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So this is Alnwick (pronounced Annick), the county town of Northumberland (the administrative centre). It has two major tourist attractions: the castle and the garden.
Alnwick Castle has the feel of a theme park, without the park. It feelsl ike it’s set up to have a lot going on but it wasn’t going on.
That’s a view to wake up to!
Now, the little island I showed yesterday, St Cuthbert’s Island, turns out to be a tidal island. (A tidal island off a tidal island.)
So at low tide you can walk out there, and low tide of course is currently early in the morning. (It was about 9 am when I went down.)
South of Berwick, just off the coast, is Holy Island, a tidal island with an interesting history. It can only be accessed when the tide is low enough to expose the causeway. So if you want to visit, it has to either be during this low tide time, or an overnight stay. Today, the low time ended about 1.35 pm, which meant at 1 pm everything started closing. As most places don’t open until 10 am, it’s not a long visiting period. Fortunately, I stayed overnight.
There are two main attractions on Holy Island. The Prior and (seen in the background here) and the castle that is not a castle.
There is also a good view of the castle that is a castle, but that’s on other other side of the water so we’ll ignore it.
Berwick has walls and ramparts and gates and bits of castle. It’s all a bit complicated, but I’ll see if I can make sense of it.
The White Wall, with steps that originally ran up to the castle. (I think the front bit is a later addition for atillery.) Most of the castle remains were removed c.1850 to build the train station.
I spent the day walking along ramparts and looking at walls. I want to share some photos on that but it requires some thinking first, so in the meantime, here’s some photos of Berwick.
Berwick-upon-Tweed is in Northumberland, on the Tweed River. The river forms part of border between Scotland and England, and Berwick is on the Scottish side of the river but in England.
It’s a town of winding streets
This is Berwick-upon-Tweed. It’s the northernmost town in England. At other times, it’s been in Scotland. Four hundred years of border conflict. And where there’s been centuries of border conflict , there are . . .
. . . border castles! Norham Castle, about 10 km/6 miles from Berwick.
I had some time in Edinburgh between trains, so I went up to look along the Royal Mile.
The Royal Mile is the street leading up to Edinburgh Castle, where all the interesting touristy things are. Also, where all the tourists are. So many people.
It was alternating between blue skies and rain showers, and whenever it rained, most of the people ran inside. so I could take photos with less people in them.
All the people lined up in the rain to go into the castle.
It was interesting enough but between the people and the rain not particularly engaging
and the shops were all selling tweed wool & whisky & cheap souvenirs. But at the end I found a Makers’ Market, with more interesting things for sale.
I also went into St Giles Cathedral, because everyone else was.
It has very lovely stained glass windows but, well, not as interesting as Kirkwall’s cathedral and significantly less dead earls buried in the walls, which you have to admit is something of an oversight.
It does get a bonus point for Most Interesting Ceiling, in the Thistle Chapel.
Now the next street down had less people and more interesting shops! Also, less rain.
A random building opposite the entrance to the train station.
If you’re going to Dunnottar Castle by bus, you have a choice of ways to get there. There’s a bus stop on the main road just around from the entrance road or you can get off in the nearby town of Stonehaven and take the forty-minute walk around the cliffs. OK I’m joking.
Of course you’ll do the walk around the cliffs. It has the best views.
And random Greek temples on the hillside.
Now this is the best view. It is worth the climbing the hill and walking around the cliffs just to see this. Really.
