an incredible rare book library

a first edition of Isaac Newton's famous treatise (c) 2018 by David Ourisman, all rights reserved

The Bodleian Library at Christ Church College has a collection of some rare and priceless volumes. On our tour today, we were shown this first edition of Sir Isaac Newton's history-changing volume. In it, Newton posits his laws of motion and of the universal gravitational force.

Sitting right next to Newton's work on physics was a first edition of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, a volume that documented his observations of how species adapt to their environments. And on the same table was a personal Bible owned by Queen Elizabeth I, a handwritten copy of the Book of Psalms written nearly 1,000 years ago, and an illuminated manuscript.

During our short visit in Oxford, we also saw

• the Dining Room where students and faculty at Christ Church College take three meals a day, a room instantly recognizable by fans of the Harry Potter movies
• a plaque at Christ Church Cathedral commemorating the ordinations of John and Charles Wesley, founders of the Methodist Movement, both of whom were ordained in that cathedral

And then we finished the day with a tour of Blenheim Palace, a fabulous English Baroque palace patterned after Versailles. Blenheim Palace was a place important in the life of Sir Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He was born in the palace, and it was there that he proposed to his wife, Clementine Ogilvy Hozier. A most incredible conclusion to our visit to the Cotswolds.

copyright  (c)  2018 by Ourisman Travel LLC.  All rights reserved. We provide Virtuoso and other Preferred Partner amenities as an affiliate of Brownell, a Virtuoso® member. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit our website.