Nottingham

After stopping by and visiting Cal and fam, I decided to break up my trip back down to London and booked a stay in Nottingham for a few nights. Obviously my choice of visiting the area was inspired by Robin Hood tales. I just wanted somewhere cheaper than London to really just stay in and work out of for a few days, so Nottingham it was for 3 nights.

A very friendly and chatty taxi driver drove me from the station to my accommodation. He suggested some things to check out while in town including the manor used as Bruce Waynes’ house in The Dark Knight Rises. After checking in I did my usual wander to the local shops and picked up a few things. I just headed back and stayed in for the rest of the night and caught up on some work.

I have also started reassessing my plans after London. Originally I was planning on heading to Paris, then getting the train to Milan – seeing The Last Supper, stop in Verona, stop in Venice, get the ferry to Pula and then make my way to the house. Leaving I wasn’t exactly where I wanted to be – financially, I also have a lot of work at the moment. So, after a very helpful phone chat to my Dad and him assuring me I wasn’t failing by changing my plans. I cancelled everything I needed to cancel and instead bought a flight from London to Zagreb.

This stay really was a bit of a work break in between travel and other activities so it was a pretty low key affair. The night I arrived, or the night before I arrived there had been a crazy attack thing happen in Nottingham. Some one had broken into one of the local halfway houses, killed an orderly, taken his car and driven it into some students out in the town centre. Something like that. It was bizarre. On Thursday I went for a walk into town, just to look around but it was quite eerie. There was cops and news crews around the centre, with a lot of flowers being laid. There really was a strange feeling of community grief in the air and it was an odd feeling to be a tourist in the midst of it.

I did stumble across a really cute shop here though that had me wanting to spend all my money. It was a local handcrafted store with a bunch of items from local artists. From prints to pins, cards, cups, and more. I got a few little presents for friends and got a cute sticker that was some cartoon cats robin hood styles. ” target=”_blank”>Wollaton Hall, the manor used in Batman. Unfortunately by the time I got there it was too late to go inside to have a look, so I just checked out the grounds and then went and found deer to look at. I didn’t even look up details for this place properly and my walking there didn’t get me there quickly. The deer were pretty cool though. I enjoyed just watching them and taking photos for a good 30 minutes. After which, I decided to walk back again and get ready for checking out tomorrow.

I didn’t do a great deal here and with more time I would of liked to see a few more things and also check out the vegan cage/game shop in town. Would I rush back to Nottingham? There are more similar places I will likely add to my list on future travels but not rushing back here at this point.