A Day Full of Surprises

Does this look remotely familiar to you Harry Potter fans?

I wouldn't know, because I am not a Harry Potter fan, but this is Alnwick castle and it was apparently featured as Hogwarts in the first two Harry Potter films.  It is located on the edge of the town, Alnwick (pronounced Ann-ick.....I'd love to know what happened to the "l" or the "w").

But it was off limits to visitors this weekend, because the daughter of the Duke of Northumberland, Miss Melissa Percy, whose family resides in the castle, celebrated her nuptials on Saturday.  It was apparently a big celebration with Royalty in attendance, including Prince Harry, and the Princesses Eugenia and Beatrice.  All of this activity just 3 miles from where we were staying!  Fireworks were set off in celebration around 11:30 p.m., and we could hear them but could not quite see them because the roof on the house across the street was just a wee bit too high.

Today was pretty quiet in the town, where we attended Mass, then walked over to get a glimpse of this famous castle.  We did spot this "wedding" party bus dropping someone off at the corner near the entrance. 

 We had known that the castle was closed prior to visiting the town, but I just wanted to have a peek, so that I could say that I saw it.....kind of like Hadrian's wall. 

After a few photos, we headed into town to a place called Barter's books.

This is a HUGE second hand book store that is supposedly the largest of its kind in the UK. As the name implies, one can "barter" by exchanging used books for "new" used books.  There were certainly a lot to choose from, and if books weren't so heavy, I might have been tempted to stock up on  a few.

But, I resisted and we headed out the door with just one purchase:  a fly fishing book that Marty bought, which apparently offers advice on fly-tying from the fish's point of view.  Certainly sounds Scottish to me.

We jumped in the car and  headed to Bamburgh Castle,  the most "northern" stronghold in England, sitting on the coast of the North Sea.

The view of the castle upon approach was amazing.

I couldn't believe the size of it.    No wonder it was such a strong hold for so many centuries.

Off the coast, we could see the island where St. Cuthbert died.

Inside the castle, we were able to walk through countless rooms filled with items dating back many centuries.  You won't be too surprised to hear that there were some very unique items on display, because this castle was "rescued" by none other than Lord Armstrong of Cragside fame.  We had no idea when we decided to visit that there was a connection but we were so glad that we had learned so much about the man yesterday. It explained some of the unique items displayed.

The Daisy vacuum cleaner

A torch holder that looks like an arm sticking out of the wall, next to the fireplace.

Wouldn't that be a great addition to anyone's home?

The tour was great, but the weather turned for the worse, so we headed out on our way to the B&B near the airport as we return home tomorrow.

We decided to take the country roads rather than the main road, and as we were driving along, we spotted a sign for Flodden field.  Well, we both decided that was worth a visit, so Marty turned down a very narrow road, with high grass on either side, and we eventually came to the spot where a memorial stands on a hill in the distance,  in honor of the thousands of men, Scots and Brits, that died in the Battle of Flodden in 1513.

4,000 Brits and 10,000 Scots died on that fateful day, including James IV, King of Scotland.

From the stone memorial,  you can see the church which buried the dead, regardless of their loyalty.

I had just been reading about this battle prior to our trip, and I found it amusing that we could stumble upon something so significant, just by chance, but we had such difficulty finding Hadrian's wall when in search of it yesterday!

We ended up driving a good bit of the way to our hotel in the pouring rain, but it lightened up just before we reached Bridge Inn.

Our room is under the "Inn" sign on the side of the building, overlooking the canal boats in the Union canal.  We were able to enjoy a lovely dinner in the restaurant, and, afterwards, we took a little stroll along the canal where we were joined by a friend.

This place was the perfect place to end the trip, and the best part is that it is only a little over 3 miles to the airport.  

So, for now, gallivanting geismom will be heading home.  I hope you enjoyed our travels.

Until next time.....

Castles, Rhododendrons and the Hunt for Hadrian's Wall

The day began with the tour of a castle, and ended with a wall......sort of.

We're in Northumberland, England, an area that for centuries found itself in the midst of a struggle between Scotland and England.  So, how could we resist checking out one of the oldest castles in Great Britain?  And, it certainly is THE oldest that Marty and I have set foot in.

