My Travel Adventures

With my time at Oxford drawing to a close, the pressure to do all the things on my UK bucket list has been growing. I likely will not manage to visit the Peak or Lake District, or make a road trip through Wales, but there are a few destinations closer to home that have already made the cut or will do so imminently. One of these places are the Royal Gardens in Key. Located at quite a distance from central London, they are not among the most natural candidates for inclusion on a day trip, which is why my visit to Kew has been put off multiple times. However, with spring blooming into summer, I have finally made the decision to put aside the day for this visit.

Unlike most of my excursions to other Oxford colleges, my visit to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies warrants a short blog post for its sheer bizarreness. The OCIS gardens are only open once a week for a mere two hours: Every Tuesday between four and six o’clock. They also lie quite far away from the city centre, facing Magdalen College from the other side of the river Cherwell. Thus, visiting the OCIS gardens on a whim is near impossible, and for many months I had made my calendar send me a weekly reminder of the gardens being open without ever having the time to follow through.

It is November right now and as I look through the pictures I have taken this year, I am realising some of them did not make it onto my blog because there was no compelling story to go along with them. Therefore, here is a backdated post that gives me an excuse to upload a few pictures I took on an unremarkable trip to London.   An installation to commemorate the coronation of King Charles III Marble Arch All Souls Langham Place Decorations on Regent Street A decoration on the facade of the BBC building Soho Square Gardens The Seven Dials Monument The Royal Opera House A cool lamp An interesting facade Bush House The London School of Economics The Old Curiosity Shop More buildings around LSE Buildings that I can't quite place More buildings that I can't place A London street

We started our day by buying breakfast and dinner at a supermarket in Banja Luka. Lacking in invention, we bought what we have been consuming for the vast majority of our breakfast meals on our trip: bread, cheese, a milk-based drink, and fruit. The purchase brought our supply of Bosnian Marks low but not to zero. Thus, we decided to get some gas before crossing the border to the EU. We were pleasantly surprised when, upon arriving at the gas station, we were helped with our purchase by an employee who simply typed in the desired amount and refilled our tank for 30 BM worth of gas.  

We made a second loop around Sarajevo this morning, beginning with a breakfast at a local bakery. Our first stop was Ali Pasha’s Mosque, named after an Ottoman governor of Bosnia in the 16 th century. Surrounding the mosque is a small cemetery occupied mostly by the graves of soldiers fallen in the Yugoslav Wars. Many of the tombstones are decorated with what appear to be marble turbans, presumably an indicator of status.

Today was another major driving day. Yang cleverly anticipated that we would lose our roaming data in Bosnia and Herzegovina, so we downloaded Google Maps to help triangulate with our GPS. It did not take long to reach Bosnia from Dubrovnik despite driving along quite narrow country roads. As we rose from the coast to the mountains, we could see the city below us, and the scenery kept impressing us with more beautiful views.

When planning this journey, I wanted to include a buffer day in the middle in case we got waylaid. However, because Dubrovnik is by far the best-known city on Croatia’s coast, this day ended up getting moved to day 8. Fortunately, we met with no trouble on our route, so this day ended up being quite restful. I was also very thankful for it, as the skies ended up being sunny until early in the afternoon despite the pessimistic weather forecast.

There were a few things we did not get to see yesterday in Split due to our late arrival. After buying our breakfast from a local bakery, therefore, we made a visit to Saint Domnius Cathedral. A service had just ended there, and the lights were being turned off as we walked in, but at least we had a moment to enjoy the sacred space all by ourselves. An interesting feature of the exterior is that at the foot of the western gate stand two lions, one of them trampling a lamb. I am not quite sure what that is meant to evoke but it seems perverse.   

It may have been labour day today, but I have consistently been working my butt off as a driver and today was no exception. In the morning, Yang and I travelled to Šibenik, a quiet coastal town overlooked by three forts. The paths in Šibenik are narrow and steep, offering seaside views some in some places and glimpses of churches at others. After climbing to Saint Michael’s Fortress, we walked down to the UNESCO-listed Cathedral of Saint James, a multi-levelled structure with wholesome round gables and an elegant rose window.