot.

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This cyclist was also packing a dog!
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As I stood by watching the cyclists around the station, Dodie was talking to the ticket agent. It was more than 20 minutes before she returned. As expected we would have to go to London to get to Oxford. But in London we would arrive at St Pancras station. The train to Oxford was from Paddington Station. The normal link is the Tube, but our bikes would not be allowed on. So we geared up for a 5 km walk from station to station. Our ticket timings allowed 2 hours to make this transfer. Should be ok. (heh, heh).

The first little hurdle  was that our train to St Pancras was leaving in just a few minutes. But it was on a distant platform, meaning we needed to use the lift and bridge. The lift could hold only one bike at a time. So, we missed the train. We needed the lift again to get to a platform for our next hope of getting to St Pancras. Made it, but now we were already 30 minutes behind.

At St Pancras we spent some more valuable minutes figuring out how to walk to Paddington. Once we were on the way, we could look around at London, at least the little slice that was along our route. A lot of St Pancras station seemed to be a giant bland modern building, but perhaps this was also part of it:

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Certainly we could identify this part of the same building, which is the St Pancras hotel
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In principle we could have cycled to Paddington. The red lines on the road mean the lane is reserved for busses, taxis, and cycles. But not only was the lane totally clogged with busses and taxis, but the random photo also shows a motorcycle. Oh well, we got to see a lot of the modern style London black cabs, as we pushed the bikes along the sidewalk.

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Polly LowThose double-red lines are 'no stopping', rather than a bike lane. (Until quite recently, there was a very nice bike path along this road -- it was put in during the pandemic -- but the taxi drivers complained so they took it out again. Crazy! There is, in fact, quite a nice way to cycle from St P to Paddington, but it involves a lot of wiggling around the back streets. Next time! [I know you swear there'll be no next time, but...])
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1 year ago

There were some great landmarks along the way, like Harley Street, famous for expensive doctors.  On the other side was Regents Park, where in stories patients go to steady their nerves after getting a bad diagnosis on Harley Street. 

We also passed Baker St., where Sherlock Holmes had his residence. His fictional address was #221-B, but we could not check on what is there, since we were passing #131.

And the original Mme Toussaud's.So many well known and interesting things in London.

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Paddington Station was in it's own little neighbourhood, different from Harley Street, and featuring a lot of small shops. But the station was not at all decorative, just big. We had long ago missed our train to Oxford, so it was a matter of rebooking. We were told to get on the train to Worcester, leaving real soon. We found it, and it had (one only) a bike designated car. But their idea of how to accommodate bikes was to have two hanging side by side on hooks. That's a joke, but we sort of managed to jam our bikes into the sort of bike space. There was no provision for securing the bikes, so we stood with them for the over an hour ride.

Paddington station
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Hang the bikes from a hook? (Two per side!)
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We spent some time plotting exactly how we were going to maneuver the bikes out the narrow door and down the train steps when we would reach the Oxford station. In the end we took off two of the panniers and I just lifted and carried the darn things out.

Being teleported into a strange town is naturally disorienting, and more so for me since Dodie is the one with the GPS on her handlebar. My first view of Oxford looked kind of like the scene below.

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But here, Dodie is zeroing in on our little hotel, the Ali Inn. It is actually the building on the corner. That big white truck turned out to be significant, because there is a theatre next door (New Theatre Oxford - has been there in some form since 1836) , and props are being delivered for the show - Dream Girls. It will take many truckloads, but not as many as something like Les Miserables, said the driver.

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The proprietor of the Ali is from Afghanistan. We had a nice chat with him, about the Meaning of Life, or something. Most importantly, he found a closet where our bikes could spend the night.

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OK, the bikes have a spot!
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The show is going on.
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Something that really helped was that the Ali had a tourist map of town. And the map shows how all the major things are clustered together in a small area.  It was easy to take a pen and scratch a route from one to the other, ending back "home" for us.  Where we did a lot of scratching, beside "New Theatre", that is home!

Having just a couple of hours to go look at stuff on a map is not a recipe for a very in depth experience. But it did give us a feel for the place, much more so than being home and looking at canned photos of the different buildings. So let's go around, readers, and see what we can figure out.

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ann and steve maher-wearyThanks for the brief tour of Oxford! We will be there in a month, now I am more excited than ever to see this historic place.
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1 year ago

First up on our scratched in route was the Ashmolean Museum, which covers basically Greek and Roman art and archeology.  There is no way to go in to every museum in this town, and in fact there was no way to go in to even this one museum. They have so much stuff, it would literally take a decade to absorb what it all is. So I ran around, snapping this and that, thinking "oh wow", and "I'll be back when I have a spare decade". Here are some of the snaps. (Don't worry, this is the only museum we are looking in!)

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Keith AdamsThis one's easy: marble statues of dead people.
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1 year ago
Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Keith AdamsThat is what Dodie always says.
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1 year ago
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Keith AdamsThis one too: a marble statue of a fictitious person. Next.
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There are rooms and rooms like this!
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Here is the martyrs' memorial, on Broad Street. The martyrs were the Archbishop of Canterbury and two protestant bishops. Their crime, in 1555, was denying the real (rather than symbolic) presence of Christ in the Eucharist. They were burnt at the stake. It seems rather harsh for such a fine point!

