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Half a mile walk from city centre backing on to the River Thames. Discounts on local attractions Guide Friday tours Oxford Story Cotswold Wildlife Park etc. Beauty treatment Room. Boat trips along River Thames.
Among our introductions, the offshore story has concentrated on the movement of the fleet of ferries that connect the mainland to its offshore islands and to mainland Europe.
But the little craft that move around the inland waterways of Britain are deserving of equal attention. They owe their origins to the beginnings of the industrial revolution in the 17th and 18th centuries. Today, the navigable stretches of Britain's rivers and canals run to 3,000mls/4800km, a length which is being rapidly extended as an ambitious national programme of canal restoration brings more of the old waterways back into use.
The legacy of the canal network stretches back 250 years. It has not only brought with it a rich social and cultural heritage, but also meandering rural routes that, appreciatively for a stressed 21st century world, deliver a large dose of tranquility.
Today's canal narrow-boats are, on the face of it, little changed from the traditional craft that worked the waterways in the early years. Still this fastidiously tended armada of little craft, whose forebears started life as humble carriers of cargoes, today move people in style.
For an authoritative introduction to this tranquil world and, more mundanely, how to go about hiring craft on Britain's canals and rivers, check-out British Waterways.
Narrow-boat crew and canalside spectator, indulging in "a large dose of tranquility". Image: British Waterways.
