Oxford City And University Group Walking Tour

Had a lovely time walking around Oxford on a sunny day. Peter, our guide, was very knowledgeable, friendly and went the extra mile to ensure we all left with the best experience possible. I can only recommend this guide, tour and company. Alasdair had called me the day before my trip to explain a few things and ensure I would have a great time.

We did a tour with Peter and it was AMAZING!! He was extraordinarily knowledgeable (I’m sure he could easily have talked for several more hours without ever repeating himself). He also had so many fun and interesting facts and stories to tell about the various landmarks and objects he pointed out to us. In summary: a brilliant tour, would recommend to everybody! Went with my two teenagers who loved it as much as I did.

We enjoyed this walking tour very much. Our group was a very small group, which we appreciated and our guide Tanaya was very agreeable and nice. She showed the places and commented with a lot of anecdotes and explained how the University works. We spent a very nice moment. Thank you.

The tour showed the main historical buildings and history points of Oxford. We felt the tour guide, Laura, was really friendly and explained everything with detail. We highly recommend the tour if you want to find out more about the history of Oxford. Thank you Laura for showing us this historical city!

Met Peter on time and my wife and I were the only ones on the tour which really meant it turned out to be a “private” one. Peter was very informative, educational and charming and very entertaining. Got all the Morse stuff along with a lot more information about Oxford and the colleges. In the end the tour lasted well over the advertised 1 hour 40 minutes which was above his call of duty, he clearly has a passion for Oxford. Loved his anecdotes, we laughed a lot and the Bakewell tart at the end was a bonus! All together a wonderful two hours or so. Thanks a lot Peter.

It really was the perfect day for such an extremely interesting and informative tour of Oxford in the capable hands of our guide Idina. Even though l had visited Oxford previously, l learnt a lot which l hadn’t known before, particularly in respect of the history of the city itself and its relationship with the university. The view from the gardens of Exeter College towards the Radcliffe Camera were amazing, unchanged in centuries. I would recommend this tour to anyone visiting Oxford. Geraldine from Northamptonshire.

We took the 13:00 tour today with Magnus as our guide. The tour was excellent, very informative, not too far to walk. Magnus took the tour to another level, His rapport with his tour made it good fun. I can not recommend this tour enough, well worth the trip. My tip is to book online the day before.

Definitely the best way to see Oxford, especially if you just have an hour or two. Tanaya, a Masters student, gave us a fantastic walking tour of Oxford University taking in many highlights and historic buildings, streets and quads. She has a very pleasant and entertaining manner and a comprehensive knowledge of the many phases of the University’s history going back through the centuries as well as the life of students today. Cannot recommend this highly enough.

If I were staying in Oxford longer, I would have signed up for several more tours given by Peter and Alasdair! The groups started out with both guides before we divided based on our interests. Even though we signed up for the university walking tour, I am grateful that Alasdair included some Harry Potter & Morse filming locations along the way. An excellent, informative tour and value for money.

The tour was great . Small group informative and our guide was a student from Oxford who knew all the little entrances and exits amd took us through them with ease. We also got to see some things of personal interest. We felt we had seen Oxfords sights by the end. Recommended .

My husband and I took the Walking Tour of Central Oxford including Oxford University. Our guide was Monika who is a charming speaker and a trained historian. Her talk had all the elements of good history, good tour guiding and a fresh sense of humor. In just an hour and 45 minutes we got a lesson in how the University works, how the town grew up simultaneously, where the secret symbols that inspired famous literary characters were hidden in plain sight, where famous writers met to have a pint and talk with colleagues. The weather was terrible, but the show went on. I applaud Monika, the tour company and the city of Oxford. We recommend this tour is very highly.

In appalling weather my wife and I had a personal guided tour as we were the only ones booked on the trip. A fascinating and informative walk and talk through the history of Oxford. Its origins, colleges bye ways and college laws, the characters past and present. Brigit kept a fast pace to get all the sites and places in the two hours but she was informative and enthusiastic about her subject. and ready to answer questions. Could not have have wished for a more interesting tour or informative guide. She obviously loves Oxford. The highlight, standing on the martyrs cross.

Booked the tour early in the morning on the day I wished to visit. Peter, the tour guide, messaged me straight away to ensure I had all the details needed. He even suggested local car parks and provided links to the relevant sites, extremely helpful.

His passion was evident from the moment we met. He quickly got to know us and our expectations, adapting the tour to our wishes. His knowledge and enthusiasm was infectious, pointing out several small features on buildings which we would have otherwise missed.

The tour was scheduled for 1.5 hours, but he kept 'just show you one more thing' so all-in-all the tour lasted over 2 hours.

Would recommend this tour, we will certainly be using his services again next time we are in Oxford, and there will be a next time.

Our guide was Oliver a student at Christchurch . We had taken our teenage grandchildren with us and he was great with our group of four. He was very informative but kept it amusing all the time. All of us enjoyed it . Many thanks Oliver

What a great value small group tour of some of the key features of Oxford University. Willim was our guide and a very professional one at that. An Oxford University graduate, he was full of information about the way the university was organised, how it developed over the centuries, how it was related to the countries from which participants came, and what life as a student was like for him and now. Be sure and take a tour from the Experience Oxfordshire available on-line or booked at 15-16 Broad Street, Oxford, right near where the 3 Prodestant martyrs were burnt at the stake (marked by a stone cross in the middle of the road). Well recommended as an introduction to Oxford.

