For our final day in Oxford we planned to visit the Pitt Rivers and Ashmolean museums.

The Pitt Rivers Museum holds some items of Benin artworks.

Since I have been studying these recently as part of my Open University course it seemed appropriate to pop over for a viewing of them. Setting off from Oxford Peartree Travelodge, it was another cold morning.

The Pitt Rivers Museum adjoins the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and you have to follow what seems like a mini maze of passages to reach it.

The trek is worth it however! We headed straight for the Benin collection. The lighting made photographing the artwork difficult, so my apologies for the quality.

   

We then wandered around the rest of the vast room with its floors around the sides. It is stuffed full of objects, everywhere you look, in the style reminiscent of older museums. Fascinating and if anything it proved information overload.

By the time we had finished looking round it was lunch time. We came across the Heroes Café down one of Oxford’s city centre side streets and enjoyed a couple of excellent risottos.

After lunch we set off for the Ashmolean Museum stopping off at the St Michaels Fairtrade shop on the way.

We had been warned that the  Ashmolean Museum was a vast place where one could get lost for the day. Armed with this information we accepted from the beginning that we would only have time to view a small selection of rooms.

The  Ashmolean Museum proves an interesting juxtapose to the Pitt Rivers Museum. It is as contemporary in its layout and approach, as the Pitt Rivers is traditional.

  

Finally it was time to go home. We had a cup of coffee at the OrganicDeli Café and feeling worn out set off for the car.

Oxford proved an interesting place to visit, in spite of the cold. A place of knowledge and learning, plenty of places catering for gluten-free diets (if only Stockport and Manchester food places were the same!) …and lots of bikes (again, if only Stockport and Manchester were the same).