Oxford, city of dreaming spires with down-to-earth options

My Kind of Place: Live like a student, experience the fine museums and relish the gourmet fare as Oxford resident Max Davidson highlights the best of his city's many attractions.

A view of Oxford's Radcliffe Square. In the foreground are the dome of Radcliffe Camera and All Souls College. Getty Images

Why Oxford?

It may no longer be the best university in the world, depending on which league table you read, but as a tourist destination Oxford just gets better and better. The lavishly renovated Ashmolean Museum would grace any city, the area around Oxford Castle has been redeveloped to excellent effect and there are new shops, bars and cafes opening every week. With so many bright young things around, the city has a feral energy, particularly at weekends, but you don't have to go far to discover the gentler charms of "the dreaming spires": all those wisteria-covered old colleges glowing in the sun are little changed from the era of Brideshead Revisited. The historic centre is compact and equally suited to shoppers, lovers of period architecture and people who just get a buzz out of a great university city.

A comfortable bed

Dyed-in-the-wool traditionalists still make a beeline for the venerable Randolph Hotel (www.macdonaldhotels.co.uk; 00 44 1865 256 400), an Oxford institution for nearly 150 years, located opposite the Ashmolean Museum. Although its best days are behind it, the hotel still offers quintessentially English hospitality and afternoon tea in congenial surroundings. Doubles cost from £129 (Dh758) per night.

During the university holidays the savvy option is to stay in one of the Oxford colleges: accommodation is basic but you get a taste of the student experience in glorious surroundings, plus a cooked breakfast in college. A number of colleges participate in the scheme, which is run by www.oxfordrooms.co.uk. You have to book online at least a day in advance but prices are competitive: bed and breakfast in an ensuite room at the centrally located Trinity College costs £75 (Dh440).

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• City guides written by those who love them at My Kind of Place

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Find your feet

Depending on where you are based, the best place to start an informal walking tour of Oxford is on Magdalen Bridge. With the tower of Magdalen College on your right - from where choristers greet the dawn on May Day - and the Botanical Gardens on your left, proceed west towards the city centre, ducking down any cobbled side streets that take your fancy. The dome-roofed Radcliffe Camera, opposite the turrets of All Souls, is the epicentre of university, next to the Bodleian Library and the Wren-designed Sheldonian Theatre. Keep your eyes peeled for gargoyles, dons in tweed jackets and students on bicycles exceeding the speed limit.

Meet the locals

From dawn to dusk and through to dawn again, especially in summer, town and gown happily converge on the city centre. Oxford is not a self-contained campus university but embedded in the local community. Out of term, Oxford does quieten down a bit despite an influx of foreign students in the summer, but with more and more people commuting to London from Oxford, it has become a year-round destination. There is always plenty happening, and live performances of some description - jazz, stand-up comedy, theatre, opera - are held every night.

Book a table

As you would expect in a university city, the competition is fiercest at the bottom end of the market, and there are lots of reasonably priced cafes, ethnic restaurants, etc. Fine-dining options are more limited, although there are a couple of stylish eateries in or near the city centre. Many of Oxford's younger gourmets patronise Jamie's Italian on George Street (www.jamieoliver.com; 00 44 1865 838 383), attracted by the Jamie Oliver name and the modern Italian cuisine (about £30 [Dh180] for a three-course meal). The older, discerning ones are more likely to be found at Gee's on the Banbury Road (www.gees-restaurant.co.uk, 00 44 1865 553 540), where you can eat imaginatively conceived food in a pretty conservatory setting. The three-course set lunch costs £19 (Dh114). Some of the best Oxford restaurants are to be found in Jericho, a trendy bohemian enclave, just a short walk from the city centre. The best is Raymond Blanc's Brasserie Blanc (www.brasserieblanc.com; 00 44 1865 510 999), where the relaxed ambience is as beguiling as the immaculately simple French food. A three-course meal costs £16 (Dh94).

Shopper's paradise

Oxford's pride and joy is the covered market, a centuries-old rabbit warren of shops between the High and Broad streets. This is a foodie's heaven, particularly in winter, when traditional butchers hang up their wares. Non-carnivores can enjoy the produce stalls, quirky jewellers, New Age cafes and wacky clothes shops. If you are after top-end boutiques, Oxford is probably not the place to come. But if you are after books, there is nowhere better. Blackwells on Broad Street is an academic bookshop with a world reputation, and there are second-hand bookshops everywhere.

What to avoid

The vile Cornmarket, a particularly charmless street in the city centre, with its bog-standard chain stores and fast-food outlets - there is nothing to recommend it. The same applies to the run-down Westgate Centre, just around the corner. And Saturday nights are best avoided. That's when those fresh-faced young students who looked so delightful at lunch-time with books under their arm suddenly become a bit less engaging, staggering from lamp post to lamp post.

Don't miss

The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology on Beaumont Street (www.ashmolean.org; 00 44 1865 278 000; open from 10am to 6pm, Tuesday to Sunday; admission free) has just had a multimillion-dollar facelift and now shows off its treasures, from Greek vases to Renaissance paintings, to magnificent effect. Oxford is situated on the Thames and two of its tributaries, the Isis and the Cherwell, and no visit to the city is complete without a detour to the river. Most people wend their way down through Christ Church Meadows to the college boathouses' Eights Week in May, intercollege rowing races, one of the highlights of the Oxford Year. But Port Meadow, a little way from the centre, is the most beautiful part of the whole city, thrillingly pristine.