Things To Do / Places To Go In Oxford

Hi all. Me and a mate have been talking about going to an away friendly for a long time, and this season finally decided to go to see London Welsh V Scarlets in Oxford on Sun 25th Aug. However, due to some bad advertising on the Scarlets website, I thought the match was going to be on the 24th, so I have a hotel booked for the Firday and Saturday nights and now need to find things to do and places to drink etc in Oxford. I was just wondering if any of you knew of places to go etc. Cheers.

If you want a nice boozer in a lovely setting, try the Perch on Port Meadow. Alternatively, the Magdalen Arms is good for food and closer to the Kassam end of town (although still a way away). In the centre of town the Royal Blenheim is a real Rugby pub ran by some nice Welsh lads.

In terms of stuff to do you can see what the weather is like. Punting on the river is an obvious choice. I didn't personally enjoy it myself, but if it is a sunny day and you have a few beers with you it can be very pleasant. Otherwise tours of some of the more historic colleges can be quite interesting.

I will let you know if anything springs to mind - wherebouts in town are you staying?

Were staying in the Kassam Premier Inn, I think. So I guess that makes the Magdalen an obvious stop for us at some point. Cheers for that.

When you're bored of wandering through town ogling the colleges and the agonisingly cute female students riding pushbikes, the loveliest walk to do in town is the Thames Isis.

Walk up the Cornmarket, continue up St Giles ogling the Ashmolean Museum and making crap Inspector Morse jokes as you walk past the Randolph Hotel. Then cut left along Little Clarendon St stopping for a bottle of Old Scrotum at Oddbins and laughing at the pointless designer furniture stores.

Right into Walton Street, past the fabby OU Press, past a number of great pubs (Jude the Obscure being the best), past various good delis, past the magic Phoenix Cinema, past Raymond Blanc's brasserie (which has gone downhill, obviously, since I stopped working there) and then when you get to the bicycle shop, left onto Walton Well Road.

Follow this until you end up in a field surrounded by cows and joggers. Panic a bit. Then realise there's a path by the river. Turn right and follow the bend of the river, marvelling continuously that sh!t this good is free, stop off at SirBurger's pub for one or two and then carry on past the lock until you see a pub called the Trout. You are home. Pass Go and collect £200.

Drink heavily and have a laugh with the antipodean barmaids. Heaven. Have a good one.

Cheers George, think I may need to print this out mind otherwise I'll end up totally lost somewhere.

Might I suggest the Pitt Rivers Museum? Pitt Rivers was a Victorian explorer and he returned from South East Asia and other exotic places with all sorts of strange memorabilia - shrunken heads, voodoo dolls etc etc. The Museum is absolutely amazing and well worth a visit if only to be gobsmacked at the sort of things he thought were worth collecting. BTW it is not laid out in all sort of modern touchy-feely order. It is crammed to the gunwhales with stuff, more stuff and even more stuff. Utterly unique.

Just had a look at the website
http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/index.html
where it says it is An Anthropological and Ethnographic Museum ... blah blah blah. It's the shrunken heads that people go to see. (and it's free).

There is unfortunately no -- --- .-. ... . museum. So head for Cambridge for an intellectual experience.

Portnoy's Complaint wrote:There is unfortunately no -- --- .-. ... . museum. So head for Cambridge for an intellectual experience.

Inter-leck-two-al? To be honest that word generally either goes over my head, or involves someone with a 'punch me' face trying to (and often suceeding) make me look dense.

Like I said, I am pretty thick as I booked the hotel for the wrong days, so I was looking for something not too taxing to kill time whilst my stomach clears space for more beer. All though shrunken heads does sound appealing.