Oxford or Cambridge?

[Anonymous]

If I'm going to visit one of these universities - which one should I pick?

[Anonymous]

Are you visiting with the intention of checking it out for one of your children? Or for tourism?

If for a prospective student child, I'd look at their intended academic area and then compare departments at the schools.

If tourism, go to Oxford! Alice Liddell lived there; her dad worked at Oxford, and Lewis Carroll also lived there (he was a don). The story of the "real" Alice will fascinate you, and you can read Carroll's book to your kids on the way over, or show the movie. Then, you can take the Alice city/Oxford tour when you get there. This involves a walking tour of where she and Lewis really lived: I loved seeing the real gate in the hedge that is supposedly Carroll's inspiration for the rabbit hole/White Rabbit. And you can go to Alice's Shop, which used to be the real sweet shop where the real Alice went, but is now an Alice themed gift shop (if you have daughters, you can get them the adorable dolls). Plus, Shakespeare's home town is a day trip from Oxford.

[Anonymous]

Oh, and one of the Alice tours also involves a boat trip; apparently Lewis Carroll used to take the real Alice and her sisters out in boats there, and on picnics, and the part in the book about the River of Tears was based on this.

[Anonymous]

For tourism. Seems there's a consensus for Oxford.

[Anonymous]

I think Cambridge is much prettier, and the town is charming.

[Anonymous]

Cambridge is more rural, Oxford is a city. Both are lovely.

[Anonymous]

Definitely Oxford. Much more interesting as a town, beautiful covered market etc. Cambridge literally has a high street with a bunch of chains. The grass in Cambridge is prettier though.

[Anonymous]

I'm the one who posted about the Alice tours. I'm a high school English teacher and I spent a week at Oxford last summer taking a College Board sponsored AP English workshop/seminar that was taught by an American teacher who had attended Oxford and comes back every summer to do the seminar with his old English prof. It was great, sort of like camp for English teachers, and being in Oxford was a perfect vacation for a literary person. I enjoyed the day trip to Shakespeare's Stratford, plus the Alice walks, etc., and a performance of As You Like it by Oxford students on the lawn of one of the colleges in the evening (they had "fairy lights" in the trees, and we sat on the grass to watch: best As You Like It ever!). The campus/colleges are very accessible to tourists, and there is so much to see and do. If I hadn't been in class for our seminar in the day times, I would have had no problems occupying myself. You can really feel the hundreds of years of tradition in the air in Oxford.

But I would be happy to go visit Cambridge someday, too.