York

This week I spent a rainy couple of days in York! It was my first time in the city, and I found it really interesting. Visiting from Nottingham only takes two train journeys and about two hours in total, but it feels like a very different place - it's much more historic and old fashioned (though Nottingham does have its historic places too).

On my way from the train station to the hotel, I was able to have a look at some of the famous sights. From outside the station you can instantly spot the city walls, which you can walk along to get around the city and to see some nice views as well.

Further along, I found the Micklegate bar - the best known medieval gateway in York. Apparently they used to hang severed heads from it!

There are really nice views when crossing the River Ouse.

After that, I saw Clifford's Tower, the largest part of the old castle which is still remaining.

After unpacking, I went out again to explore the city centre a bit.  I had a look around the Merchant Adventurers' Hall, a medieval building which can now be booked for weddings and other celebrations.

Then I walked along The Shambles, the most famous street in York. It's very narrow with cobblestones, and was used as Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter films. There are very unusual and interesting shops there, including several Harry Potter shops!

My second day in York was very busy! First I went to York Minster, which is one of the biggest cathedrals I've seen. I had booked a ticket to go inside, and the interior was very grand with lots of stained-glass windows.

Afterwards, I went to the Museum Gardens, and on my way I saw the Mansion House, the residence of the Lord Mayor of York. It's a really beautiful house!

The Museum Gardens were also very beautiful and a great place for a walk.

Then I went to Bettys for tea and cake! I would definitely recommend going to Bettys if you're in Yorkshire, because the tea there was amazing and it was really good value for money.

In the afternoon, I went to two different museums, the Jorvik Viking Centre and the National Railway Museum. The Jorvik Viking Centre literally takes you on a ride through the viking history of York, which was a lot of fun, but I think the National Railway Museum was my favourite. I've always found trains really interesting, so it was great to see so many old trains in one place, some of which you could go inside, including a Japanese bullet train. You can get into the museum for free, but making a donation is encouraged.

On my last day, I went to another museum - the York Castle Museum. It was built where the prison used to be, and there is a part where you can go inside the old cells. I think my favourite bit was the recreation of a Victorian street.

I had a really good time in York and could imagine living there! It's a beautiful city and there are lots of interesting shops, cafés and restaurants to check out. It was nice to go travelling again after several months of hard work at university, and it reminded me of when I lived in Austria and went off all over Europe by train at the weekends.

I haven't got any trips abroad planned for the time being, but I will be leaving England tomorrow... and going to Wales for the day with my parents! I plan to write about it on this blog very shortly. 😊

More Travel Adventures!

Yesterday I had my last exam, meaning I've now finished university for good! What I'll do next is quite uncertain, but I hope I can find a job that allows me to spend lots of time abroad and use my languages.

Graduation is next month, so I have some free time for now to look for jobs. However, I've got a little bit of travelling planned too! Next week I'm going to visit York for the first time. It looks like a beautiful city with lots of things to see and do, and given that it's not far from Nottingham, now seems the ideal time to go. And at the beginning of July, I'll be going to the other end of the country and spending a couple of days in Bournemouth with my parents. So there will be more posts on this blog very soon!

I'm kind of itching to go abroad again and hoping to do so as soon as possible after graduation... But for now, I'm excited to be discovering a new city next week. The north of England isn't an area I've explored much, so it should be an interesting trip!

Photo of Old Market Square in Nottingham taken by me!

Sherwood Forest and Edwinstowe

Last month I went to Sherwood Forest. It seems like an obvious place to visit when you live in Nottingham, and as it's my third year here, I thought it was about time that I went!

I've always really liked the story of Robin Hood, especially the BBC TV series and the Disney film with the animals! I even played Maid Marian in the musical version my school did. So it was very cool to see the place where the story took place.

To get to Sherwood Forest, you have to take the bus from Victoria bus station in Nottingham city centre. The journey takes an hour, and is quite twisty and turny - not ideal when you get motion sickness like I do! But on the plus side, it was only £6.50 for a return ticket.

The bus arrives at a visitor centre, where there is a café and shop, as well as some Robin Hood themed decoration.

The forest itself is only a few minutes' walk away.

There are some fun decorations on the trees!

It doesn't take long to reach the main attraction in the forest, the major oak. It is said that Robin Hood and his Merry Men used to hide inside it. However, this is unlikely to be true, because apparently the tree had not yet been planted at the time! But it is still an impressive tree to see.

After looking around the forest, I went to the nearest village, Edwinstowe. It's well known for being the place where Robin Hood and Maid Marian supposedly got married.

There is a very nice statue of them in the centre of the village.

It was really interesting to visit such a historical place, and I'm very glad I finally went.

I don't know when I'll next be posting on this blog, as I don't really have any plans right now other than getting through the last semester of my degree. But hopefully I'll have the chance to do some more travelling soon after graduation!

