Tolkien's Oxford Two

Here is the Eagle and Child (also known as the Bird and Baby) where the Inklings met every Tuesday for years.



Sometimes the Inklings would meet in C.S. Lewis' rooms at Magdelan College.



When Tolkien lived in the city of Oxford he attended the St. Aloysuis Catholic church.



This is Tolkien's favorite tree. It is a black pine that towers in a corner of the Oxford Botanical Garden.



Tolkien was buried in the same place as his wife Edith, who had died several years earlier. He had their favorite nicknames for each other from the Silmarilian put on the tombstone.

Tolkien's Oxford

On the way home from Prague I stopped over in Oxford for a day. This was my Tolkien pilgramage! I visited many of the places where Tolkien lived and taught in Oxford. Below are four houses that Tolkien lived in.

99 Holywell Street (1950-1953)

5 Manor Road (1947-1950)

50 St. John's Street

21 Merton Street (1971-1973)

This is the pathway behind C.S. Lewis' college called Addison's Walk, where Tolkien sought to convince Lewis to become a Christian, which he did the next morning.

Prague Highlights

Here are some further "after affects" of my trip to Prague. The city is so intriguing and I have taken so many pictures that I can't help continuing to share them. However, you may be starting to feel that this is like getting invited over to someone's house to see pictures of their trip and they never know when to stop...


This is the Astronomical Clock located on the side of the Town Hall tower. Every hour the two doors on top open up and the Apostles shuffle by. To mark every hour, the skeleton below rings a bell. The story goes that Master Hunus built the clock in 1490 and was then blinded with a red-hot poker by the town councillors to make sure he couldn't make another clock for someone else. In retaliation, he groped his way around the clock and succeeded in stopping it, but then promptly died of a heart attack. The clock stayed broken for 80 years. I guess time stood still!


I'm not sure that I would have wanted to be involved in municipal politics in Prague during the Middle Ages. These two buildings were part of City Hall and the Czechs had an interesting practice of removing the mayor from office. Several times, city leaders where thrown from these top windows to the pavement below. Getting kicked out of office was taken very literally.



This is one of the most beautiful Gothic churches in Prague. The Tyn Church is boxed in by the houses around it, which are built right against its walls.


The former Jewish ghetto of Josefov is very close to the town square. There are six very unique synagogues and a Holocaust memorial with over 80,000 names covering every bit of wall space. The synagogue below was built in 1530 and is beside the Old Jewish Cemetery, which was in use from 1439 until 1787. There are an estimated 100,000 people buried in the cemetery, sometimes 12 layers deep.

The Estates Theatre can be found on the other side of the Town Square. It is in this theatre that Mozart premiered Don Giavonni. Sherry and I had the privilege of seeing this opera in this theatre.