An Oxford Christmas Memory - Walking in the Footsteps of Inspector Morse

What better way to spend Christmas and Christmas Eve (my birthday) than walking in the footsteps of Inspector Morse. Five years ago, Chris and I were in the UK to celebrate Christmas and ultimately see the fireworks over the Thames on New Year's. Our stop in Oxford was between a week in Scotland and our final week in London. We stayed right downtown at the lovely Old Bank Hotel and were able to walk everywhere we needed to go. We stopped at the Oxford tourist office to pickup a book that outlined all of the significant buildings and sites where the show was filmed. We were determined to visit all of them despite the fact that it gets dark at 3:00 PM. We were literally the only ones on the streets, in the pitch dark, taking photos of show sites (we had to visit every last one)...but, what it did do was allow us insights into the architectural history of the city and really feel like we were part of it. It also allowed us to pay homage to John Thaw, who played Inspector Morse so brilliantly. We visited the architectural wonders of Oxford University and its colleges from the Bodleian Library, to Christ Church, to Magdelan College. A highlight was celebrating midnight mass at Christ Church. The magical splendor of the sights and sounds of choral music in a gothic cathedral is not one to be missed. We arrived early and were able to hear the choir practicing. It still gives me goosebumps reliving the memory as I type this. To extend the feeling, the lead cantor dined at our hotel for the Christmas meal. It was a little disconcerting to see him eating a meal at the bar with the rest of us when we had just seen him the night before in Christmas regalia processing down the Nave. We had a traditional English Christmas meal at our hotel in the dining room. It was packed with families, couples and kids...all in mutual celebration of the wonder of Christmas.