Oxford - It's Not All Morse and Posh Students

Before I get stuck into telling you just how bad I think MOMA Oxford is, I think it's important to state that I'm not a modern art cynic or a rejector of the unusual and avant garde. My husband and I both love modern art and we never pass up on an opportunity to visit a good gallery. We're even quite happy to go to the ones that seem to baffle most people and leave them scratching their heads and saying "but is it art?" as they watch a 20 minute video of someone bouncing on a trampoline whilst music is played backwards at the wrong speed. We hunt out those places and whilst I normally find it all a bit of a giggle, my husband takes it all quite seriously.

I had long known about the MOMA in Oxford as it was always considered a cool place for lunch or a snack in my long-ago student days. However at that time in my life I wasn't the slightest bit interested in the art and stuck to the eating and drinking and ignored what was on the walls.

On a day trip to Oxford in 2007 we decided we'd better go and have a look, after all, in a city as self-consciously trendy as Oxford, surely there would be something to at best enjoy and at worst laugh at. Entrance is free which is probably a good thing because what we found inside was totally unmemorable.

The museum is on Pembroke Street, not one of the main thoroughfares by any measure, tucked away behind a shopping centre, close to Fenwicks. Walking downhill on St Aldgates, turn right down Pembroke Street, opposite the City Hall and Christchurch College and you'll find it on the right hand side near the end of the street. From the outside it's a whitewashed brick building with bright red signs to identify you are in the right place.

With exhibition rooms set out over several floors we were pretty much baffled by what we found. In one room it really wasn't clear if they were unwrapping some exhibits and had forgotten to tidy up, or if that rubbish on the floor was supposed to be the exhibit itself. On the top floor we found a room with desk-chairs set up in rows around a TV set and to this day, I don't know if it was supposed to be art or was actually set up for some kind of lecture.

The interior of the museum is bleak with whitewashed walls which wouldn't be a bad thing if there was actually anything worth seeing to be set off by them.

Throughout the year, the museum hosts a series of exhibitions and most are supported by special events, tours and discussion groups. Looking at the website today there do seem to be some pretty clever things coming up in 2009 so maybe we just picked a really bad day to go and visit. Perhaps they were between exhibitions, perhaps we were unlucky, or maybe the exhibits the day we went really were as pointless and stupid as they seemed.

Sad to say, the best things about MOMA are still the bookshop and the café so nothing much has changed since I rejected the museum over 20 years ago - it's still not appealing to me now

The Pitt Rivers Museum is a treasure chest of the weird and wonderful and should be a compulsory must-see place for every tourist visiting Oxford but sadly, it rarely is. Consequently those of us who know and love this quirky little museum are sometimes torn between the desire to sell its joys to the world and to keep it as our own special little secret.

The Pitt Rivers is a place you need to know exists in order to find it. It's not widely publicised and you won't see it from the street because it's tucked away at the back of its sister museum, the much grander and more blousy Oxford University Museum. I have to confess that despite studying in a building right next door to the Oxford University Museum and taking lectures regularly in the building itself, even I didn't venture into the Pitt Rivers during my four years as a student in Oxford. So when I finally did go in, I was bowled over by what I found.

Lieutenant General Pitt Rivers was a true Victorian eccentric and a man with a voracious appetite for collecting. He didn't focus on specific areas or specialise in particular countries. Pitt Rivers collected just about anything and everything under a very broad umbrella of 'Ethnography'. He travelled around the world and, a bit like me on my holidays, filled his luggage with all manner or weird stuff, brought it back to the UK and then endowed his collection to Oxford University on the condition that they had to build a home for it and had to appoint a lecturer in anthropology. From his original bequest of 18000 items, the collection has expanded and today contains more than half a million pieces.

What makes the Pitt Rivers Museum so different from most is the way it displays its items. Most museums would put together all the exhibits from a particular country in one place, and all those from another in a different section. Or they might put everything from a particular historic period in one section. What Pitt Rivers does is display items according to what they are - not who made them or where they came from. So all the woven baskets go together, all the musical instruments are shown beside each other, jewellery in the same area regardless of whether it's fancy precious metals from Europe or feathers from the South Pacific or shells from native Americans. In doing this, the exhibition shows how people many thousands of miles apart, sometimes divided by many centuries all worked out different - or sometimes very similar - ways to solve the same problems. I love it!

There are some very controversial exhibits, not least the so-called shrunken heads from Ecuador and Peru. Decades of debate has surrounded whether it's right and proper to exhibit human remains of this type. One of my personal favourites is the 'Witch in a bottle' - a small glass bottle with a label on it warning people not to open it because there's a witch inside. Priceless!

There's something quite magical about the layout of the museum and the subdued lighting which, combined with the bizarre way that things are displayed means you never quite know what you might find round the next corner. There's a fantastic free audio tour available which guides you through some of the famous or noteworthy exhibits but even with the map provided, it's easy to miss a few. The museum building has a large high central hall with cast iron balconies suspended around the outside of the room on two higher levels. Look upwards and you'll see that the vertical space is used as well as the horizontal, with a tall totem pole reaching up to the roof and some boats suspended in the roof space.

