Oxford Open Doors

So instead of traveling this weekend I decided to stay in Oxford and explore! This weekend was the time to do it too!  Many colleges that are normally closed to the public were open during this weekend as a part of Oxford Open Doors.  Many colleges and churches took part in the weekend and let people see the inside.  Saturday after lunch some of us headed out in search of open doors.  We started down Woodstock Road which is a path that we often take to get into the city centre.  We got to see inside many places we had just normally walked on by.  We saw a couple colleges down that road as well as the St. Giles Church and St. Aloysius.

This is the outside of St. Aloysius.  One of the churches we visited Saturday.  It was really pretty.  We only did that for a bit when we decided to go see the Shrunken Heads at the Museum of Natural History.  We didn't just see that but that's basically the reason we went there in the first place.  It is a really neat museum and free all the time which is even better.  

Sunday after church I went out again to see what else was open this weekend.  First we went to Magdalen College, which was beautiful.  It was one of the ones I really wanted to see this weekend so I'm glad I got to.  C.S. Lewis was a fellow here at this college and it is said that the animal statues were his inspiration for the animals of Narnia... While at Magdalen we also went to a garden area and watched people punting on the river.  We also went to Queen's College which was really pretty as well!

 But I have to say my favourite was probably Christ Church!  That is the one that most people come in visit.  It's the most well known and it is also where they filmed some scenes of Harry Potter.  They filmed on a staircase and the Great Hall here is the inspiration for the Great Hall in the movie.  It is gorgeous.  The whole college is just beautiful.  I had been to evensong there before but had only gotten to see the cathedral which is gorgeous.  There is also a famous door at this college.  

The story of the "no peel" door is that those two words were put there in 1829, in protest of a man, named Sir Robert Peel, who was in favour of greater freedom for catholics.  There are a lot of examples all around of the problems that protestants and catholics faced in the UK and the feuding against each other.  

I had a lot of fun around Oxford this weekend!  It was definitely a good weekend to be in town and I won't be in town too many weekends.  It was a lot of fun, the weather was great (it just has been great this whole time, maybe a little too hot).  But overall this has been a great experience and I'm looking forward to the rest of the semester!