The City and the Writer: In Oxford with Maya C. Popa Italo Calvino,
Can you describe the mood of Oxford as you feel/see it?
Oxford is made up of large slabs of sunlit stone and broad tree-lined streets leading to narrow cobbled passageways cluttered with bicycles. It is dotted with Saxon churches and Gothic towers whose bells seem to ring continuously for one reason or another. Behind trick walls lie a succession of gates and doors that reveal the University’s colleges, whose pristine gardens only a select few may amble. It is a city of minds in conversation with minds past and present. I often have the impression that I am walking through a slowly uttered spell.