The museum has recently built an extension to enable more of the collection to be exhibited was due to reopen earlier this year - I haven't been back yet but my husband dropped in a few months back and said they'd done a good job. Don't just take my word for it that the Pitt Rivers is something special - the list of Patrons at the museum is very impressive and includes Sir David Attenborough, Michael Palin and writer Philip Pullman, who I believe (though I've not read his books) has used the Pitt Rivers in some of his books.

As a student at Oxford University in the late 1980s, the Randolph seemed like the physical embodiment of the class divide that afflicted poor kids like me from state schools surrounded by much wealthier students who took the affluence and grandeur of the city's finest hotel entirely in their stride. I'd never been in such a grand hotel and the closest thing to a grand building in my home city was the branch of Lloyds Bank.

My flat mates' parents would arrive each term and take us out to the Randolph for rather staid Sunday lunches in the spectacular high ceilinged dining room where we'd sit and watch the world cycle by through the tall windows. By contrast my parents would visit bringing a bag full of fish and chips or a Chinese take-away. I can't really say that we enjoyed the Randolph that much more than a takeaway and at least nobody had to stand on ceremony with my folks.

It seems strange from the 2009 perspective that in the 1980s the accountancy and management consulting firms were fighting tooth and claw for Oxford graduates, trying to out-do one another in putting on lavish receptions to try to persuade future graduates to choose their firm ahead of any other. If they wanted to impress, then they hired a ballroom or large conference suite at the Randolph and we'd turn up with no intention of following such a career in the full knowledge that we'd listen to 45 minutes of presentation about accountancy then fill up on free booze and snacks.

Despite representing a world I didn't think I could ever share, I loved the Randolph on sight, with a visceral affection and longing that surpassed even the fanciest of the university's grandest buildings. The Randolph was really something special.

At that time there were no other top notch hotels in the centre of Oxford and visitors had to choose between the glories of the Randolph or a B&B on the Iffley, Cowley, Woodstock or Banbury Roads. The Randolph stood alone in its magnificence but has more recently been joined by arrivistes such as The Bank and the Malmaison, the latter housed in the old Oxford Prison. A few years ago my husband and I wanted to attend a ceramics exhibition in the city and I was lucky enough to get a really outstanding bargain deal at the Randolph. For only a few pounds more than a grotty B&B, I could finally get to stay in my dream hotel.

I love high Victorian architecture and the Randolph is a fine example. It was built in 1864 at a time when no architect could resist sticking just one more bit of ostentatious ornamentation onto every door, window, staircase or ceiling. It stands on a corner plot on St Giles, with the Martyrs' Memorial to one side and the awesome Ashmolean Museum directly opposite.

From the moment you step through the rather small and understated entrance with its canopy to protect you from the rain and the doorman to greet you, you know that you're in for a treat of Victorian design. If you've arrived by car, you could be in for a nightmare though unless you took care to pre-book your parking space at a whopping £25 per 24 hours. The garage is small and you don't get to park yourself as they need to squeeze in as many as possible. The nearest public parking is equally shocking in price but less secure and somehow it doesn't seem right to stay in the best hotel in town and park your car on the city's outskirts in the Park and Ride; it's just not 'appropriate' to take the bus to the Randolph!

We checked in at the reception, admiring the high ceilings and the gorgeous staircase. I'd prepaid so only needed to leave my credit card details in case of extras. I'd booked one of the cheapest rooms which was on an inner corridor so there were no wonderful views but it was extraordinarily quiet so much so that we didn't even wake up until 10.30 in the morning because the inside location and the deep carpets in the corridors meant we got total silence. The room wasn't very big but wasn't cramped either. The furnishings were quietly understated and of good quality. There was a double bed, side tables, a television and tea/coffee tray and an easy chair. The bathroom was small but spotlessly clean and well equipped. I don't think we had a minibar because I remember putting the bottle of champagne we'd brought with us on the windowsill to keep cool whilst we headed out to explore.

We didn't eat in the Randolph on this occasion. Since I'd spent too much on the room (even at a bargain rate) we popped out to eat in local bars and cafes instead, but I can certainly recommend lunch in the restaurant as a real treat. Sunday lunch is a set price and whilst it's not cheap, it's worth a little extra for the grandeur of the setting. There are two bars, one with a lovely open fireplace. There's a spa and a small gym (really small) but generally you don't go to the Randolph to exercise!

For those with special needs, I'd suggest that the Randolph isn't the most accessible of hotels. They do have some wheelchair accessible rooms but the age and design of this grand old hotel wouldn't be compatible with it being really easy to get around. Guests with dogs can take them for a small daily supplement and kids are well catered for with welcome packs, cots and high-chairs and a babysitting service.

In terms of what to see, the Randolph is perfectly placed in the city centre really close to the main shopping streets and many of the colleges. You really couldn't pick a better location from which to explore the city.