The Travellin' Kind

I've been away on a research trip to Oxford's Bodleian Library since Thursday and didn't have access to the internet, so apologies for the radio silence as it were. It was nice to stay in a small town for a while, even if it did coincide with the giant flood of rain that overtook most of England this weekend. There's too much I want to post about right now, so I'm going to divide my travels into a series of smaller posts throughout the next few days.

The main reason for me to visit Oxford was for me to see manuscripts that I need to consult to finish my dissertation. Oxford has one of the best libraries in Britain, called the Bodleian Library (The link goes to a good wikipedia article about the history of the library). The medieval manuscripts are housed in Duke Humfrey's Library, a picture of which is on the right. On the left side of the picture, you can just see some chairs for readers consulting their manuscripts. It's an amazing building and really the perfect place to consult old books.

Really, going to the library was like living a scholarly dream for me. I've been reading books and watching movies about libraries like this place since I was a kid, and here I sat, rain beating down the entire time, with a stack of 15th century manuscripts on my desk, just waiting for me to open them! Apparently I'm not the only one that thinks Duke Humfrey's is the perfect library, it's been featured as the school library in all of the Harry Potter movies! The city of Oxford as well as many of its buildings are the setting for most of the film, so next time you see one of the movies, look for Oxford in the background.

The city itself was wonderful. It was friendly, safe, and just the right size for walking. It goes along the Thames canal walk, so many people hike along the canals from London to Oxford and on up into the Cotswolds. We saw many hikers during the weekend. I've uploaded a few pictures to my flickr page for those that want to see the area of Oxford I stayed in this weekend. My camera ran out of batteries on Thursday evening (of course) so my lovely host will be sending me more pictures that I'll upload to flickr once she's able!