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In truth, people have spent their whole lives exploring Oxford and its surrounding area: there are more things to see and do than can be fitted into a single lifetime. What's below is a personal selection, and many different, but equally satisfying lists could have been made. Oxford is a great town for walking, and the surrounding countryside is excellently seen by bike. As well as individual sights/sites there are equally rewarding itineraries - exploring the strange inland marsh area of Otmoor to the east, for instance, with its eerie, quiet villages (and a sight indeed: the remarkable survival of the intact rood screen in Charlton-on-Otmoor's church); or walking up Wittenham Clumps to the south; or ... but you get the point.
In Oxford
The University's own museum, the Ashmolean is rightly regarded as one of the world's great smaller museums and art galleries. Founded in 1685 by Elias Asmole, using the collections of the Tradescant family of collecors and plantsmen from the early 17th century, the Ashmolean now contains a stunning range of treasures: sculpture, paintings, prints and drawings, ceramics, renaissance bronzes, Roman artifacts, non-Western art and so on - the list is close to endless. Among the collections are the remains of the "Arundel Marbles", the sculpture collection of Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel in the first half of the 17th century. Don't cheat yourself by leaving Oxford without spending plenty of time in this splendid treasure house.
The "Bod" is one of the world's greatest libraries by any standards. It is one of Britain's "copyright libraries", entitled to a free copy of any book published in the United Kingdom. The University's main library was re-established by Sir Thomas Bodley in 1602, but it includes earlier collections of great fame, especially that of Duke Humfrey of Gloucester, Henry V's brother. The University built a special room for his collection of manuscripts, finished in 1488 and still known as "Duke Humfrey's Library". The room is still in use, but visitors can see it on the Library tour. This room, by the way, appears as Hogwart's library in the Harry Potter movies.
Christ Church (not "Christ Church College") is both Oxford's cathedral and its grandest college. Known as "The House" from its Latin name, Aedes Christi ("Christ's House"), Christ Church has always been rich and its members have included many of Britain's most aristocratic, wealthy, and well-connected over the centuries. As a result it has Oxford's other principal collection of great art, particularly Old Masters. The collection is well worth visiting, as is the Christ Church as a whole. As well as the superb art and architecture of many different periods, it holds a special place in the history of children's literature: Lewis Carroll (real name Charles Dodgson) was a mathematics teacher here, and his "Alice" was the daughter of the Dean. Passages of Alice's adventures are recognizable in Christ Church. And the Hall was used for the filming of the Harry Potter movies, as the hall of Hogwart's School.
Museum of the History of Science
We're lucky to be visiting Oxford when the Museum of the History of Science has been magnificently upgraded and restored. The building is fascinating in itself: it is the first home for Elias Ashmole's museum, and it was designed, built, and managed with great care in its early years. The collections of historical scientific materials are stupendous.
The Museum displays archaeological and ethnographic objects from all parts of the world. It was founded in 1884 when General Pitt Rivers, an influential figure in the development of archaeology and evolutionary anthropology, gave his collection to the University. The General's founding gift contained more than 18,000 objects but there are now over half a million. Many were donated by early anthropologists and explorers. The collection includes extensive photographic and sound archives which contain early records of great importance. The Museum continues to collect through donations, bequests, special purchases and through its staff and students, in the course of their fieldwork.
Modern Art Oxford (formerly the Museum of Modern Art)
A break from the prevailing antiquity: Modern Art Oxford has intriguing and fine exhibitions.
Oxford University Museum of Natural History
One of those places that bring out the child in us all, as well as being a great scholarly and educational museum. The collections are wonderful, but so is the building. John Ruskin, the 19th-century writer on art and society, was instrumental in its design; but it's also a splendid example of the enthusiasm for the new architectural medium of cast iron. This is where the great debate took place in 1860 between Thomas Huxley and "Soapy" Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, on the merits of Darwin's theory of evolution. The University Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum are just around the corner from St John's.
