England: Concise Oxford history

The Bridge of Sighs joins two parts of Hertford College. Photo / Patricia Greig

The historic nooks and crannies of the classic, sedate university city leaves Patricia Greig feeling like Alice in Wonderland.

I fell down a rabbit hole when I got to Oxford. It was a large, historical rabbit hole that sucked me in and shot me through time, warping architecture, art and dates, events and eras. I fell, whizzing past astronomers and martyrs, cold air stinging my face until I hit the bottom, which is when I dropped my new iPhone 6 and smashed the screen. I came back to earth with a thud.

It is, admittedly, quite difficult to concentrate in Oxford. I'm not sure how I would fare studying there, considering the history around me - something slightly tricky to explain given that the subject I would likely be studying would be, well, history. One of the most exciting things about this small city is the fact that it is packed full of museums and libraries.

The Bodleian Libraries form the second largest in Britain. Visitors to the main research library can access the Old School's Quadrangle, Exhibition Room and shop free of charge, but must book to explore other parts of the complex, such as the Divinity School, which was built in 1488. The school, purpose-built for teaching theology, was also the first examination room at Oxford University and is a masterpiece of English Gothic architecture. Tours can also be taken through the reading rooms of the main Bodleian Library, where generations of famous scholars have studied, including Oscar Wilde, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

For a rabbit hole inside a rabbit hole, climb the stairs of the Ashmoleon Museum and (carefully) peer inside the doors. The museum's first building was erected in 1678"1683 to house Elias Ashmole's cabinet of curiosities gifted to Oxford University in 1677.

It is the oldest museum in Britain, and one of the oldest museums in the world. Anything after entering through its doors is like an out-of-body experience. For hours I wandered the corridors and picked through Greek and Egyptian antiquities and artifacts. Biblical manusripts as well as marble sculptures and replicas, drawings and paintings, and a collection of Athenian black and red figure vases. Michelangelo to Millet to Manet - as a classics nerd I get goosebumps just thinking about it.

Stores at Oxford's Covered Market. Photo / Patricia Greig

As Oxford is a relatively small city, visitors can expect to take easy strolls between the sights and visiting colleges, and there are plenty of churches, pubs and coffee shops to stop at along the way for refreshment.

There's very little chance of getting terribly lost as long as you keep your wits about you: it's helpful to keep track of where you are in relation to the Covered Market.

Handy to the main streets of Oxford centre, the Covered Market is open 8am to 5.30pm, Monday to Saturday. The building opened in 1774 to host the "untidy" stalls on Oxford's High Street. Inside, you will find boutiques and cafes, souvenirs and cheese shops, but cream of the crop for a less-than-healthy snack is Ben's Cookies (who only take cash last I checked, so go prepared), which are sold by weight in packaging bearing a logo designed by illustrator legend Quentin Blake.

There are some spectacular butchers in the Covered Market, one of them being Mr Feller, who has been a butcher since the age of 14 and has had his store in the market since 1979. Watching the staff work in M Feller Son & Daughter was like viewing a mesmerising parallel meat-focused universe.

Oxford's Blenheim Palace grounds. Photo / Patricia Greig

Speaking of questionable realities, Blenheim Palace is a 20-minute journey from Oxford. Built between 1705 and 1733, today it's a Unesco World Heritage Site, and is a commanding sight inside and out, with a long elegant library and several drawing rooms.

The original owner, the first Duke of Marlborough, has his own Column of Victory, which stands at 40m high with the man himself dressed as a Roman general - because, why not?

The palace was Winston Churchill's birthplace and family home, which guides and tourists seem to be very excited about, and there are fabulous family portraits and tales of upper-class scandal and American wives with lots of money - but that's not what interested me.. It's the grounds that are perhaps the most spectacular aspect of Blenheim Palace.

Lancelot "Capability" Brown was the landscape architect commissioned to redesign more than 800ha of surrounding park land, which is now heralded as "the finest view in England". The design is so succinct that every few steps the view to the lake in the palace foreground is said to change. Vanbrugh designed the Grand Bridge and construction began in 1708 over what was originally marshland, before Brown built a dam to direct the River Glyme under the bridge.

The curated vistas of Blenheim Palace's park are a sight to behold and the vision of a genius.

In fact, it won't come as a surprise that Oxford is full of genius visions, especially in the worlds held tightly inside the museums.

If walls could talk, I would listen to these ones very closely.

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Getting there: Emirates flies from Auckland to London, via Australia and their hub in Dubai.

The writer travelled courtesy of VisitBritain.