Dunstanburgh Castle Hotel Alnwick

Arrive in Belford after a 5 hr car journey, including a beef baguette in a nice pub en-route. This is already sounding like "small earthquake in Uraguay - not many killed" Found the cottage and unloaded the car.Really nice place; Ric*********** stayed in the vilage in 1966; probably not much else happenned since then. Drove into Bamburgh and strolled along ...

... The response was not surprising...."Unless you were born here you are never a local!" I lived in The Alice for a few years and you needed to see the Todd River flow three time before the people in Alice Springs considered you a local.

St Monans also has a windmill from which there are good views of the coast and the village of St Monans itself. The windmill was built around 1770 to pump sea water into the salt pans which sit near the beach just ...

... to school for three weeks since he hadn’t read the books at that point.  We asked if he was on the Quidditch picture on the castle wall and he pointed out his ear and also explained how a few of the Alnwick employees had been extras in the film and he was a body double for Tom Felton when he had to use the bathroom!  They even got ₤500!  Personally, I’d pay just to be on the HP set.

 

After the HP tour finished we took the historic ...

... historic past. It's been four years since we had a chance to spend any time here - and we're already looking forward to the next visit. And we'll never again believe those jokes about English weather - it has been absolutely picture perfect the whole time. Just a few photos to share some of the sights ......

... reservation we made months ago. Not happy, Mr Hertz! And then I just happened to take the scenic route from the airport to Longframlington (well, the A696 is nearly the same as the A697 when you haven't driven on it for a couple of years! In spite of all that, we did enjoy the flight in the new, big A380. It's still a bloody long trip, but comfortable, well fed and watered, and the service was faultless. Well done Qantas - even made up most of the lost time ...

... Jeannie's. The kids were all excited and so were we. I hope the pictures tell a good story, we all without exception had a great night. The hotel was lovely and the band were fab. We all had an excellent time. On the Sunday we went down to the beach to meet Marion Keith Willie and Kath and the kids as they were staying in the hotel for the night. We went back to Jeannies for breakfast .Susan and Michael flew back home Marion and Keith took them to ...

... are handmade on the premises. In the afternoon we returned to Alnwick to have a closer look at the town and castle and returned to Barter Books. In the evening we had fantastic fish and chips and too much red wine in the Hermitage Inn, Warkworth.

Travelled inland to the pretty town of Rothbury. Did a circular 5 mile walk that had wonderful views of the Chilterns and into Scotland. The gorse was just coming out and in a few months when the heather is covering the moors it must look spectacular. Rothbury is full of tea shops and we had a lovely cup of tea and slice of cake after the walk.

Visited Holy Island and Lindisfarne Castle. Magnificient views and I developed a liking for locally brewed Mead. Travelled onto Berwick-upon-Tweed - Englands most northernly town. It looked a little run down and tired and we were glad we weren't staying there.

... Vikings ('heathens' according to the Anglo-Saxons who resided there) raided it in 793AD, marking the start of Viking Age in the UK. The island was also once home to a monastery, which was the base for Christian evangelising in the North of ...