A Trip to See Robin Hood

December 17, 2011

Walking down the streets of Nottingham... I may have been lost.. but I had a duck wrap so it was all good

Nottingham Castle!!!  Part of it is now a museum and there is a coffee shop looking over the city

Some very neat mosaics

Something Canada related?  Had to take a photo

A dungeon deep under the castle - there are little tunnels going to the kitchens so that the prisoners can smell baking bread and sizzling meat.  That's a whole new level of mean

From the Nottingham museum

'Ye Old Trip to Jerusalem,' the oldest pub in England 

These stories are found all over Nottingham 

This building needed a bit of support...

"Freedom dates her birth with that of time" - Byron

A cabinet full of items swallowed by prisoners so they could be sent to the infirmary where they could either attempt to escape or commit suicide.  Nails, glass, forks, razors, and combs etc were all extracted from the prisoners 

The Nottingham casino

It's almost a Lord of the Rings reference!!!!!!!!!

The legendary Mighty Oak where Robin Hood held meetings

I knew Sherwood Forest was too good to be true...

A random figure that made me jump and a little kid laughed at me

This is the fork they give to non-Nottinghamers

One very twisted tree - no worries, it's working out its issues

St Mary's, the church where Robin and Marian were wed!!!

More random statues!!!

I missed the bus getting to Rufford Country Park and Newstead Abbey so I took a walk and met a local on the way.  We talked for about 45 minutes about this and that and he told me how he had been recruited to be a coal miner, how his son was a doctor (soon to be surgeon) who had just lived for a time in Africa, and how he and his wife had been married for 50 years.  He said that honesty is why their marriage has lasted as long as it has.  

I waited for about an hour and a half for the bus back to Nottingham before I went into a nearby restaurant to inquire about the usual bus schedule, as clearly the times written on the bus stop weren't a great indication of the bus' movements.  I ended up waiting for another two hours before I called a taxi to take me back to Nottingham.  Nothing like being stranded in Sherwood Forest...

In the morning I woke up and made some tea at the hostel and talked with a nurse from Lithuania.  The great thing about hostels is that you can meet people from all over the world and they tend to have interesting stories and perspectives.  The above photo was taken of Wollaton Hall.

I stopped for some soup (yes, I broke my 'no soup in a restaurant' rule) and carrot cake.  I like to try carrot cake at most new places I go and this one ranked pretty high.  

Wollaton Hall has a vast park home to hundreds of deer

Some geese!

Took another bus to Southwell Minster

The fine print in this ad amused me very much and by the number of people who laughed as they saw it, I don't think I was the only one

These festive wreaths were found on many street lights around the city

The Nottingham Christmas Fair!  The ostrich burgers were fantastic and there was a massive fudge stand, rides, games and roasting chestnuts.  A very happy place to be