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museum is a 5-10 minute walk outside the city center; tucked behind the University Museum of Natural History, the Pitt Rivers Museum is a cluttered, crowded, dusty collection of absolute treasures that range from mask collections, musical instruments, and weaponry, to such curiosities as a tiny glass jar in which a witch is imprisoned. The museum even provides free activity booklets for younger visitors that help them find some of the museum's more interesting artifacts.

Exploring:
Oxford is a city that you'll want to take in on foot. There are several walking tours of the city that you can take, and these are a great way to orient yourself with the city's layout and history. However, there is no better way to spend a sunny summer afternoon in Oxford than to grab a sandwich and head out to wander. While most of the universities are closed to visitors most of the time, Christ Church meadows provide a great spot to take a long walk around the cow fields, set up a picnic on the grass, or stroll along the Cherwell River. Magdalen College will let you in for a small fee, but the grounds are worth the price of entry. This college boasts a beautiful deer park, a hidden garden tucked away at the very end of the trails, and, of course, beautiful buildings.

The Botanical Garden is another great place to bring a book and a picnic; for a few pounds you can spend an afternoon wandering around the lush gardens and exotic greenhouses, or just finding an empty bench or patch of grass and lazing away the day.

For those who prefer a more active vacation, you can rent bicycles and explore the surrounding countryside. Within the city, you can rent a boat to go punting on the Cherwell and Thames rivers. Bring a bottle of wine for a romantic afternoon.

Arts and Entertainment:
Last, but certainly not least, you'll want to take in some culture while you're in town. Oxford's entertainment ranges from the casual and intimate like the Sunday-morning Coffee Concert recitals at Holywell Music room and all of the other recitals you'll see advertised throughout town, to shows at the large concert hall on George Street (my favorite being the Queen cover band if you're there in August you MUST check them out). The Oxford Playhouse puts on impressive performances of plays both obscure and famous, most recently a terrifically funny production of "The Thirty-Nine Steps," while the open-air theater at the recently opened Oxford Castle is the local place for Shakespeare plays.

Learn more about this author, Heather Russell.
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