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Oxford - the City
Oxford is a world renowned university City, with origins dating back over eight hundred years. The Colleges of the University, with their beautiful architecture, provide a spectacular and inspiring environment for educational, business and cultural programmes for students from all over the world. It is also a thriving modern and cosmopolitan city, home to some of the newest developments in business, science and research. It is also an important cultural centre, with many famous museums, art galleries, theatres, cinemas and musical performances.
Staying in Oxford will provide you with a really great opportunity to explore the beautiful city of Oxford. To see panoramic pictures of Oxford on an interactive map check here.
Oxford is one of the most exciting and historic cities anywhere. It became the capital of England for a time when King Charles moved Parliament to Christ Church during the Civil War (1642-1646) and it is in Oxford that England’s first coffee house was established back in the seventeenth century. Oxford is known as the ‘City of Dreaming Spires’; and although its history as an education centre dates back over 800 years, it is a modern, lively city (around 130,000 citizens and a larger number of temporary inhabitants, mainly students) with plenty to offer everyone, whether it be museums, department stores, boutiques, restaurant or clubs.
Linking educational quality to the beauty of the environment has made Oxford one of the most popular places in the world to study, both academic and English language, and one of the most popular places for visitors to England to visit.
The centr e of Oxford contains the historic university colleges and also the river which flows though Oxford, eventually becoming London’s river, the Thames. The Oxford museums are truly amazing and entrance is free. They range from the world famous Ashmolean, the oldest public museum in the UK (1683) and holding many national and international treasures, to the beautiful Wren-designed Sheldonian Theatre, many modern art galleries including Modern Art Oxford, and many, many more.
Oxford has two principle theatres and several smaller ones (check here for details), and in terms of eating out, you are spoilt for choice. There are some places where eating is an experience, for example, the Randolph or the Old Bank Hotel. The restaurants range across the different cuisines of the world – Thai, Chinese, Indian, Italian, French down to the humble KFC, BK, McDonalds and traditional Fish and Chips.
Then there are many other fantastic places, for example, the must-visit Oxford Castle and historic mound (origins as a Norman castle around 1070) and, of course, a wide choice of varied pubs, from the historic to the trendy modern. Left is a picture of the most famous hotel in Oxford, the Randolph.
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