Last weekend I had the opportunity to visit one of England’s great institutions – The University of Oxford. One of my friends is a PhD student there, so he was able to give me a fantastic tour of several of the university’s colleges (the university is composed of 38 distinct colleges) and the town in general. I was particularly struck by the fact that the whole town is very unfortunately located on a flood plain.

When I was in town, new students were going through their matriculation ceremony which “confers membership of the University on students”. As a consequence the streets were full of students wearing subfusc academic dress, which added a nice touch to the atmosphere of my visit.

Another highlight of my visit was the Museum of the History of Science, which houses Einstein’s Blackboard (picture at the end of this page.)

Some of the 38 colleges are easier to tour than others.

Picturesque cottage.

The crest of Brasenose college.

Rowing is very popular here – each college has their own boathouse!

This college really one-upped the others with their boathouse!

Lots of fields around the school.

The town was relatively quiet with fewer tourists than normal this time of year.

Corpus Christi College.

A spectacular roof over the natural history museum.

A chalk board preserved from a 1931 lecture given by Albert Einstein! Much neater handwriting than I expected.