Warkworth Castle:

In 1124, David I (son of Queen Margaret and Malcolm III), gave this castle to his son, Henry. 

The Keep is an amazing structure, with arched doorways, and extremely thick walls.

Here you can see the windows that would have held stained glass for a chapel in the Keep.

The kitchen was huge, and held two ovens in addition to a bread oven.  You can get an idea of just how large the oven is by seeing Marty standing in one of them. 

The place was filled with all sorts of interesting rooms and cubbies, but this one was probably Marty's favorite.

The view from this castle wasn't bad, either.

The tour was great,  but it was time to travel to our next destination for the day.

We headed out of the town to a place called Cragside.  This is the huge estate that belonged to Lord Armstrong, and it was the first house in the world to be lit by hydroelectric power.  This place was amazing.

The house sits on the side of a crag with thousands of rhododendrons on the estate.  Lord Armstrong was a self-proclaimed inventor, and in the 1880's this house had hot and cold running water,  central heat, telephones, a Turkish bath and a hydro elevator for the serving staff to carry food from the kitchen up to the serving rooms...all designed by Lord Armstrong.

And, the most famous of all was the incandescent lights that transformed beautiful vases into lamps that still sit in the house today.

Now, I ask, how is that for clever?  A great use for something that would otherwise just collect dust.  

The house was huge and had some very unique decorating.  Here you see tiles on the hallway walls.

Loved this set of stained glass windows

The kitchen reminded me of the one in Downton Abbey

And this fireplace in the drawing room was really a bit too much.

I could go on and on.....but I won't.  Instead, I want to know just how many of you knew that a man named Thomas Crapper invented the first 1 piece pedestal flushing toilet?

Am I the ONLY one out of the loop on this one?  Marty seemed to think this should be common knowledge.  Really? 

 I'm holding out on my friend, JoAnn, hoping that she's on the same page with me regarding this one.

And, I bet that my friend Rebecca knew this.  Because she always seems to know this kind of stuff.  I'll be interested to hear the feed back on this.

Back to the Armstrongs.  They apparently loved Rhododendrons.......so much so that they planted thousands of them on the estate. 

So, you think I exaggerate?

 We drove along 6 miles of road on the estate, and everywhere we looked, we saw them in bloom.

You can even see them on the edge of the lake

Ok, so you get the point.  We were lucky to have visited Cragside when we did, because next week the rhododendrons will be bloomed out and the magnificence of the grounds will be considerably less.

It was time to head off on our quest to see Hadrian's wall, the main purpose for us venturing south into England.  We both figured that it would be an easy feat.  The wall is clearly marked on the map....running parallel to a little road.

Find the road, and we'd find the wall......right?

I didn't want to see mounds of green.  I expected to see fragments of a wall.  We stopped at an information center, and were told to drive west (the opposite direction of our B&B) and that we'd see it in its full glory.

Well, we drove for quite awhile, and spotted another info center.  Then, we realized that we might never actually view it from the road.  We would need to park the car, pay & display, then pay a fee to walk quite a bit from the road in order to actually get a first hand look at the wall.

The wall that we had seen when we first got on the highway was on a hillside next to a road where there was nowhere to pull off to view it in the fields. It seemed to be "pay and hike" or "forget it."

Well, it was getting late, we'd been driving a lot already, and we had dinner reservations near our B&B which was nearly an hour away.

So, we took this quick shot of Marty at the info center with the wall in the background.

On the way back to the car, Marty convinced me to take his picture  with a lamb in the pasture,

but the lamb got scared and bolted before I could get the shot.  (It was probably the red jacket, don't you think?)

Then Marty got the brilliant idea that I would take  photos of the wall from the car  while he was driving.  Let's just say that a LOT of the photos were rather interesting, but this one wasn't bad.

And, here he was actually able to pull into a drive, when I popped out of the car, took the shot, and jumped back in.

This was NOT the historical experience that I had anticipated.

But Marty seemed OK with just being able to say that he saw Hadrian's Wall.  

And if he's happy, then who am I to argue with that?