Oxford, England (July 15, 2025)
Now don’t get ahead of the story. Yes, I have been to prison twice in my life and both were alcohol related, but that absolutely didn’t happen this time around. What you are looking at is perhaps the coolest hotel I’ve ever seen called the Malmaison Oxford Prison Hotel, and I highly recommend staying there if you get the opportunity.
Most gorgeous hotel that’s a converted prison in Oxford, England. Awesome!!!!
In fact, since the US is so pro-profit prisons, then I think this is perhaps the perfect model to copy. Rather than incarcerating minor drug offenders and other crimes, the vast majority being racially motivated, why not embrace the truth that our US prisons are simply for-profit businesses and look for viable alternatives that are actually attracting the very profits they seek? From what I understand this particular prison is doing extremely well as a tourist destination and I suspect the profit per room is significantly higher than the currently racially-motivated business model in the US.
Many, many places throughout the hotel to sit and feel like royalty.
Throughout the hotel, you get a unique blend of old and new. It’s part history museum, part updated hotel, and part feeling like you yourself are “king for the day” in this really fun establishment. Every square inch of this hotel was well designed, thought out and playfully created in a Disney-like imagination way.
See what I mean? Old stone, new sign, creative font, cool design, colour, etc.
And there are many more pictures if you care to see them in the London Gallery. For now, I’ll move on to the sweeping views of the rest of Oxford because there’s so much to cover. This was a sight seeing exhibition that Helene Quenu was kind enough to walk me through on this full-day journey.
Oxford Castle (and feel free to correct me if I get any of this wrong) we toured Soooo much in a single day. I took notes, but it’s a lot to remember.
All Souls College — one of Many, Many colleges in Oxford. This is the courtyard.
Catch a guard out front on a good day and he might just let you peak inside one of the vast campuses of one of the colleges. They are stunningly beautiful. They all used to be open, but over they years for various reasons, they’ve closed their gates — some for security, others for privacy, and some just to cut down on the tourism. But every now and then they let a few of us plebs through the doors and poke around. We got lucky today.
We went to the back and to the left and went into the church. Wow. You think the courtyard is impressive …
My simple iPhone just doesn’t do it justice. The marble, gold, stained glass, carved wood and light pouring in from all sides is humbling.
Look at the detail of the gilded molding. The craftsmanship is incredible.
And it just goes, and goes, and goes, and goes. Your eye doesn’t know where to look or remain looking. It’s hard to take it all in. You sort of … can’t.
And perhaps that’s the point. I could come to this church every day and see something new I hadn’t noticed before. I could do that every day for the full time I went to this college and every day I could notice some nuance or detail I hadn’t seen the day before. Imagine that. Every day for 4 years, 1,460 days of noticing something different. That’s how it felt standing there. Overwhelming in all the right ways.
Helene asked which “school” I wanted a picture under … hmmm
So many amazing schools in Oxford. Assuming you could get in, what would you want to study? Where would you like to contribute? In what field of study would you like to advance and in what ways? Such a good question to ponder. It’s something we have our youth think about at the ripe old age of 17 and now at 52, I wonder the same thing. What now? Where shall I place my focus knowing all that I know and having all the experience that I have. It’s a wonderful question to be in and one that I will continue to ponder throughout the rest of my World Travels. Moral Philosophy is certainly a good place to start, so I had her take my picture there.
Back up: Helene Quenu picked me up from the train station and we had coffee
Hold on. I just realized, I did a James Bond movie thing where I dove right into the action of the day without properly introducing my host, Helene Quenu. Sure, I mentioned her name earlier, but if you’re like me, you enjoy putting a name with a face. This is Helene. She was kind enough to pick me up at the train station where we sat and had a coffee before travelling around Oxford for the day. In the background is the local mall which could be anywhere in the world. I think that’s on purpose. The malls today are owned by one of two or three conglomerates and they have created a consistent global experience as far as I can tell walking into them around the world.
Google Lens reminded me this is the “Bridge of Sighs” or Hertford Bridge
Lots of famous icons in Oxford like this one that is often featured in many movies. Helene wanted to be sure I got a picture in front of it less some asked, “Hey Bill, you say you were in Oxford, did you get your picture in front of that really famous bridge?” Not that I would have given it much thought, but I understand as a local guide, you want to take your friends to all the spots your other friends are likely to ask you about. Nice work, Helene!
Fairbook pictures like this don’t even seem real. LIke, seriously. How can this be?
Granted, the UK is having it’s fair share of Global Warming heat waves like everyone else. So imagine the front part of the picture above dark green like it normally would be instead of brown which is “highly unusual.” The British love their gardens. Some might call it an obsession, really. But can you blame them? With pictures like this, it’s like walking out of a storybook. It’s almost like creating your own fantasy in your backyard. Why wouldn’t you want that?
Oxford from afar. We took a stroll to see the large field behind to get a better view of how Oxford looks from a distance.
Walking around in town with the mix of local shops and extremely old buildings.
And of course there’s more. There’s always more. This gives you a good sense of my first day with Helene and my day in Oxford. There’s lots to see and do. Like any city, when you spend a single day in it, you get a “sense” of the city, but you can’t say you really know it. I accept that. If I was going to college here, I would really enjoy the overall experience. I can see how students here really enjoy their time learning together.
