Playful Rooted

The day after Luca and I went to London, I thought we might pop on the train again and see what else was near to where we were staying in Reading, and Oxford stood out right away. (Mainly because it only cost like £10 and a half hour commute! ;)) Ben and I had been to Oxford ourselves several years back, and I knew it was a really cute place to walk around, so I got Luca and myself together and we headed back to the train station.

I skipped bringing a stroller this time because I wanted to see what would work best for future trips, so I carried my backpack diaper bag on my back and Luca on my front in a carrier.

It. Was. Heavy. (Not having to bring a stroller on the train was really nice though!)

It was predictably very chilly and rainy that day, so we didn’t get up to too much in Oxford. Mostly we walked. And walked. And walked. Luckily, even in the drizzle, it’s still a super cute little city.

We had gotten there around lunchtime, so we popped into this cute covered market where they had tons of food options (seriously love Europe! Everywhere you go, they’re so accommodating of vegetarians!). We got Buddha bowls and smoothies and falafel, and then headed to Christ Church College for another rainy picnic like we had in London.

Christ Church College is truly lovely! It’s such a beautiful collection of buildings and grounds. Definitely nicer in the summer, but it was still fun to visit in April and have a look around.

Many of the scenes from the Harry Potter movies are filmed here at the college, and had I been by myself or with another adult, you know I would have gone inside to see! However, since it cost a bundle and  Luca definitely wouldn’t have enjoyed it, we didn’t do any inside touring. I mainly wanted to let Luca run through the grassy fields, but they were cordoned off that day for some reason (all the mud, perhaps?), so it was a bit of a bust!

There was a large school group of French teenagers there (why not go on a quick field trip to a foreign country?! It must be amazing to grow up in Europe), and they had a soccer ball they were playing with. Luca is straight up obsessed with balls and he ran right over, excitedly. I got to bust out some of my French and apologize, which was fun and also earned Luca a spot in the game. 😉 They were really really sweet to him and he cried when they left. It was so cute and sad.

He got over it when he noticed this tractor, though. This is where we spent the next 30 minutes. 🙂

And then, rainy and cold and ready to go, we walked the long trek back to the train station and rode the rail back home to Reading! It was a short day, but really special to visit a pretty little city one-on-one with my babe. ❤

xo!