Today we had an early start to the day. I woke up around 6:45 and got ready to get breakfast before heading to the bus at 7:55. We had a strict time schedule of getting on the bus at 8am, but when he got there, the bus was not there. There was a mix-up with the times, and the bus driver thought he was supposed to show up at 9. Eventually, we got on the bus, and we all slept for the 2 hours it took to get there. When we got there, we met up with our tour guide Tim. Tim was our tour guide when we were in Stratford, and it was awesome to see him again. He was an amazing tour guide, answering all the questions we had and teaching us all the history of Oxford!
We started our tour at the Blenheim Palace, where we learned about Winston Churchill (who was born there) and the different Dukes of Marlborough. We went through all the different state rooms, looking at the different tapestries and painting all along the walls. Personally, my favorite room was the library, where there were books lining the walls, and a beautiful statue of Queen Ann. This statue was made for her by her friend to honor her after her death, because they had ended on a poor note. There was also a giant organ on the back wall of the library, which was beautiful.
After we finished touring the inside of the building, we then went to the gardens. We wandered over to the secret gardens, which were tucked away behind the palace. We walked through the gardens, taking our time and taking photos with all of the flowers. Unfortunately, we did not have much time to wander the gardens because our bus was so late, so we could not go visit everywhere that we wanted to. After wandering the gardens, we went back to the bus to go to Oxford, where we stopped to get lunch before continuing our tours.
We only had about 45 minutes to get food, so we went into the Covered Market, which has a bunch of little shops and places to get food. I got spaghetti, and we ate lunch there before meeting up to tour New College, one of the many colleges that are a part of Oxford University. While we were touring the college, we were able to see one of the places where they filmed a scene in Harry Potter. My family loves Harry Potter, so I obviously sent them all photos of where the scene was to make them jealous. There were a few other spots along our tour that Tim showed us where Harry Potter was filmed, and it was just awesome to see all of it and understand more about it.
We ended our day in Oxford with some shopping. I got some souvenirs for myself and my family before we headed back to the bus. Tim asked us some trivia questions about what we learned while we drove him back to his car, and after we dropped him off, we drove 2 hours back to Birmingham. I slept the entire ride back and ended up picking up dinner at Tesco before going back to our hotel room.
