Gallivanting in Robin Hood's territory

Alright, I am a little behind on writing this post as I was feeling lazy this week. Whoops. Anyways, last Saturday we headed out with our friends Bekka and Josh to explore the Nottingham area. It's a couple of hours north of us so we started early.

First, we went to Hooters to eat. That was an interesting experience. I have to say, the English start drinking early, really early but that might have been because there was a soccer game. It was super crowded! And it was raining outside but they still stood outside too with their drinks. Something I've noticed is the English don't really care about the rain. It doesn't make them run to get out of it or hide under anything, they just truck on though it. On the TV's they had rugby and cricket playing. No matter how hard we tried, we couldn't understand what was going on in cricket.

Next, we tried to find Sherwood Forest (Robin Hood's fabled stomping grounds) and we did...kind of. We really wanted to find the tree that he and his fellow men were said to hide in but we ultimately learned that it was pretty crappy looking (Park Rangers here tell the truth). We ended up stopping at like three different places to find it and gave up after the Park Rangers gave us their review. At that point, we were a little annoyed with the tree, as shown by Bekka going to the Rangers and saying "where is the stupid big tree?!" But not all was lost, we saw that Sherwood Forest would be a ton of fun to go to. They have great hiking and biking trails as well as a ropes course so we will probably go back.
After that fun escapade, we headed to Bolsover Castle. It was built in the medieval times but was finished in the 17th century. King Chares I even visited the castle to watch a play in his honor. Luckily (or unluckily since it was off and on raining) the castle was not very busy so we basically had free rein. We started out by wandering around ruins of the castle. Those were quite cool and

The castle was set up on a hill so the views were gorgeous! Hello, English countryside! It was really close to a national park here too (which I can't wait to go to) so of course it was beautiful.

The grounds of the castle themselves were very pretty too. They were well manicured and had lots of sculptures and fountains so we enjoyed those courtyards.

So pretty!

The inside of the castle was really well preserved. There were beautiful murals and there was a ton to explore.

Awesome ceilings! 

Check out this ceiling mural!

After exploring the castle, we headed back to Nottingham to check out a few things. We went to see one of the oldest pubs in England! It served the crusaders, how cool is that! No big deal, just walking hanging out where history took place. It was crazy busy with tourists but still really cool on the inside.

  

After stopping for a pint, we headed to dinner and finished out our most recent adventure. It was another great day with friends and we can't wait for some more exploring!