Bate Collection of Musical Instruments
One of the world's great collections of historic musical instruments
Exactly what the name suggests: a market with shops and stalls, roofed and protected from the elements. The Covered Market has lots of different emporia, but the food shops are particularly enticing: excellent butchers (best seen around Christmas, naturally, but a great sight all year round), a fine fishmonger, fruiterers and greengrocers, delicatessen and Italian foodstores, a great cookie shop. In the maze of buildings here is the Painted Room, with what's said to be the best piece of Elizabethan decorative wall painting in existence. Shakespeare is said to have stayed here journeying between Stratford and London.
Outskirts of Oxford
Port Meadow, Wolvercote Common, The Perch, and The Trout
Along the banks of
the Thames heading north is something unique and wonderful: Port Meadow. The
existence of this water meadow is recorded in the Domesday Book, the land
register prepared by the first Norman king in 1086, and it has remained a
meadow ever since. It has a fascinating ecology as a result, and walking up
through the meadow and across Wolvercote Common (belonging to the village of
Wolvercote at the north end) on a summer's evening is not to be missed - the
boats and barges gliding by, swans and geese (mind your feet: messy things,
geese), horses and cows grazing by right from time out of mind. There are
two famous inns along this walk: The Perch near the hamlet of Binsey and The
Trout, just 
beyond the ruined nunnery of Godstow. The Trout adds peacocks to
the birdlife. Both The Perch and The Trout are inns in the old sense -
popular, informal restaurants and stopping places for travellers - and they
serve decent, unpretentious food. Oxford's towers and spires seen walking
back in the twilight is one of the classic views.
Really within the boundaries of Oxford, Iffley is a village on the river just south and east of the city. A delightful walk along the Isis (the name for this bit of the Thames) from Folly Bridge will eventually bring you to Iffley; and just up the slope from the river is the church. It's a Norman church from the 12th century and has one of the best preserved and most beautiful Romanesque doorways to survive in this part of Britain - take a picnic and sit in the churchyard on a sunny afternoon. The church interior is also fascinating and wonderful, if you happen to be there when the building is open.
Ewelme Church and Almshouses
Just a few minutes
outside Oxford is the extraordinary village of Ewelme, with its
15th-century
church and almshouses. The latter - "God's House in Ewelme" - were founded
by Chaucer's grand-daughter, who had become duchess of Suffolk (her palace
in the village has now disappeared), and still operate under the terms of
her trust. They are timelessly beautiful, and the church is utterly unique.
The duchess's extraordinary tomb is in the church. As you go into the
village, notice too the medieval watercress cultivation beds!
Slightly further afield and easy to get to
Also a gem, but certainly not overlooked, is Blenheim Palace, home of the dukes of Marlborough, descendents of John Churchill (...). Churchill was given his title as the victorious commander of allied forces in the long wars against the "Sun King", Louis XIV of France, and with the title came (eventually) the Palace. It was designed by Sir John Vanburgh and is magnificently odd and dramatic. The landscape, in its present form largely by Lancelot "Capability" Brown, is also wonderful, and full of history: Blenheim is on the site of the ancient royal manor and palace of Woodstock, where (so the stories go) the "Fair Rosamund" was concealed in a labyrinth by her lover King Henry II (1154-1189) from his understandably jealous wife, Queen Eleanor. The site of the palace is submerged beneath the lake. Blenheim Palace is the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill, the great wartime prime minister, and he is buried in the churchyard of Bladon Church, on the edge of the park.
Just 12 miles from Oxford, and easily reached by train (Heyford Station) is another of history's miraculous survivals. The home of the Cottrell-Dormer family who built the house and park as they now are in the 18th century, it has charm as a building but genius as a landscape. The house was remodeled by William Kent, and Kent was a decent architect and general designer. But Kent's real claim is as a landscape architect, and of all his creations Rousham stands with the Elysian Fields at Stowe (see below) as the greatest to survive. It is small and intimate and ... well, its beauties are indescribable. Take a couple of hours to spend a quiet and reflective visit in one of Europe's great works of art.
