Bicycle parking area at train station in Oxford, England.
I was hoping for some decent morning light as I wanted to photograph the Bath Abby without hordes of tourists milling about, but we woke up and it was anothe totally grey day. We packed up and headed out early (8:30a) - the hostel didn't include breakfast. We were treated to some free parking, thanks to a kind lady that gave us here parking sticker with 2 remaining hours!
We found a Costa coffee shop (they are more prevelant here than Starbucks and definitely have faster service) and we had breakfast coffee sitting on a bench near the Bath Abbey. We spent some time in the Abbey and after doing a bit of souvenier shopping we headed off to Oxford.
The drive to Oxford was without incident and once again we ran into a traffic mess getting to the town centre. I commented to Chelsea that towns like Bath and Oxford must be crazy, crazy during high tourist season and that I would blame them from banning cars from the town centre all together. Most of these towns have park-and-rides, but still appears that a lot of traffic goes thru the town centre.
The one bad thing about traveling this time of year is the short days. We usually aren't at our destination until around 2:00p and this means we only have a short couple of hours of daylight left. With the remaining light in Oxford, we just walk around a bit trying to get our bearings before it got dark.
Fortunately, our hostel, another YHA site, was right next to the train station and we had spotted it when we drove into the city centre. We checked into the hostel, which is being remodeled so there was a lot of chaos in reception and our room was on the very end of the building right next to the train station.
Dinner was Italian food at Bella Italia, a decent chain of nicer places with good food.
We decided to not rush out of Oxford the next morning and had purchased tickets for a two hour walking tour of the city before we drive north to Nottingham to return the car.
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