Moles and Oysters...

We've had a bit of a detour to the St. Mary's County Oyster Festival, so now we can return to England..

 

Our last conversation found us at dinner in the Mole Inn, near Oxford, But I do want to spend some time about the city of Oxford, which I thought to be one of the highlights of the trip.  Rich in history and important to the Lords Baltimore and thus Maryland, it is also a charming little city.  Kind of one you can get your arms around.  On our way from Salisbury to Oxford, we drove past one of the most visited sites in England

We didn’t stop as we headed for another “henge”, called Avebury.  A henge is a roughly circular or oval-shaped flat area enclosed and delimited by a boundary earthwork - usually a ditch with an external bank,  Avebury is another stone circle, much larger than it’s more famous cousin and dates to 3 centuries BC..  Not much is known about the reason for both of the monuments, and there are lots of theories out there.  It is quite amazing to see something five thousand years old

Since most of this region is chalk, speculation is that in the time of the circle it was white, but again nobody is quite sure of the whys.  At any rate it was a nice place to visit.  Even the parking lot had some exhibits… can you count the Ferraris?

And their valets?

There were several little shops surrounded by the usual English attention to beauty

Although there were tourists that weren’t quite as interested as some..

Anyway, after touring the site, we boarded the bus and drove the rest of the way to Oxford, home of Oxford University.  Our tour leader, Dr. Henry Miller spent a lot of time in Oxford researching things about the Calvert family and so was quite familiar with the city.  Of course the first thing you want to attend to was lunch, and he guided us to a wonderful little pub called Chequers

Where we had a very nice lunch including a tempting platter with a little of everything..

And of course you have to sample the local "real ales" which, I find out means they are not pasteurized and unfiltered and served (poured) directly from a cask with no pressurization..

After that we did a little tour of Oxford University

What a beautiful place, especially looking up..

One of the special places is the Bodleian library, first opened in 1602.  (I hope there are no “over due” books from then)!  We tooka great tour (no pictures, please) starting out in this lovely room

which had a wonderful ceiling

 

we finally had to get back aboard the coach and headed for our Hotel.  Always interesting to see what’s along the way

And finally we were pleased to see one of the more pleasant places we stayed

As this was our first night in this facility we had dinner as a group, which proved to be one of the better hotels meals we had..  and of course we were

DFD