Started out with a short ride down to Oxford. Very old, lots of history. It went something like this: old building - old building - very old building - McDonald's. Nice contrast. A pretty small village, we stumbled across a stall in a rather lonely market with a few wooden puzzles, including the Moroccan (Turkish) Magic Boxes. A look at the prices, however, and my wallet desperately began to hug my thigh.
A quick stop at the museum and sadly, the floor with the puzzle displays were closed. So a wander down to the local puzzles-and-games shop for a gander at their selection (nothing special except for a tiny 22-step Japanese puzzle box).
An hour's ride later and we arrived at Bletchley Park. Lots of condensed history there, with baffling encryption-decryption systems and a rare hands-on experience with an actual Enigma machine. I wandered around the beautiful grounds and stumbled across the Toys museum that they had there. It's fairly small and cramped, with many amusements and household objects from the 30s and 40s. I found a sliding tile puzzle hiding amongst the stuff, as well as a disentanglement puzzle on a baggage tag and a game that was not identified, but featured a request for the game's name and instructions. I posted the pictures below as the only ones for this post, just in case a reader figures it out. Blogger isn't liking the other photos though.
2.5 hour ride back was very long, then we went back to The Giraffe for a delicious dinner with Alan Stein of PuzzleMaster.
A quick stop at the museum and sadly, the floor with the puzzle displays were closed. So a wander down to the local puzzles-and-games shop for a gander at their selection (nothing special except for a tiny 22-step Japanese puzzle box).
An hour's ride later and we arrived at Bletchley Park. Lots of condensed history there, with baffling encryption-decryption systems and a rare hands-on experience with an actual Enigma machine. I wandered around the beautiful grounds and stumbled across the Toys museum that they had there. It's fairly small and cramped, with many amusements and household objects from the 30s and 40s. I found a sliding tile puzzle hiding amongst the stuff, as well as a disentanglement puzzle on a baggage tag and a game that was not identified, but featured a request for the game's name and instructions. I posted the pictures below as the only ones for this post, just in case a reader figures it out. Blogger isn't liking the other photos though.
2.5 hour ride back was very long, then we went back to The Giraffe for a delicious dinner with Alan Stein of PuzzleMaster.
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