Forest of Dean attractions

 Situated between 2 countries, Forest of Dean offers so many attractions. The Forest of Dean covers a big area so we targeted just 1 town.

We headed to the town of Coleford to visit Clearwell caves and Puzzlewood. which are just a few minutes walk away from each other and make up for a great day.

Both attractions have entrance fees but have accessibility issues.

We headed to Clearwell caves which was an old mining for iron. We really enjoyed this as it has a lot of information about the history of the mines but also children working in the caves which I thought made it relatable to my kids. There's also a pool which was beautiful to see. The cave is a one-way system and you will need to wear good footwear as some areas are slippery! Once you come out, there's a nice gift shop, a cafe and also a little play area! This could be done in 1hour.

After lunch and a little play in the play area, we then headed to Puzzlewood.  To go inside the woods, you need to pass through a little farm with ponies, sheep and donkeys. The woods were like you stepped into Hobbiton, which funnily was the inspiration for Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books! It was so green and so weird wit branches twisting in strange way. I totally felt like we were in Middle Earth! It has a quite a lot of different pathways if it gets crowded so you can make walk as long or short as you would like. Once we were done, we headed to the cafe for some ice cream and then the play area. There's also a mini maze. The place has plenty of parking and lots of picnic areas. The only bad thing I have to say is that the price was not really justifiable as it was just walking around the weird woods.

We had a good day at Forest of Dean and loved the views to and from the village from Gloucester!

There's also Perrygrove Railway Adventure and Hopewell Colliery but we didn't want to visit them and couldn't fit all in one day.