A lovely area stuffed with castles (Northumberland)

Member Name: elvina

Product:	Northumberland
Date:	18/08/00 (58 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lovely scenery, castles and shellfish

Disadvantages: None

On the boarder with Scotland on the North East side of England Northumberland is a great place to visit. It is a national park, for obvious reasons, there is superb scenery of both country and coast, in fact when driving along many roads you have the sea to one side of you and unspoilt countryside to the other, quite an unusual view. Due to its national park status it is quite underdeveloped and there are lots of towns and small villages, there are very few large areas on inhabitation. One of the large towns that springs to mind is Alnwick, pronounced Anick. Alnwick has a very nice castle which is still inhabited and is open to the public.

One thing which Northumberland has vast numbers of is castle, many are ruins but there are also a lot which are not and which are open to the public. In fact you don’t seem to drive much more than 10 minutes without seeing another castle. These were used as defences when England and Scotland were two separate countries. There are also quite large areas of Hadrians Wall still visible with lots of nice walks along them.

The food in the area is very good, especially if you like shell fish such as crabs, which are fished locally. In most places you will find some sort of crab dish and crab sandwiches abound, a real must.

If you visit Northumberland you must go to Holy Island or Lindisfarne. The Island was inhabited by monks and you can go around the ruins of their priory. They made mead which is an alcoholic drink based on honey and is lovely, you can buy it all over the area. The highlight of Holy Island for me is the Castle. It is no longer inhabited but is in perfect condition and is open to the public. It is a very small castle which was repaired some years ago but the exterior and interior is quite amazing. It is like a real home only very very unusual. The garden was developed by the famous gardener Gertrude Jekyl (sorry I have probably spelt it wrong). The Island is only accessib
le by a causeway at low tide so it is important to check times before going there. People do live on the island and there are some small shops, cafes and pubs but it is a very quiet and pretty place.

We stayed in a self catering cottage when we visited and would recommend this to anyone there are a large number available and it allows you to see the local area much better than staying in a hotel.

Northumberland is well worth a visit for its beautiful scenery, castles etc.

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