Oxford is somewhere I’ve always wanted to visit but never got round to doing it. When I lived in York the journey always seemed too long (I hated driving long distances and the train was quite expensive to go that far). But now I live in London I realised the train only takes an hour to get there. It only cost me £7, so I decided to finally do it.

We started the day with breakfast in George Street Social and wandered round the town centre exploring the shops.

Next, we headed to the university. The architecture there is truly stunning. There were people everywhere, and I wondered how the students get any studying done there while it’s such a huge tourist attraction.

I finally saw The Bridge of Sigh’s that I have seen countless times on social media. This is one of the main things I thought of when I thought about Oxford.

We stumbled across an area of the university called New College. You have to pay to enter this area (£4 for adults) and can visit the Cloisters, Chapel, Hall, Gardens, and City Wall as part of a self-guided tour.

The Cloisters were used in the filming of Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire, where Malfoy is turned into a ferret by Mad-Eye Moody. As a huge Harry Potter fan this was very exciting for me! I have visited the Warner Bros’ Studio Tour twice but it was different to see an actual place where they filmed it rather than a studio set.

Next, we went for a walk through the Oxford Botanical Gardens, and finished the day watching people attempt punting on the canal. I was surprised that no one fell in, there were some really shaky near-misses at times!

After a lovely day we finished with a meal in Wagamama’s and a coffee in “the oldest coffee shop in Europe”. As we were walking back to the train station we realised we had missed out a pretty important landmark – Oxford Castle. We’ll have to check that out next time!

Have you ever been to Oxford? What would you recommend to see and do there?