UKC

Any recommendations for things to do in Oxford for a couple of days with two kids of primary school age?

Places to definitely go and see?
Which Colleges?
Also if it is raining is there a good swimming pool?

Cheers

In reply to iusedtoclimb:
Pitt Rivers museum is a great collection of the weird and wonderful from around the globe.
Probably quite interesting for kids. It's next to the natural history museum which they may alsolike.

Ashmolean is world class but maybe they are a bit young for classical and other treasures? Museum of science is small so if they don't like old scientific gizmos they will be done quickly?

Suggest you check out the websites of the above. They are all good but difficult to know what primary school kids will like.

Christ Church is the most glamourous of the colleges but I think you have to pay to enter (?)

In reply to iusedtoclimb:

We did a couple of guided "walking tours" of the colleges, led by a couple of very interesting local characters.

Very interesting and highly recommended.

In reply to Postmanpat:

I was about to suggest Pitt Rivers, then saw your comment. My other favourite places to visit are mostly bookshops & pubs so maybe not for primary aged school kids.

If the weather is good consider a punting excursion (I assume they can be hired)

In reply to iusedtoclimb:

Pitt Rivers is a must. If you ask a child to describe a mountain, you get the Matterhorn; if you ask them to describe a museum, you get the Pitt Rivers - shrunken heads, canoes, mummies, totem poles...

Ashmolean as well, if they are into museums. It's now so different to the PR that it might not be overload - where the PR is extremely old-fashioned, the new Ashmolean is very modern. Very good (and usually quiet) restaurant on top.

Climb St Mary's tower for good views of the centre. I'm not sure paying to go into a college is really worth it; have a look around the (free) Old Bodleian if you feel the need for a quad.

G'n'D's is a great place for lunch - great bagels and ice cream. They're on Little Clarendon Street, and there's a branch near Christchurch too.

Punting, if it's a nice day? Hire from the centre, or (perhaps nicer) the Cherwell Boathouse on Bardwell Road.

Annoyingly the OU pool is membership only.

In reply to iusedtoclimb:

THanks everyone

Anyone been to the castle - is this worth a visit

In reply to iusedtoclimb:

Without doubt circumnavigate (this is a climbing forum after all) the exterior of the Radcliffe Camera. Surrounded as it is with colleges on all aspects, nothing impresses more with the sense that here is the centre of all all learning.

Nearby, the King's Arms and the Turl do good pub lunches.

Port Meadow is a lovely stroll, a SSSI within the city boundary

In reply to BnB:

Is Port Meadow still there? Going past on the train it appears to be covered in houses!

In reply to BusyLizzie:

Good question. It's over 30 years since I hung out there!! Still, SSSI and all that. Should have survived.

In reply to iusedtoclimb:

Pitt Rivers Museum definitely. There's something for everyone there. Assuming they are still there make sure you seek out the shrunken heads...

Personally I wouldn't bother with visiting colleges - most will charge for entry and I doubt that primary school kids will find them that interesting.

The University Parks to the north of the centre are a great space for kids to run about in.

Much of river can be walked along, the bit through Port Meadow is good as it goes through farmland.

George and Davis for ice cream.

In reply to BnB:

Yes, King's Arms is top for food and a stroll around the Radcliffe Camera, Brasenose Lane, the covered market, the Turl and back along Broad St to the Bodleian is a nice little circuit. I like the Botanical Garden (close to Magdalen Bridge) and /or Christchurch Meadow but it depends whether your kids have the slightest interest in anything green. They may be a bit young for His Dark Materials but if you know how the story ends, it's fun trying to identify the bench where it happens (and the location of the first window into the other Oxford, as you drive past it).

The Pitt Rivers and Natural History Museum can be balanced by a walk through the University Parks, just behind.

In reply to iusedtoclimb:
My son (aged 4) really enjoyed The Story Museum.....though its a bit odd in that its not a museum but a collection of rooms where you are encouraged to read/imagine stuff.

http://www.storymuseum.org.uk/

If you fancy a short trip by train he also enjoyed the railway centre at Didcot, but worth going on a day they have trains running:

http://www.didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk/

In reply to iusedtoclimb:

Some good suggestions here, particularly a +1 for the Pitt Rivers, which I love.

Something that I have done a couple of times and always enjoyed is to go to the tourist information or somewhere similar and buy all the postcards you can find with gargoyles on them. Then wander round Oxford trying to find them. Might be worth taking binoculars as some of them are quite high up.

In reply to kathrync:

Gargoyles - yes, definitely! Queen's Lane is a rich habitat...

In reply to BnB:


<googles a bit> no you're quite right, it is still there - the new housing must be just on the edges. Phew! Hopefully today's students still use it as a nice place for a blustery walk amid the essay crises and the strong coffee, as we did 30 years ago.

In reply to Doug:


Much more amusing to sit on the bank at the bend in the Cherwell between the Botanical Gardens and Christchurch Meadow and watch other people punting. And it's £25 cheaper.

In reply to iusedtoclimb:

Surely when in Oxford one should indulge in a spot of night climbing on the colleges?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_climbing

In reply to BusyLizzie:


I graduated in '85. Trinity. Home of the "Gentleman's Second"*, which I duly scraped. You?



* for the uninitiated, my tutor described my finals as "not easily discernable from a third", but with Oxford traditionally electing not to split seconds into upper and lower, who's to know?

In reply to BnB:

I graduated from Magdalen in 1984 so we overlapped. Did Lit Hum (and then scampered off to be a lawyer).

In reply to BusyLizzie:

More than that I seem to recall our first born both starting at Durham in the same year. 2014 in my son's case. Am I correct?

In reply to BnB:

Oh well remembered - I'd forgotten that!! And now omg graduation this summer ... it is only minutes since they started where has the time gone!!!

(Apologies to the op for thread hijack.)
:--)
.

In reply to iusedtoclimb:

Council indoor pools are nothing special, but Hinksey outdoor pool/lido, is lovely, heated and less than a mile from the city centre.

In reply to BusyLizzie:


Time flies indeed. My son has another year as he's a "Northern Chemist" (remember those?) from whom Durham squeezes a fourth year of fees. Daughter starts elsewhere this Autumn.

Sorry OP for hijack.

In reply to BnB:

Ah - Northern Chemists, I remember. I hope he is having a great time. My daughter is going to do a Masters at either Durham or (aaagh)Cambridge; and the little lad is still a year away from the end of school. I have really enjoyed having a Durham connection and will be sad to say goodbye to a beautiful city.

In reply to BusyLizzie:
He is absolutely loving it, as do we on our regular visits from Yorkshire. Daughter is off to the other place to study English so might well coincide with yours. A small world indeed!!

In reply to iusedtoclimb:

The covered market has some nice coffee shops - lots of independents around, so don't feel you need to support Costa, etc.

Oxford Brookes Uni has a nice little climbing wall that's publicly accessible.

In reply to BusyLizzie:

I graduated from the other place in 85. It's not that bad really. Squint and it could even be the other other place. Your daughter and her parents may well actually really love it it, as do two of my nieces currently. As an OU summer school tutor in Durham in the 90s I also got to really like Durham.

Sorry OP: If I were in Oxford with young kids I would definitely have a go at punting.

In reply to mbh:

Yes of course, Cambridge is lovely! Daughter wants to go there because it is *not* mum and dad's uni, and so does the little lad, yet these days the academic bits of my life have more to do with Cambridge than Oxford. Peace and love all round and all universities are equal tho' some are more equal than others (and most of the academic bits of my life have happened at Reading which is also a great place)

In reply to BusyLizzie:

I graduated from Lady Margaret Hall in 1981.

Margie