Sept. 3rd: A good breakfast is always a good start to a rainy/drizzly morning. We got in the car and started off in search of a postal box, their mail is Royal Mail which I think is hilarious. Then we were off along the coast which was pretty and had hillsides with... take a guess... wait for it... yes, cows and sheep and more sheep and cows and a ton more sheep. The cliffs on the North Sea were really pretty and it looked nicer when the rain stopped. We arrived at Tantallon Castle in about 45 minutes, so it was a short hop. The sun had come out which made it that much better since Tantallon lays in ruin. The visitor center is just a short walk from the castle and it wasn't that far uphill, mainly since it was built as a fortress so it really didn't needed to be built up as much. And there was a moat, just grass now but that was neat. Only the arch of the outer wall remains, but you can see how massive the wall was and how thick it was. It is an amazing castle on the cliffs of the edge of the Firth of Forth as it empties into the North Sea. The view is wow, can hardly explain its beauty. Yes it lays in ruin but we were able to climb a couple stairwells to the tops of towers to see the countryside and the sea, I would say about 7 stories tall (what remains). The ceiling clearances to enter the different rooms is barely 6 feet, but its ok since... you guessed it, i'm not that tall :-P sucks for the tall people. And the stairwells were tiny and narrow and no room for handrails, so they attached a rope at the top to assist you up or down the stairs and yes I needed it. And it was first thing in the morning so there were only a handful of people who showed up in the time we were there, it was nice and peaceful. I think this is my favorite castle, they haven't really altered it to preserve it. They are doing work on the main gate which was made with softer stone on purpose for when the cannonballs hit, it would crumble and the rest of the walls would remain intact. That was done in the 1600s and it lasted this long and now needs a little help to remain standing.
Funny story, there is an inhospitable rock in the firth (seen from Tantallon) called Bass Rock. Back in the day the English army had a post there for a look-out but the only way to get on the rock was to lower down the basket to the boat and have someone hoist it up. Yea, so some poor soul always had to be there. They survived on the birds who live there and used their droppings for a fuel source. The fort didn't last long... wonder why :-P
Then we got back in the car to drive to Alnwick (pronounced Annik) along the narrow winding Scottish countryside into England's north country... which looks a lot like the Scottish countryside... hills, cows, sheep, sheep, sheep, and so on. Crossed into a new country! There were signs and everything, it was hilarious. Some of the roads were super narrow with stone walls on both sides so it wasn't like you could pull off when trucks were approaching so most of the time I just closed my eyes and hoped Smoo didn't hit anything.
The town of Alnwick is a beautiful old village, half of it (the old section) lies within the castle wall "Bondgate within" and the newer section lies outside the wall "Bondgate without". The entire town is on a hill so walking around it wasn't that bad, yay! Apparently this is where all the tourists go when the sun is out, it was very hard to find parking and not hit people as they aimlessly walk the streets (unlike the rest of the UK that the car will hit you and not yield unless there is a light there). We found a place for lunch, Carlo's Fish & Chips, self-proclaimed greatest ever... I kinda disagree but it was still good (better than what is in the states). Then we were off to the castle, which we didn't know it was the wall until we got to the entrance and was like oh, found it. It is HUGE, well the outer gate is a good distance from the next gate and the main grounds and the multiple buildings located within. The Duke and Dutchess of Northumberland have continuously lived here since a while ago. There was a predatory bird demo on the grounds, which was nice to see the owls, hawks and falcon up close. The falcon flew around the buildings and people within inches! (Ok, probably a foot or so) but it looked really close and really neat. The castle buildings are in excellent condition (conveniently hadn't been under attack) and are beautiful. Since the Duke is in residence we were only able to tour the state rooms, library and old chapel which was amazing and my favorite part of the whole thing. Back outside we snapped a few photos of the front court where some scenes from Harry Potter were filmed, and there were a couple in character as Hagrid and Dumbledore, it was hilarious. Alnwick seems to be where all the tourists are so it's not really on my list of must see's.
Then we started the 2.5 hr trek down to Housestead's Roman Fort, part of Hadrian's wall. We ended up taking narrow one-lane paths (can hardly call them roads) throuh English back country, I swear if we didn't have the GPS we would never have made the trip. Oh, and it had started raining so Smoo was having a hard time navigating the roads and I was having a hard time trying to not throw up. And all along the trip (which should have taken a little over an hour) it was more countryside that started to get a little boring. We eventually arrive at the wall and of course the rain started coming down harder. We get through the visitor's center and start along the path. The beginning of the path is deceiving since it is lined with trees, as we pass by the trees I look up the hill to where the fort is... about a 1/2 mile up a 30 degree incline (freakin hills, aaaaaaaah) and its a good steady rain now to walk around the ruins and read the signs. It is pretty amazing what was build about 1900 years ago and parts of the wall are still in tact. The fort itself was made up of different buildings where only foundations remain. What is really amazing is that the roman soldiers built all of it, and with tools that have to have made the work difficult and take forever, of course they were in a strange land and nothing better to do. Oh, and the funny part was that the fort is in the middle of a pasture, so the sheep were grazing among some of the remains outside the fort wall, HAHAHA
The craftmanship was amazing, how each stone was cut such that each one was the same so the buildings were all clean cut. After maybe 30 minutes or so, starting to freeze and my pants were getting rather wet, Smoo decided he was done so we could go in search of food.
We ended up missing a turn in a small village called Four Stones and found the Four Stones Railroad Inn that was open for evening meals, fantastic! (cuz seriously I needed to take a break from riding in the car) It ended up taking a good 25 minutes to get our food after we ordered and there was no one else there so they were just cooking our food (apparently we eat supper early so we are always finished when people start coming in to places to order). The food was better than we were expecting, or we were just hungry.
Then we drove the 2.5 hrs back to the B&B in the dark (praise jeebus for GPS's) so this time I couldn't really tell how many cows and sheep we were passing. But I did see a wind farm really close to the road, I was like whoa, never been that close to the turbines before. We eventually made it back into the B&B, Jennifer's friend who lives around the corner had stopped by to leave me a note to ring Jennifer since they were starting to get worried since I hadn't phoned yet (no cell reception). And then we couldn't figure out how to make a call on my cell and the pay phone wasn't working and then we had to look up on AT&T's website how to make overseas calls. Apparently when you are abroad, you replace the "011" with the " " and then country code, who knew?
All in all it ended up being a looooonger day then we were expecting and luckily my stomach held out on the trip, but it was good we weren't driving for more than 1.5 hrs at a stretch since I think that may have been coming close to my tolerance.