Two go to Alnwick, part one

So a couple of weeks ago my friend Lucy and I headed up to Alnwick for a week. My tooth was still bothering me, so I was tired most of the time due to not sleeping well, but we still had fun :)

We stopped at Tynemouth (for fish and chips)

and Whitley Bay (for yarn shopping – more on that in another post) on the way up, then stopped again at Warkworth Castle,

where we found this great sheep (ram? It’s hard to tell) just about surviving on one of the walls.

Most of the castle is in ruins, but one block is fairly complete, with recognisable rooms which mostly still have their roofs. Sadly it was four o’clock on a grey day, so most of the photos didn’t come out well.

We were staying in the centre of Alnwick, on Narrowgate, about a minute’s walk from the castle gates, in one of the oldest houses in Alnwick – the walls were about three feet thick, this is one of the window seats.

On Saturday we pottered round town, ending in the fantastic Barter Books, which is in the old train station – and not just in the booking office buildings, it’s the whole of one platform!

An added bonus was that they had free wifi – our iPhones are both on O2 (mine via Tesco) and there was no 3G in Alnwick. I’d take my dongle for my laptop, on the Three network, which should have worked but I couldn’t get it to recognise the sim card, even after I’d bought a new one. All very frustrating, but an excuse (as if we needed one!) to spend lots of time in the bookshop.

And it’s also the place where the Keep Calm and Carry On fad started – they found an original poster in a box of books bought at auction, put it up in the shop because they liked it, and started getting asked for copies. The rest is history…

Sunday was another gloomy day, but it was good walking weather, and we did the walk from Craster to Dunstanburgh Castle, which looms dramatically in the distance as you walk.

We passed these stacks of stones. I’m not sure what the significance of them was, but I built another one anyway.

Driving back I took a different route, just to see where it took us, and found the delightful Eleanor’s Byre, which promised ‘coffee, cake and gorgeous things’, and didn’t disappoint. I had hot chocolate and a slice of amazing cake, and they have a lovely selection of hand-crafted goodies. Highly recommended if you’re in the area. And the nicest loo I’ve seen outside of a posh hotel.

Monday brought in the tail end of a hurricane, which blew the clouds away nicely to give glorious blue skies for photos, but, oh, it was windy! We visited Alnwick Castle in the morning.

I love the ‘soldiers’ on the battlements.

And we found a collection of ancient spindle whorls in the archaeological museum.

We were going to have lunch in the cafe at the castle, but the selection was so poor and expensive that we ventured just outside the gates to the Black Olive cafe in Baliffgate (the link seems to be to their other location, and bizarrely doesn’t mention the cafe in town, but it was definitely there) and had much better panini- type sandwiches for less than we would have paid at the castle.

In the afternoon we went to the Alnwick Garden. It really was windy by this time, and some of the features in the water garden were a bit spoiled by the amount of leaves that were blowing round and getting in the water, but it couldn’t be helped.

I do love the water garden though, it has fascinating features like this one, where all the surfaces are covered in running water.

And this one, where water is sucked down to make a constant vortex.

This fountain works by gravity – I didn’t quite get the physics of it, but it was spectacular when it worked!

At the top of the garden is the old walled garden, which is a little disappointing at this time of year – most of the flowers are over, and they’ve plonked a load of tubs of agapanthus in the beds, along with the last of the roses and some autumn crocuses. We went to other gardens (notably Cragside) which had far more to offer.

We finished off with a guided walk round the Poison Garden, which was interesting, even if most of the plants in it are actually ones you’d happily have in your garden at home – rhubarb, nettles, foxgloves, aquilegia and ivy, amongst others.

After all this exertion we repaired to the Treehouse restaurant for a nice cup of tea and a sit down. It’s an amazing structure, on several levels with raised walkways (and rope bridges, which Lucy bounced across leaving me reeling behind her) but sadly the catering was no better there – the main building reeked of smoke, and the girl in the doorway was dismissive when we asked about tea, sending us to a smaller hut outside. We managed to get drinks and ice cream there, but the hot chocolate was instant from a machine, and the chocolate fell off my ice cream bar as I opened it. We were the only ones in apart from three staff members, who sat and moaned about their manager the whole time we were there. My advice – visit the castle and gardens, they’re amazing, but avoid the catering!

Coming next – Cragside, Lindisfarne and Bamburgh, we really did do all the big touristy things in one week, it’s no wonder I was exhausted when we got back!