Sherwood Forest- Tuesday, July 30, 2013

We woke up rather late, but we've been busy and needed the chance to sleep a bit.  We expected today to be a more leisurely day.   Our stop for the day was one more place with legendary connections-- Sherwood Forest.  During the planning for this trip, we wanted to visit it from early on.  Today, we left from our hotel in Nottingham, and set the GPS for the Sherwood Forest Visitors Centre, which is in the Sherwood Forest National Nature Reserve, near the small town of Edwinstowe.

Scott was thrilled to hear a pair of minstrels singing a song of Robin Hood as we arrived.  They also sang a drinking song called "Who's the Fool Now?"  The man was playing an 8-stringed lute and the woman played two different medieval woodwind instruments.  Unfortunately, we just saw the last two songs.  Scott later asked them if hey had any recordings available.  They don't yet, but give us their card.  They're called "Blast from the Past."

Nearby was a small building with a short free movie about Sherwood.  In fact, there was a sale on the movie in the gift shops and we bought a DVD copy for 50p.  We then went through a walk-through exhibit called, "Robyn Hode’s Sherwode."  It was simple, but free, and a nice overview of the Robin Hood legend, its possible historical roots and its many modern versions.   The website says that Discovery Attractions is planning a huge attraction here on Robin Hood like the one they run at Warwick Castle.  That might not be a good thing.  We kinda like the pace of this one.

We then took a walk through Sherwood itself.  We saw many trees, including a grove of birch trees and some evergreens, but Sherwood was known for its great oaks.  Many of those are gone now, but we saw several old specimens that had wooden fences around them.   The greatest of all is the Major Oak, estimated to be over 1000 years old.  If Robin Hood did exist, this tree was likely to have been here when he was here.  It's not very tall, but its trunk is huge around its circumference, and many of its branches have been propped up with braces to give it support.  The tree is a destination itself, and many people were picnicking nearby.  

We strolled back to the Visitor's Centre.  The round trip was less than an hour. Julie said she expected Sherwood to be more "foresty".  In truth, though, we were in the most visited part of the preserve.  The path we were following was wide enough to be called a well kept road.  We were probably never out of sight of at least one other group of people.  Still, it was a nice walk.

On our way out, we stopped at the post office in Edwinstowe to mail out the parking fine to Oxford and buy a box to pack to send some things home.  We passed statues of Robin and Marion by the church that they were supposed to have been married in.  There were a few more Robin Hood related sites we could have sought out, but we decided to push on to Liverpool.   

All of rooms in the hotels that we've stayed in so far have been almost cookie cutter versions of each other, even though we've used several different chains.  That's not a bad thing, just an observation.  Tonight's location is different.  We are in a "bed and breakfast" that is right on the Liverpool Docks, overlooking the Mersey River.  You know how some cities have revitalized their dock area and put in a lot of money to bring in business and tourists?  Liverpool has done that.  We're not in that area.  We're in and among what are still warehouses, above a bar (now closed, apparently), about a mile from civilization.  The room isn't bad, considering it cost us what we have been paying for dinner.  It has for single beds in it with metal frames.  It's sturdy and clean.  Towels cost extra.  We walked a few blocks to get to a Subway for sandwiches for dinner and then walked back.  There were several people we saw out for a jog along the river, so we don't think that we're in an unsafe place, but the girls were a little shocked when they first saw it.  It's not one of the corporate franchise that we've been staying in, that's for sure.