Thame and Oxford

From a late return to London on Wednesday I boarded an 11:30 (23:30) bus to Oxfordshire then took a taxi to Thame. Thame is a small and very walkable town with very friendly people and nice shops. Today I took a bus from Thame to Oxford where the Ashmolean museum is housed; it is the oldest museum in England. Parts of the Harry Potter movies were also filmed at the University of Oxford’s Christ Church College where I also visited. On the bus ride to Oxford I sat next to a very friendly young man from Oxford and a very interesting older woman from Wheatley. The woman has been volunteering at the Ashmolean museum after recently retiring from working for the British Foreign Service and then the doing software support for a university, which required a lot of travel to Asia. Her husband, a diplomat, unfortunately passed away 30 years ago following a career that had the family living in places all across the globe. As a volunteer at the museum she said her work is very different than anything she has done in her previous positions, but very interesting. Last week, she told me, she was counting and cataloging sea shells. But these were not just any sea shells. The sea shells were collected by Charles Darwin and were wrapped in paper with his handwriting on them. I walked through about four exhibits in the museum. They were all spectacular. There was a marble sculpture collection, a Chinese art collection, the Shikanai Gallery of Japanese art from 1850, and an amazing Ancient Egypt collection.

 

The first two pictures are of a door jamb fragment (date: 1985-1920 BC) from King Amenemhat I and King Senrosret I and coffins dating back more than 3,000 years. The second two pictures are of the view from the museum's rooftop restaurant and the Christ Church Meadows gardens in the forefront of Christ Church College.

I am headed back to France early tomorrow morning; this time to South of France (Perpignan/Colliure).