Friday 10 November 2017
We were already at 7AM waiting for the breakfast and we had a wonderful one at Macdonald Hotel Bear. A waiter asked us if we wanted some warm breakfast, Pirita took an omelet and after some hesitation Mika said that "I could take porridge". The waiter said that since it is so early, they didn't have porridge, but he added that some girl could go and get it from a food store nearby. Just great customer service, we would say!
After the breakfast we made a short walking tour around the centre of Woodstock.
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| Woodstock Town Hall |
Then we took our bags and found a bus and traveled back to Oxford.
Oxford
Oxford is a city in the South East region of England and the county town of Oxfordshire. With an estimated 2016 population of 170,350, it is the 52nd largest city in the United Kingdom, and one of the fastest growing and most ethnically diverse. The city is situated 57 miles (92 km) from London, 69 miles (111 km) from Bristol, 65 miles (105 km) from both Southampton and Birmingham and 25 miles (40 km) from Reading.
The city is known worldwide as the home of the University of Oxford, the oldest university in the English-speaking world. (Wikipedia)
We left the bus station and walked along the main street of Oxford and saw the New Theatre in George Street, a place where Roger Moore kept his "An evening with Roger Moore" on 14th of September 2014 when his tour stopped in Oxford.
We walked a bit and took a look at the nice buildings in Oxford.
We were hungry and it was already a lunch time, so we ate in ASK Italian restaurant on the other side of the street where the theatre was. Pirita ate Pollo Milanese and Mika Penne Arabiata. After lunch we left our luggage at Tourist info and this is very convenient way to get rid off your bags for some hours if you want to explore the city without carrying too much with you!
Pirita had been to Oxford earlier studying English in a language course for a month back in 1990 and we tried to locate the house where Pirita lived and perhaps even the family who lived there at that time. We gave the address "Coolidge Close 1" to taxi driver and we found the place.
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| Coolidge Close, 1 |
We found the house, but it looked like that it was now some kind of rental place for students or others that needed a place to stay. At least nobody was home and we could not found any names anywhere. Anyway, we took some photos of the house and were ready to go back to Oxford city centre. But that was easier said than done, because we could not find a taxi anywhere. Luckily we saw a hospital nearby and there was a place where we could order a taxi. We showed the taxi driver a screenshot of "Tomorrow Never Dies" (1997), but he was not able to tell us the exact place where Bond (Pierce Brosnan) parked his car when studying Danish language in one of Oxfords colleges.
The taxi driver left us to some corner where it was prohibited to drive a car and we walked around the lovely college area and saw many students running and walking in the streets of Oxford. The colleges and streets of Oxford can be seen in many movies including Daniel Craig movie "Golden Compass" (2007) and 1997 "The Saint" movie, starring Val Kilmer as Simon Templar. "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again" (2018) movie's opening act was also filmed in Oxford. Although those scenes did not include Pierce Brosnan.
There are beautiful narrow alleys and lovely buildings with nice details in Oxford, like Hertford Bridge, which is also called Bridge of Sighs of Oxford.
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| Pirita / 007 Travelers and Hertford Bridge or Bridge of Sighs |
Two different colleges can be seen in "Tomorrow Never Dies". Brasenose College can be noticed quite briefly and we found it quite easily.
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| Photo © EON, United Artists, Danjaq LLC |
Then New College seemed to be a harder case. We showed the screenshot of TND to several people and asked where might the place be where Bond left his car, but nobody seemed to recognize the place. We knew that we were close, but when asking people they said that they haven't seen that place. But we didn't give up and finally we realized that we should be able to find the entrance to New College from Holywell Street. And there it was!
We showed the picture to a guard at the entrance and he confirmed that this is the place. He said that he would not allow people to leave bicycles where they are in the movie....
We took some pics and the place looked still quite much the same as in 1997. Although the tree had grown quite much :)
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| Photo © EON, United Artists, Danjaq LLC |
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| Photo © EON, United Artists, Danjaq LLC |
We walked back to collect our luggage, but before that we bought some nice Oxford College souvenirs from Experience Oxfordshire shop and from tourist info as well.
Now it was time to travel to London. We bought the bus tickets and the bus was quite soon totally full. Compared to bus which brought us there a day before, this was cheaper one and was not that convenient. Also the journey took much longer time, also due to Friday queues in traffic.
We reached London around seven o'clock and left the bus at Marble Arch stop and took a taxi to our first London hotel, which was near Hyde Park and was called Blakemore Hyde Park (£95,36 / night). Our room number was 011.
After arriving at the hotel we just left our bags in our room and went for a short walk around the block and came back to eat dinner at hotel's bar.
After this it was time to go to sleep and get ready for the next day, which was full of Bonding, locations and Bond girls!
See more 007 TRAVEL STORIES here
