Botanic Garden
Rose Lane Oxford OX1 4AZ
A rare thing: a botanic garden right in the centre of the city. There are glasshouses – one with banana, cocoa and other edibles, another with carnivorous plants – and formal gardens crammed with varieties of trees and flowers, the like of which is rarely seen outside Kew. There are a few wide-open lawns and plenty of benches that make this a good spot for a city-centre picnic. See if you can find a place beside the river for added entertainment watching the punters, too.