Wollaton Park

Maybe this place doesn't really count as a "travel adventure" as it's within walking distance of where I live! But over the last couple of weeks, it was the autumn exam period at university, and there weren't any classes. I only had two exams, so I decided to use some of my spare time to explore some of the touristic areas of Nottinghamshire. I'm in my final year now and had never really got round to it before. But as I don't plan on staying here after graduation, it seemed like a good idea to do it now!

The first place I went to was Wollaton Park, the grounds of Wollaton Hall. It's a huge place, with lots of things to see.

Close to the parkside entrance is a large lake. There were lots of ducks, Canadian geese and Egyptian geese hanging out there! I'd like to go back and walk all the way around it at some point.

Then I walked up towards Wollaton Hall. It is really impressive in real life - more like a castle than a stately home. I think I mentioned before on one of my blogs that I have a slight obsession with castles and palaces, so I was excited to see it and take photos!

Next to it is another building, which is almost as impressive!

Inside that building is the Nottingham Industrial Museum (which I might visit in the future), a gift shop and a couple of cafés. There is a really good selection of cakes in the café I went to - I tried the lemon and earl grey one!

After that I went inside Wollaton Hall to visit the Natural History Museum. There is a very large taxidermy collection there, which I found strange but quite fascinating. There were lions, giraffes and leopards among many other creatures. I was interested to see that there was a Humboldt penguin and a Chilean flamingo, which both reminded me of my recent travel adventures in Chile!

There is also a part of the museum which has been preserved to show how the house was in the past, which I enjoyed looking around.

Before going home, I explored a bit more of the grounds of the house.

I had a really nice time exploring Wollaton Park, and it was a good way to escape from university life. It feels like a completely different place to the city of Nottingham. I will definitely go back at least once, given that it's so close.

A week later I travelled further afield in Nottinghamshire, to Sherwood Forest! That was another fun trip, and I'll be writing about it soon. 😊

Laguna Cejar, Ojos del Salar and Laguna Tebinquinche

The third and final tour we did in Atacama was to Laguna Cejar, and as I mentioned in my last post, it really did turn out to be the highlight of the trip.

There are two lagoons in the Laguna Cejar park: Laguna Cejar and Laguna Piedra. Laguna Cejar is just for looking at and taking pictures.

However, Laguna Piedra is for swimming - or rather floating! The high concentration of salt in the water means that it's hard to swim normally and really easy to float. It was an incredible experience and so much fun. It was definitely one of the best moments of my life, and I often wish I was back there!

Afterwards we went to two more lagoons called Ojos del Salar (eyes of the salt flat). Here we had the opportunity to take some fun perspective photos!

Like Laguna Cejar and Laguna Piedra, one of the lagoons was just for taking photos.

But we could swim in the other one. It was very cold and muddy, but fun!

After that, we went to a lagoon on the salt flats. I didn't know the name of it at the time, but a bit of research tells me it was Laguna Tebinquinche. It was quite similar to Laguna Chaxa, and I did spot a few more flamingos in the distance!

At Laguna Tebinquinche, we watched the sunset and had Pisco Sours! It was the perfect end to an amazing day.

I'm really glad that we went to the Atacama desert. We were deciding between Atacama and Torres del Paine, but as I'd been to the south of Chile during my Year Abroad, I wanted to go to the north this time. 

I'd actually reserved my place on two tours to the north of Chile, one to Atacama and one to La Serena, when I was living in Santiago. However, the travel company was extremely inefficient, and I was never able to finish booking those trips. There was also another occasion when I was going to go to La Serena which ended up not happening. So it was great to finally see northern Chile! As a side note on the subject of tour companies, I went to the Maule region and Mendoza, Argentina with Chile Extreme and to Huilo Huilo with Emotion Tour Chile, and I would highly recommend both.

Atacama was like a different country to Santiago, both in terms of scenery and culture. It felt much more like "typical" South America than the other places I'd been to in Chile and Argentina. My boyfriend said that even the language there is very different, and much more similar to Bolivian Spanish than to the Spanish spoken in Santiago.

It was an incredible week and a half in Chile, and it was great to visit so many fantastic places, see amazing wildlife, and of course spend time with my boyfriend. Atacama was the first time either of us had been on a "couple's holiday" and we really enjoyed it. We want to go away together again when possible, perhaps to Torres del Paine or maybe in Europe! We both quite like the idea of doing a road trip all the way down through Chile from Santiago, or taking the Eurostar from London to Paris...

For now, we have to complete our degrees! There are no real opportunities for taking big trips away at the moment, but I've decided to see some more of the area around Nottingham while I'm still living here. Yesterday I visited Wollaton Hall for the first time, which was really nice. There'll be a blog post about it coming soon!