Ms. Springer, a 73-year-old who lives in Stanford, Calif., says her granddaughters particularly enjoyed a visit to a walled garden, off-limits to the public, that inspired Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland." The guide spoke of the real Alice, the daughter of an Oxford dean whose cat, immortalized as the Cheshire cat, frequented the garden.
Guests also take a cruise along the Isis River landscape that inspired Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows" and spend a day at Winston Churchill's birthplace, Blenheim Palace, which has a maze of hedges similar to that in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire."
Ideally suited to children ages 9 to 11, the 10-day trip includes a visit to the studios near London where the "Harry Potter" movies were filmed. It culminates with a banquet in the Great Hall at Oxford University's Christ Church, the model for the Hogwarts dining hall.
At the hotel, the children play Quidditch and rehearse a skit with actors from the Oxford Playhouse. The adults attend lectures on topics including the "Oxford of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis" and meet Colin Dexter, the author of the "Inspector Morse" series.
"It's a very busy program. It's very well-planned," Ms. Springer says. "It gave us a chance to explore Oxford with our grandchildren and gave our grandchildren a chance to have a different experience in a brand-new place, independent of their parents."
DATES: July 23-Aug. 1, 2013; July 31-Aug. 9, 2013
PRICE: $2,849 per person
INFORMATION:roadscholar.org; 800-454-5768