Just came back from the Harry Potter tour of Oxford with Laura. The four of us, including our our two kids, had a great time. I was nervous whether the kids would last through a two hour tour, but in flew by. Our 11 year old said, that it felt like only 45 minutes passed, and he could have continued. Both of the kids enjoyed Laura’s stories about Oxford. Laura is a native of Oxford, and shared a lot of fun tidbits about the city. We highly recommend this tour!

We took an amazing tour of Oxford with Andrew, our guide, and graduate of this truly historic, beautiful, and ancient university. There is literally no one from science, the arts, government, mathematics and so on who has not attended one of the colleges within these famed halls and Andrew shared fascinating anecdotes about them! Later, we had a delicious lunch in town and visited Blackwells bookshop (not included on the walk). Andrew was one of the best guides we’ve ever had! Great experience!

I was so disappointed in this tour - we'd looked forward to visiting Oxford and I'd searched carefully before selecting a tour. Firstly, it was a tour of only the university, not the town. We were shown, from a distance, a pub and a hotel where people affiliated with the school frequented, but that's it for the town. The tour docent, Andrew, had a very odd delivery style, in which he turned his face toward different people as he was speaking, such that if you were on his right, you couldn't hear him when he turned his head to face the persons on his left. He also didn't project his voice, so if you weren't close, there was street noise, or other people nearby were talking, it was hard to hear what he had to say. I learned, though, to only half listen to him because at the first college I realized two things: A) he didn't have his facts correct - he told our group that it was "despotic" King Charles I's "taxation without representation" of the American colonies that led to the American War of Independence. I was flabbergasted. Americans may be bad at history, but many remember that it was "Mad" King George (George III) that the Americans revolted against. B) He came across as decidedly pro-Protestant. He repeatedly referred to King James I (IV of Scotland) as "Saint" James, even calling the King James Bible the "Saint" James Bible. I'm a Tudor/Stuart history enthusiast and I've never heard King James referred to as a saint, and neither had the Oxford native I spoke to that day. In fact, that's one of many things that make Protestantism different from Catholicism - there are supposed to be no intercessory persons between man and God. I'm neither Catholic nor Protestant, I just prefer religion not taint my history tour. He also said St. John the Baptist was the patron saint of tailors and that a famous American president gave us the famous quote about death and taxes being the only certainties in life. Neither of these are accurate. Saint Homobonus is the patron saint of tailors and seamstresses. Benjamin Franklin wrote the referenced quote; he lied about his own life a great deal, but being U.S. president was never one of those lies. Andrew also had rather an air of musing and meandering through the tour. At one point he scanned the chapel and said, "What else can I tell you here?". I would hope, if you're leading the tour, that you know your stuff! And based on other reviews, he's not new! The only benefit of this tour was pre-paying for access to a few colleges, but that pretty much only gets you into the chapels.

We arrived early for the tour and we were immediately provided with interesting things to could before the tour started. Our guide was Alasdair, who guided us through the streets of Oxford. His knowledge and humour kept the tour interesting. Along the way, we would be told follow on places to visit or eat and drink. We will definitely be booking another tour shortly with them. A great afternoon !!!

In addition to learning more about the history of Oxford and its environs, we especially liked the description of Oxford’s influences on writers, poets, and artists, such as Tolkien, Carroll, and Rowling. Peter was very personable and provided us with little chocolate treats. Lots of connections to films, which we personally found very interesting. Because we had expressed on interest in the Harry Potter films, he also brought a hat and wand. He also took lots of photos of the two of us before some of the sites.

It was amazing day out with Peter. He took us around while sharing his in depth knowledge and introducing with every brick of Oxford history in a funny way. His extended help in moving around is also appreciated. He is a Tour Master .... All Stars....

As the dad, I really enjoyed this tour. So much history, beautiful architecture and brought to the fore by our guide. Stroller coped on the cobblestone roads, but we were lucky to be able to go at our own pace. Kids were a little bored, but there were still highlights for them too. Definitely recommend

OMG I was never really into history until today, and now I want to learn so more more. Thanks to our guide Peter, such a lovely, enthusiastic man, that he made history so interesting and enjoyable. His knowledge is second to none, knew so much and answered all our questions, nothing was to much trouble. Peter is full of life and you can see he loves talking about Oxford's history. We would recommend his tour so much so that we are going on another tour with him tomorrow, but this time it is a pub crawl with history and facts about the pubs we will be visiting.

As someone else has written 'ideal for the generalist' - but not if looking for more detail. Whilst our guide from Argentina was very pleasant, outside of her script she was not versed in Oxford’s history or academic/political personalities. To give credit our guide did adapt the tour at our request (We were the only people on it) to include a college that we found was actually open on 26th December. (To be fair we had been pre-warned by text not to expect any of the 38 colleges to be open that day). However since this college was not normally included in the tour (because of the additional entry charge of £2 - which we happily paid) our guide had never visited it.

We were lucky to have an Oxford student as our tour guide! Tanaya took us around the Bodleian libraries, into beautiful college chapels, showed us where to find the Narnia lamp and gave us little anecdotes on Oxfords famous and infamous from Tolkien to Henry VIII. I would highly recommend taking a tour with Tanaya for some great insights into the history of beautiful Oxford!

Renata was amazing! She was waiting for us at the meeting point as we arrived a couple of minutes early, and promptly introduced herself. There were only three of us: myself, my wife and our five-year daughter. Renata took us around lots of places, and did her utmost throughout to keep our daughter interested and entertained. We all learned a lot of interesting historical snippets on the tour, from the mystery of a stolen door knocker to the difference between gargoyles and grotesques... along with tales of murderous Mary Queen of Scots and the sad story of the Oxford martyrs. I could have gone on for another couple of hours, but sadly my five-year old was all walked out and Renata had another group to lead. Well worth the money!