London, Oxford, etc.

We landed, we budgeted, we conquered. London was our first stop. We strolled around the city, seeing the sights - parliament buildings, Tower Bridge, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, etc.- and were awed by the architecture and history.
It's amazing to be in a place where a 300 year old building is considered fairly new. After our inner tourist was satisfied we went on to Charlbury where Sean lived while studying at Oxford.

It was everything a quaint village should be; except hiker friendly. Signs warning against camping were on every patch of grass and so we camped illegally (and sometimes took refuge in trees) until a lovely couple who has a connection to one of Sean's friends took us in and spoiled us ridiculously. We got to attend a game of Aunt Sally, which is a game only played in Oxforshire. It's a bit like horseshoes and our host plays on one of the teams. (Good luck in the finals Alan!) Charlbury was one of J.R.R Tolkien's favorite places. He used to stay at the Bell Hotel and supposedly the river running through the town was the inspiration for the Brandywine river in the Lord of the Rings series. We took day trips into Oxford and I finally got to see Sean's old stomping grounds. After seeing Christ Church College, the Radcliffe Camera and many of the other colleges we ate at The Bear, a pub that has been running since 1242!











In between these adventures we hiked around Charlbury seeing rolling green meadows, quaint english forests and lots of farmland.






On one fine day we found ourselves in Finstock where we stumbled upon the church that baptized poet, playwright and critic T.S. Elliot.





After a couple of extremely relaxing weeks (more pictures to follow) we had to say goodbye to Jolly Old England and we started making our way to the coast to catch a ferry to the Emerald Isle.





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