Oxford had been on our list for a long time. After a lot of planning we wanted to go on 24th July, but the weather forecast was bad. Rain and Thunder. The weather was bad in UK that there was a lot of floods and damaged to properties.
So we changed to 31.07. The weather forecast was still rainy (80% in fact) but we trusted in Allah and went for it!
Our train was set to leave at 08:40am from London Marleyborne. We hoped to be at the station earlier, but woke up later than expected. Wife had boiled some eggs the night before and in the morning toasted potato waffles.
We jumped on the Tube (there were line closures and delays) but reached Marleyborne station just 10 minutes before our departure Alhamdulillah.
We got on the train and chose our seats. Not many people were on the train which was good! I like seats facing the direction of journey as going backwards makes me sick!
Our seats were near to toilets so it was odd seeing people going and coming from there!
We passed various stations that I had never heard of before. Gerrard's Cross, Beaconsfield, Princes Risborough, Haddenham & Thames etc. When we came to Bicester Village Station, there was an announcement on the train tannoy in ARABIC! We were pleasantly surprised. There was another language too, we're guessing it was Korean or a similar language.
We reached Oxford station at 10:07am, 1 minute ahead of schedule. So well done driver!
When we left the station we were planning which way to go when we saw a sign that gave directions to the Canal. We love canals so decided to head that way not really knowing where it would take us!
We made the right decision. The canal was lovely. Very different from the ones in London. The people on the canal path were kind. There were people in their boat houses (narrow boats) which were moored on the side; joggers, dog walkers etc.
We followed a sign that pointed us towards the city centre were we originally planned to go to.
After getting off the canal we walked down to the Oxford Castle & Prison. There was a mound outside the building which was being repaired and closed to the public.
The castle and prison looked good. It was used as a prison until 1996. There was one tower called 'Debtors Tower'. Here people who owed debts were held until the debts were paid. Some spent a long time here indeed! There was various towers in the prison. The prison building is relatively smaller than other prisons. Some parts have been converted into restaurants and a museum.
We walked over to the main city centre. We popped into the 'Covered Market'. This is an indoor market with various shops butchers, fishmongers, florists, cafes etc there were shops selling chocolates, clothes, tea, milkshakes etc.
We enjoyed browsing around. It is a bit of a maze in there and we were kind of walking in and out of the same spot. A friendly lady asked us if we needed help as she saw us looking lost! We were fine Alhamdulillah!
Next we walked down to the Radcliffe Camera. A building built in 1737-49 designed by James Gibbs. It contains a working library. You'll need to book in advance to read in there. We didn't go inside.
'The library's construction and maintenance was funded from the estate of John Radcliffe, a physician who left £40,000 upon his death in 1714.' It's amazing how these buildings were constructed with such beautiful architecture MashaAllah. We walked through the Bodleian Library building which is next to the Radcliffe Camera. It was nice going through the arches.
Next we checked out the Tom Tower. A clock here had been designed by Christopher Wren, the same person who designed St. Paul's Cathedral in London.
We saw the Oxford University Press shop, though closed. As a young child I used to see books that they published so it was kind of cool to see the press shop up close.
We then went off to look for a shop called 'Alice's Shop', an Alice in wonderland themed shop. When we reached it we saw that right next to it was another shop called St. Phillip's Books which caught our eyes. You go into a short passageway into a narrow bookshop. Here they stock old and rare books, mostly Christian titles. There was a few Sherlock Holmes and Shakespeare books too. The only Islamic book we found was a play named Hassan, which talks about Baghdad during the time of Khalifa Harun Rashid. We love books, and even if we didn't buy any, just being next to books, feeling them and marvelling at the knowledge, stories, facts etc books contain is quite enough!
We then made our way to through one part of the Christ Church Meadow. At that point it started raining and as we had intended to reach a Masjid, we didn't explore this part as much as we'd like to have.
We went over the Magdalen Bridge, located over the Oxford Botanic gardens. People were punting even in the rain!
We were following the GPS for the Oxford Central Mosque. Here's the funny bit. Prior to finding the Masjid, we saw two brothers dressed in the Islamic attire walking together. I told my wife that if you ever need to find a Masjid follow someone wearing a hat and Jubbah. As it was almost Zuhr time we started following them and put our GPS away. They had walked for a while. Then they took a turn into a road and there I saw the minarets of the Madina Masjid. However, the brothers continued walking past the Masjid and ended up getting into a car then drove off! At least we found a Masjid and I was glad it was named after Madina.
Alhamdulillah an uncle opened the Masjid, most likely saw us outside. Then we found the sisters area too. Very clean Masjid and everyone who I came across gave Salam.
Alhamdulillah we got to refresh here both physically and spiritually and continue our journey.
For lunch we popped into Za'tar Bakes. To be honest it's not the best place to have lunch at but it hasn't been easy to find Halal places either. We ordered Shakshukah (baked egg dish), Manakeesh (flatbread) called Muhammar (contained tomatoes) and sweet potato chips. Although they're Muslims and said it's Halal, we decided to avoid the meat nevertheless as a personal choice. Food was yummy, fresh and we marvelled at the hard work chefs do, who we could see cooking despite the heat of their equipment.
After food, we decided to make use of the last few moments we have in Oxford. We wanted to visit the Ashmolean Museum but when we got there we realised we had to book free tickets in advance. Unfortunately, there wasn't any slots available. As we were sitting outside the Museum a young man came up to us and asked if he could do a quick survey for his A-Level Geography homework. We accepted and answered his questions. He had asked a few others in the courtyard too and everyone he asked answered questions too. Hope he gets good marks for it!
We then popped into Ben's Cookies which is located within the covered market. I got a white chocolate cookie and wife got a dark chocolate and nut cookie. We then bought iced latte to finish off the day.
As there wasn't much to do, we decided to catch an earlier train back to London. We took the Canal route back to the train station and asked the workers if we can take any trains back. They said we can as we had off-peak tickets. So we left an hour earlier than we planned as we were both tired.
Well, that ends our day at Oxford, got back to London in less than an hour as the train only made two other stops in Reading and Slough.
Comments
Post a Comment