Forest of Dean!

This place was on our list of must-see places before we came. The Forest of Dean is supposably, jk, supposedly the inspiration for various fictional forests in J.R.R. Tolkien's and J.K. Rowling's books and many more I am sure. It was quite magical and there were times when I could imagine seeing some ents or trolls or rock-giants in there. The first place we went to was called Puzzlewood and they have tons of trails all over but it is enclosed so it would be an awesome place to take older kids and let them wander. They have no signs showing a way out so it was fun to get lost and then make our way back. I thought I would finally show some restraint with the pictures on this post but I have failed so here are a ton of pictures. 

So green!

Little trees growing on trees

Next stop in the forest was Symond's Yat. The plan was to do a one-mile walk up to the top of this overlook which should have taken about an hour but instead we parked and started walking and ended up there in about five minutes. So much for some hiking! We'll save it for the spring I guess.

Nubs

This wasn't in the Forest of Dean but it was a castle on our way back to Stroudy town. Can't even remember the name of the castle! But it was closed so we only got to see the outside and that was probably enough. 

We're hoping to make it back to the Forest of Dean later in the year. They have a train that goes through it and stops off at various little towns and I think that would be a great way to see more of that green thick forest. My heart may be true after all.

Bristol

If you want a little bit of ambience listen to this while you read. This song was stuck in my head all day in Bristol which was very appropriate because this guy is from Bristol! Perfect. Bristol is the nearest big city to us so we spent a Saturday checking it out and we weren't disappointed. We started out in a suburb called Clifton which is a very rich neighborhood on a hill overlooking Bristol. Then we walked over the bridge and then down to Bristol. We didn't really know where we were going so when we were at the bridge we asked some German girls to take our picture and then asked them what direction Bristol was and they said "hey, we are going there just come with us" and then we pretty much ended up spending a good part of the day with them. We would part ways but then we just kept ending up in the same places. And then they gave Vinny their phone number. Haha!

Clifton Bridge

My cutie with a ca-ca (cracker)

View from the bridge

Another church

Sure, I'll just sit here and eat a doughnut while you look around

And this guy will crawl all over the place

Great ceilings

What I really like about Bristol is it sits right on a harbor and pretty much everything you could want to see is right there on the harbor. And water makes things prettier too. So we decided to take a ride on the ferry boats through the harbor which sounded cool and was cool but it literally lasted about 7 minutes. So then we just walked to a museum (M Shed) and walked back to where we started

wa-tah!

This is a replica of the boat John Cabot took to the Americas to discover/explore Newfoundland. 

What's not cool about Bristol is that it was a major hub of the slave trade. Clifton's wealth comes from people who benefited from the slave trade (not now, obviously, but back then) and it showed in some of the things we saw. For example, there's a hill called "Black Boys Hill." Really? They haven't changed that? 

A museum of Bristol- basically a collage of random stuff associated with the town

Happy Tru

A great view

What we somehow didn't get pictures of is the great city centre- lots of people milling about with street performers (a nearby university A Capella group) with fountains and shops/booths and lots of places to sit and look out at the harbor. Good job, Bristol!