After our great adventure at Chatsworth House, we began our drive back to London. We stopped in Nottingham for the night at The Lace Market Hotel. It was clean, and in a good location.

As Austin waited for me to change, he happened to look at the crime rates in town (he does this on every trip to get an idea of where to go and where to avoid). We quickly learned that it was a more “dodgy” area, and decided to just get a quick dinner and come back to the hotel. We ate at Wing Stop surprisingly enough, which was way less greasy than ours here in the States! While we ate, we people watched. We compared Nottingham to Deep Ellum (if you’re from the Dallas area). We saw a group of young men throwing things at passersby and quickly ate and left. It was an experience!

We had every intention of visiting some of the Robin Hood attractions and the Ye Old Trip to Jerusalem pub the next morning (Day 8), but forewent it when we realized there was a 50/50 chance of experiencing criminal activity… I definitely regret not stopping, but the thought of being without our wallets or worse overshadowed our adventurous spirits. I wouldn’t necessarily advise you not to visit these sites, but it’s good information to be sure you’re prepared. Our hotel was also directly across from the National Justice Museum, which could have also been an interesting visit.

So, we began our trip back. Kind of on the way was Oxford, which was on Austin’s must-see list. The city of Oxford was bustling! We love college towns.

This was the first time we experienced rain in England! We were shocked at how much beautiful, sunny weather we had the entire week. But a little rain made for an authentically British vacation.

We walked around the college, which was right in the middle of town. We tried to get into the library, but it was only for students. It was fun to imagine going to school here, and think of all who have gone here before.

We stopped in a pub to eat. This time I had fish and chips and he had the meat pie!

Then we continued our drive to London to return our car. We made it back at dusk, and the guys at Civilised Car Hire were kind enough to drive us to the nearest tube station, rather than us walking to the bus stop.

We rode to our hotel, dropped our bags, then went back to the city center to shop for last minute souvenirs. Back to Harrod’s we went! We grabbed a couple of dinner items from the Food Hall to take back to our hotel and rode the 45 minute train back out of town. Whew.

Did you know hotel rooms there don’t have microwaves? Now you do. We had to beg the man at the front desk to heat our food for us in their breakroom! He agreed, only if we promised not to give him a bad review if he ruined it, ha! He said, “I’ll do it, because I know the importance of a hot meal.” We so appreciated him and the staff at the DoubleTree by Hilton London Heathrow.

After we ate, we commenced with packing our bags with all our treasures. We were ready to start our trek back home to our puppies. The hotel had a shuttle for the airport and made it so easy to hop on our flight the next morning.

How cute is Austin in this pink cafe at Heathrow? We got there 3 hours early, and had more than enough time to get swabbed by TSA (Heathrow notoriously has the most strict security checks). At this airport, everyone waits in a large area in the middle to wait for your gate to be announced 30 minutes prior to boarding. They have so many shops and cafes, so the wait wasn’t too bad. Then, off you go!

Thank you for following along! We had a wonderful time!

xo, Amanda