Newcastle

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For the last few years during the Summer, Mum and I would take a trip to London.
This year I had planned something a little different: a trip to Newcastle.

I’m a big fan of FRIENDS, the T.V show, and Friends Fest was being held in Newcastle during the time I was home. As neither of us had been to Newcastle and with FriendsFest on, I thought it would be a something different to our usual trip.

Mum had no idea I was coming home let alone that I had planned a trip away. The day after I landed back home I took Mum out for an afternoon tea and gave her the tickets then.

The flight was early morning, I drove us to the airport and an just over an hour later we were landing in Newcastle.
After checking in we went to explore the city. The first stop was Costa! While enjoying our drinks and cakes we looked up things to do in the city.

We decided that as we had that afternoon we’d go on an open top bus to be able to see the lay of the city. We saw a lot including the football stadium and other landmarks. The bus went down towards the river where we saw a market. We decided to get off the bus to explore this. As we walked through the market next to the river we saw the famous Millennium bridge. We caught the next bus and carried on with the route.

After much needed sleep, (the day before had been an early start), we got up to start the day. We decided to just walk around the city using a free walking tour I had found on-line. We were able to go and look at places we had driven past the day before and see different parts of the city. We walked along the ruins of the Town Wall which was called Herber tower and was built in the late thirteenth century and was restored again in 1770-1 -this specific part of the wall was used for town meetings. We stopped in China Town and looked at the unusual things they had there. We came across an ice cream shop and as we hadn’t had lunch thought it would be a good place to have a snack. We ordered one thing each but wow there was a lot of food; which we did some how manage to get through! We ended up walking back down to the river and crossing the bridge. We started walking along the river hoping that there would be another bridge to take us back to the other side of the river. There wasn’t. So walking back on ourselves we headed back to the hotel before going out for food and cocktails.

Again the next day we explored the city. We visited a church we had seen the day before and looked around it. We then went to The Castle Keep. It was built by Henry II in 1168-78 and was the principle tower of the castle. The city Newcastle Upon Tyne is named after the original castle which was founded on the same site in 1080 by Robert Curthose who was the eldest son of William the Conquerer. After looking around the tower and trying on different outfits from the original period, we went in to the castle next. The castle had very narrow stairs, Mum doesn’t usually enjoy things like this but she knew if she made it to the top she’d be able to see the city and she did and wasn’t disappointed. The view from the top was beautiful.
Once we made it down the castle steps we carried on with our history tour and went to Bessy Surtees house. The house is now a museum and the window where Bessy descended and eloped with John Scott on 18th November 1772 is still there and its the original. He later went on to become the 1st Earl of Eldon and Lord Chancellor of England.
We crossed another bridge and walked along the river to a place we knew we were able to cross over again safely.
While we’d been in the hotel and watching local news I spotted somewhere that looked familiar and realised that part of Harry Potter had been filmed there. I really wanted to go. After researching the place I realised we could get the train and a bus there the next day to go and see where Harry Potter had his first flying lesson.
We got the train and then a bus early next morning and arrived at Alnwick. The castle is one of the largest inhabited castles in England. It has been home to the Percy family, Duke of Northumberland, for over 700 years.
We looked around the castle, (where construction started in the 12th century,) and saw state rooms, the artisans courtyard, a chapel, archers holes and yes I had my own flying lesson. I was able to get my broom to levitate and my mum was able to capture a picture of me flying!
After a hog roast lunch we went to look round the castle gardens. We got lost in the maze, narrowly missed getting wet by the fountains, swung on garden chairs and saw giants underwear hanging out to dry.
We’d passed a crazy golf, which we’d decided we would play, but first we decided to have a drink in what could only be described as the inspiration for Hagrids hut. After the crazy golf we walked around the town of Alnwick before getting the bus back to the train station.

The next day was finally the day we had been waiting for. Friends Fest! We both put on our friends related clothes and went to the tube station. After taking the tube and a short walk we were finally there. Once it was our time slot we went in and found it was definitely worth it. Every thing was Friends related. They had Phoebes taxi, central perk cafe, Ross’ famous pivot sofa scene, friends related cocktails, Joey and Chandlers football table. These things were just around the main area. The main tent was again time zoned so when it got to our time we went in. They had the sets of all three main apartments and all the things that should be there. The big white dog, the recliner sofa, the beef trifle. It was amazing.

They showed clips on a big screen and even had a quiz, which if I had entered I would have won. We had food which is from the show and enjoyed the sun. Being a huge friends fan, this was perfect.

That night we had tickets to see an amateur showing of Cats the musical. There was nothing amateur about it. The production was amazing.

The following day was our last but we still managed to fit a few things in. We took a river cruise to the mouth of the Tyne and back. After our river cruise we weren’t sure what to do so after looking at train items we decided to go to Durham for the afternoon. We got the train and walked around the town. Going up to the cathedral and university and enjoying the afternoon sun in such a famous old town.
Once we got back to Newcastle we got out bags and headed back to the airport. It was a wonderful time away with my Mum and gave us both wonderful memories before I went away again.

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