I would like opinions as to whether visiting Blenheim Palace would be preferable to a day in Oxford doing a walking tour and generally poking around. Thanks everyone!

I am topping this for you so it doesn't sink.

We enjoyed the Blenheim visit...enjoyed Sandringham more but it's all a matter of taste...hopefully someone who knows Oxford better than I will respond.

I'd take a day in Oxford over Blenheim, any time. So much to see in Oxford, between the museums and architecture... Blenheim is a bit of a yawn for me.

Read a bit about both places and see what lights your fire. Oxford lights mine, for sure.

Oxford is absolutely gorgeous. Really impressive.

Blenheim Palace is a giant pile of kitsch (I can give reasons for my opinion). If you like kitsch, go to Blenheim.

Pageing Flanneur. Who has OPINIONS about Blenheim.

My Great Auntie Jenny used to live there you know.

If my granny is to be believed she got the pox there.

My granny hated her. Many men semed to like her.....

Many men, many many men, many many many men. Many men.

If it's either/or, I think I'd do Oxford. But you can do a good bit of both in a day if you are so inclined. Get to Blenheim when they open, then you can get to Oxford in the early afternoon. Some of the colleges are not open to the public until after 2:00 p.m.

As with everything else, it all depends on your interests. Being a history/Churchill buff, I wasn't going to miss Blenheim, but there are C.S. Lewis fans that wouldn't think of spending a second at Blenheim that could be spent in Oxford. To each his own.

I also recommend doing both if you are interested in both. Oxford is lovely and you could spend days there (I have), but Blenheim is also interesting and the little town of Woodstock is worth a look.

If you're interested in garden history and design, the grounds at Blenheim, by Capability Brown, are the best part.

Apples and oranges but both sweet fruits

guess if i had to chose i'd chose Oxford - to me one of the nicest mid-size cities in Europe

and yes Blenheim i enjoyed as well - and keep in mind that without American largess Blenheim may be in ruins today:

Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxon
The Palace, one of England's largest houses, was built between 1705 and circa 1722. ... in its combined usage as a family home, mausoleum and national monument. ... palace and the Churchills were saved from ruin by an American marriage. ...
wikimapia.org/205837/Blenheim-Palace-Woodstock-Oxon

If it has to be "either or", I would go to Oxford.

We found Blenheim fascinating - but not for a whole day. If you have a full day do Oxford - or get to Blenhim early and then drie back to Oxford in the afternoon.

there is frequent cheap bus service between Oggsford and Woodstock/Blenheim palace.

Oxford. Blenheim Palace defines ostentation. It has some nice gardens, though.

Lee Ann

If you're starting off in London, it's really difficult to see much of both: the bus to Oxford takes forever early in the morning because of Oxford's rush hour traffic, and train fares before the 0921 from Paddington are extortionate. It's half an hour from Oxford station by half-hourly bus to Blenheim, 10-15 mins to the Palace door from the bus stop and you can't appreciate the dump's - er, features - in less than two hours. So it's at least four hours out of your Oxford day

Now as the chairman of the neighbourhood campaign to demolish The Abortion and replace it with a proper building that's sensitive to the landscape it pollutes (while retrospectively trying Queen Anne for gross corruption in giving away State property to the worthless Churchills), I'm just a tad biased on this.

And there are a couple of good things about the area blighted by Sarah Churchill's self-aggrandisement. Woodstock New Town - developed after the Churchills inflicted their horrors on what used to be a perfectly decent manor - is shockingly close to everyone's idea of the perfect English village. For all that it's had a town charter longer than almost any country in the UN except Japan, France, Spain and China have been in existence.

Its current mayor is a former UK ambassador to Washington, though possibly more famous for having been cuckolded by Carl Bernstein while doing that job - which, characteristically of the then ruling Labour party, he got through out and out nepotism (his errant wife's dad was prime minister at the time).

Driving home from London, I never cease to be just gobsmacked at how much it really is the ur-village. Though, apart from the tapestry in its museum of a destroyed local Roman mosaic, the only really interesting thing about it is a dynamite butcher, it's just mind-bendingly nice to meander round in.

And what's amazing is that it - a model of enjoyable 18th century urban non-planning - was built in more or less parallel with The Monster.

