I am going to be honest. After Kellie and I returned from Newstead Abbey, I did not take a single picture the rest of the day. Kellie sent me all the pictures that she had, so I will post all that she sent. I just asked her if that was all that she had taken, and she said, "Yep." Maybe, our camera fingers were just getting too tired.
Anyway, we returned from Newstead Abbey sometime in the afternoon, took what few souvies we got at Newstead Abbey back to the hotel room, and then headed out to get something to eat. We ate at a place called All-American Burger, and I had a Korean Barbecue Nacho with some of the worst homemade tortilla chips that I have ever eaten. Kellie had a burger, and I couldn't tell you how it was. As we sat eating, Kellie asked the waitress about getting to some of the places where Kellie had hung out when she was a student at the University of Nottingham. Before you ask, we did not go to the University. It was too far away to walk, and we didn't feel like getting back on public transport or taking a cab, so we decided to walk to one place that Kellie did remember from her college days, Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, which claims to be the oldest tavern in England. According to Google, there is no documentation to support this claim, but it is a very quaint place built into the caves in the side of the mountain below Nottingham Castle. Here is the sign that sets its date of establishment.
Here is picture of the tavern from the entry into the courtyard. Notice in the upper right how the building melds into the rock face of the wall with some flashing and tar. I suspect it has lots of leaks during wet weather.
Kellie took a picture of her glass of ale. I cannot remember the name of the ale nor can I remember the name of mine. I didn't take picture of mine. However, you can still see how the building just merges into the rock.
And, to finish off the pictures of Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, here is a picture of the building from where we sat drinking our English pub ales. There was a group of rugby or soccer players sitting just down from us. They were pretty rowdy, and, Man! do those English dudes use some foul language.
Here is a picture of the statue of Robin Hood outside the walls of the Nottingham Castle. Neither Kellie nor I were interested in looking at another castle at this point, and, as I already mentioned, we weren't much on taking pictures at this point either.
Here is another picture of the same statue and more of the Nottingham Castle walls. It is pretty easy to see that Robin Hood would not have had much of a challenge scaling the walls to rescue Maid Marion. In several places, a person could have simply climbed a tree and jumped onto the wall. Yep, so much for past heroics.
Finally, on both the trip up to Nottingham Castle and Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem and the walk back down, we passed through Market Square and the Nottingham City Council, their equivalent of city hall. It was an impressive square and building, and people were playing soccer on the concrete. Those folks love their football.
I'll be back in another day or two with our last full day in England at Oxford.
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