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Baliol College, Trinity College, the Sheldonian Theatre, Bodleian Library, and the Radcliffe Camera are so famous. Here is what they looked like to us. I hope I have labelled these things mostly correctly.

Balliol College, the alma mater of Dodie's Lord Peter Whimsey.
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Trinity College
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Inside Trinity
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The Sheldonian Theatre
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The Sheldonian again
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The Bridge of Sighs (is part of Hertford College)
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The Radcliffe Camera, in Radcliffe Square. A signboard claimed this square is the most beautiful in Europe.
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Polly LowThe Bodelian is the square building towards the back of your shot. In the foreground is the Radcliffe Camera (which is also, now, part of the Bodleian Library -- just to confuse matters!)
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1 year ago

Somewhere in here I lost the Bodleian library, which I think is the third round building in the neighbourhood. Oh well, all we are really trying to do is to get the vibe of the area, not report to the correct building for our finals!

The University Church of St Mary is from the 1200's, and is the main church of the university. There are many things that one could spot inside (at least 10 in the handout guide), but again, this is just a whirlwind visit!
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In his poem ‘Thyrsis’ the Victorian poet Matthew Arnold called Oxford ‘the city of dreaming spires’ ,and I found that intriguing. So I was looking to photograph some good spires.  Here are some near St Mary, but I think Christ Church (coming) may be the real spot for them.

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Christ Church tower, I think this is called the Tom Tower, with a loud bell in it. Beyond is the Tom Quad, and Christ Church cathedral.
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The Tom Quad
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The man in the bowler hat is the "porter". His job is to keep me out of the quad!
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Gads, what are all these buildings?
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Gardens by Christ Church, with spires!
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Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) of Alice in Wonderland fame, taught at Christ Church. He took Alice Liddell, daughter of the Dean of Christ Church, as inspiration for Alice of the book. Alice used to go to a nearby shop, on St Aldate's Street to buy sweets. Carroll used the shop as "The Old Sheep Shop" in Through the Looking Glass. The shop is still there in its 15th century building, and currently sells Alice memorabilia. 

As we passed by, I naturally wanted a photo, from across the street. But a large man was standing right in the shot. We dispatched Dodie to shoo him away.  She was of course very polite and made friends with guy. He later joked about maybe blocking the next shot I tried, of Christ Church back across the street.

Watch out mister, Dodie is on your case!
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Alice's Shop
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Christ Church, across the street
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Our final stop was Oxford's castle, and mainly debtor's prison. The castle was built in 1071, I guess for defensive castle purposes, but it took on a role as a prison. It had a moat, and the earth from making the moat formed a mound, which was also a good defensive structure. For one pound I climbed the mound, hoping for a panorama of Oxford, but there was not so much to see from this angle, except the castle below.

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The Norman castle and surroundings.
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Wow, so there is a whirlwind spin around Oxford. Some observations, aside from the obvious beauty of the buildings: While there are lots of bikes around, Oxford is not as bike crazy as Cambridge. And while there were lots of people about, it was not jammed with tourists, like Cambridge. There was also very little traffic - mainly it was busses and tour busses. Finally, the River Cam seemed to be central to the life of Cambridge, but our tour today in Oxford did not touch on the Thames at all.  The Thames is definitely over there, west of downtown, but for example it does not figure in the tourist map at all.

It's hard to say which is the most wonderful city, but we liked them both. One thing about Oxford, look at the train tickets that were needed today to get us here!

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Today's ride: 11 km (7 miles)
Total: 661 km (410 miles)

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John FlecknerGood on you for persevering and finding the lemonade among the lemons. Loving all the pics--sites and roads/trails.
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1 year ago
Keith AdamsWow- the photos alone are overwhelming. I can't *imagine* what it must be like to actually *be* there.
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1 year ago
Suzanne GibsonGreat visits to both Cambridge and Oxford, brief look at London good, too! Makes me want to go there!
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1 year ago
Kathleen ClassenLoved your line about needing a spare decade for museums. They can be so overwhelming. Congratulations on surviving the train wars. At the rate we are dawdling along we definitely have a train or two in our future. Always an adventure. Sometimes a good one, and sometimes not.
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1 year ago
Keith ClassenYou two sure know how to make the most out of day! But you haven’t quite convinced us yet that bike touring in England is a good idea.
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1 year ago
Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Suzanne GibsonGreat places to visit-just be sure to leave the bikes at home. Even the locals agree that this is not a country for cyclists.
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1 year ago
Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Keith ClassenI would NEVER try to convince you, or anyone, that bike tourirg in England is a good idea. Even the locals say it is not safe or weel supported.
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1 year ago
Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Kathleen ClassenThe next train possibility might take place in a few days. Two and a bit hours to travel 23 km!! Three different trains! Oh my, this place needs help.
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1 year ago