Equally, Bladon church, to the south of Woodstock, epitomises in the "damn the rest of you" self-assertive modesty of Winston Churchill's grave why England is the world's greatest nation. Compare how we treat the body of the second greatest ruler we've ever had with the vacuous bumptiousness lesser nations treat the final resting places of frauds like Napoleon, Lenin, Ho Ch Minh and Ulysses S Grant. Or that the self-styled "first Churchill" thought he deserved for winning a pointless battle in a German hovel no-one gave a toss about

Thirdly, the manor of Woodstock didn't just give birth to our second greatest ruler: it housed for much of her childhood our absolutely greatest ever ruler, though the philstines who built the World's First MacMansion destroyed every single trace of where she'd been imprisoned.

So Woodstock is certainly worth visiting.

The Flatulence, though, is strictly for people who aspire to share Liberace's interior decorator. Its gardens are historically important, but visually indistinguishable from every other municipal garden in the temperate world.

One minor joy of living where I do is having the time to wander round Woodstock whenever the flannerpooch feels like a really serious walk (though he shares my disgust at The Abomination, which he has to go through to get to Woodstock.) Fan though I am of Woodstock, I can't seriously argue you halve your time in Oxford to see it.

But if second-rate shlock is your shtick, even though you can see far, far better in Italy and Austria no shlock is more second-rate than what the Churchills, ill-advised by Britain's worst ever architect, put up to destroy Woodstock Manor.

If you've any interest in the culture of the English-speaking world, OTOH, 8-10 hours is nowhere near enough to see Oxford properly.

Re-reading this, I fear I might have been a bit mealy-mouthed about Britain's Worst Building. You know how we English repress our true feelings.

I do admire flanner's way with a clearly stated negative opinion.

(negative ones often being more entertaining than the other kind)

Well an American would still be amazed by Blenheim Palace, if it were the only stately house in England they would see. It is imposing and nice grounds - the quintessential English stately house IMO

But there is a fun fair aspect to Blenheim - mainly on the part of the sprawling grounds with the miniature railway - a family themed area that seemed overly commercial though some years on i don;t exactly remember why

And i like Bladon church a lot and again for Americans this will be the quintessential English parish church - sure it's much like zillions of them but the un-jaded American tourist, like me, will enjoy the church and the grounds and graves, etc. for sure. That the church in Flanneur's opinion suffers from it happens to be the less than glorious resting place of Churchill should not detour you from making it a component of a Blenheim P visit IMO - i walked from the palace area to the church, south as i remember from Woodstock and hopped on the bus back to Oggsford there.

OXTowns.co.uk :: Bladon: Burial place of Sir Winston Churchill
Bladon near Woodstock. Bladon lies on the south side of Blenheim Park with many quaint cottages. St Martin's Church is a Victorian reconstruction of 1894 on ...
www.oxtowns.co.uk/woodstock/bladon.html -

And as this link chortles Bladon has many 'quaint cottages'

(heaven forbid a U.K. site uses the dread "Q" word, which on Fodors at least causes many Brits to go into conniptions)

We all know my feelings about Blenheim and and flanneruk's are just about polar opposites. But as a day trip from London, Oxford makes much more sense. There is no satisfactory way to do both w/o cutting Oxford very short shrift. Oxford is fascinating and fabulous. Blenheim is over the top opulent. Go to Oxford and spend the whole day there.


PQ: "<i>That the church in Flanneur's opinion suffers from it happens to be the less than glorious resting place of Churchill</i>"

Huh?? What the heck are you on about PQ? He said no such thing ---

I told you Flanneur had OPINIONS abour Blenheim.

My ancestors also fought at Blenheim and we didn't even get a thank you card or chocolate biscuit. Not fair. Anti catholic bias no doubt.

CW - Bitter.

That the church in Flanneur's opinion suffers from it happens to be the less than glorious resting place of Churchill>>>>>

Needs.

For the record (though I suspect everyone but PalQ understood this):

Churchill's resting place at Bladon most certainly IS glorious. No strutting soldiers, no eternal flame, no gravestone more than 6 inches high, no flags, no explanatory displays.

The total antithesis to his vainglorious waste of space ancestor. And PRECISELY what the man asked for.

A model few other statesmen ever follow. Though Maggie will, on principle.