Bodleian Library

Oxford's Bodleian Library is one of the oldest public libraries in the world, and one of England's three copyright libraries. It holds more than 7 million items on 118 miles of shelving and has seating space for up to 2500 readers.

The oldest part of the library surrounds the stunning Jacobean-Gothic Old Schools Quadrangle, which dates from the early 17th century. On the eastern side of the quad is the Tower of Five Orders, an ornate building depicting the five classical orders of architecture. On the west side is the Divinity School, the university's first teaching room. It is renowned as a masterpiece of 15th-century English Gothic architecture and has a superb fan-vaulted ceiling. A self-guided audio tour to these areas is available.

Most of the rest of the library is closed to visitors, but library tours allow access to the medieval Duke Humfrey's library, where, the library proudly boasts, no less than five kings, 40 Nobel Prize winners, 25 British prime ministers and such writers as Oscar Wilde, CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien studied. You'll also get to see the 17th-century Convocation House and Court, where parliament was held during the Civil War. The tour takes about an hour and is not suitable for children under 11 years old.