Slightly further or more difficult of access
One of those marvellous, largely overlooked gems of England, the home of Lord and Lady Saye and Seal is a superb and grand Cotswold house in a quiet and relatively inaccessible valley. The family has had some notable moments in history: one Lord Saye, out of sympathy with the religious climate of early 17th-century England, was a leader in the foundation of the the Providence plantation (now Rhode Island). Later, he was a leader of resistance to the tyrannical regime of Charles I, and the opposition to the king in the run-up to the first Civil War is credibly said to have taken place in a room at the top of the house. Its latest claim to fame is as the location for filming of parts of Shakespeare in Love, starring Ralph Fiennes (the family name of the Lords Saye and Seal is, of course, Fiennes - cousins). Broughton is beautiful inside and out, with a wonderful medieval chapel, magnificent early modern interiors, and one of the most charming settings in the world.
Quam templi delictu! "How beautiful are thy Temples!": Rousham is small and intimate; Stowe is the grandest of the grand (though it contains wonderfully intimate passages). Built by the family that eventually gained the titles of dukes of Buckingham and Chandos, the palatial residence (now a school) expresses their sense of their importance (expressing that eventually bankrupted them!), and it originally had a landscape in the style of Versailles (like John Churchill of Blenheim, the builder ... Temple was a general in the wars against Louis XIV). But later in the 18th century the landscape was remodeled (in part by William Kent), to become less obviously formal, and it contains fascinating, beautiful, and moving areas, notably the Elysian Fields, the Grecian Valley, and the Gothic Temple - but there are so many more.
Another astounding survival near Oxford: this house came into the possession of the National Trust a few years ago, having been left without being modernized for centuries. It's the substantial house of wealthy man of the early modern period, not that of a nobleman. Much of the original structure and decoration survives intact - a place where time has stood still. We don't visit Chastleton as a group because entry is restricted, to preserve a fragile site.
Fairford Parish Church
Fairford isn't easy to get to, but it is worth the effort: the church has perhaps the best surviving set of 15th-century stained glass windows, including a superb "Doom" west window.
Virtually nothing
remains of the great house in the village, the home of Lucius Cary,
Lord
Falkland, the mid-17th-century politician who was killed early in the Civil
Wars and whose moderate, philosophical voice was so much missed by his
contemporaries. But the village itself is a classic vision of one kind of
England: cottages slumbering below mountainous thatched roofs, idyllic
gardens, a valley as green as could be.
Kelmscott is a quiet Thames-side village, famous as the home of the 19th-century writer, designer, and political thinker William Morris. The house, originally 16th century, is now a museum devoted to his life and work(s). Morris has had a powerful influence on modern life and design in Britain and America, and Kelmscott is well worth a visit.
A few miles from Oxford is a building that, by itself, changes your view of the medieval period. This is the mid-13th-century storage facility of a monastic grange - the farming property of a monastery, Beaulieu Abbey in Hampshire, to the south. Larger than most churches, it's a fascinating example of the wealth and architectural sophistication of the period.
Now a parish church,
Dorchester Abbey is built on the scale of a cathedral. Dorchester was St
Birinus's cathedral from 634 CE - it had been a Roman garrison settlement,
as the name suggests (and there are some Roman remains of walls), but the
current building dates from the 12th century, when it became an Augustinian
abbey. is the principal site in a lovely Thames-side town. The Abbey has a
very good tea-shop, by the way; also not to be missed is the delightful
memorial, set into the floor, of an abandoned lover (you'd never know from
the inscription that she committed suicide).
England's largest castle and the real home of the monarchy. Fine architecture, some magnificent (St George's Chapel), and much of the royal collection of art, which is arguably the world's finest (semi-) private collection.
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