Monday - Alnwick Castle

Our B&B in Alnwick is quite different than the one in Pickering. While Ashton House was a large modern home, the Percy Terrace B&B is in a historic row house. Everything is much more compact and basic, but it is still nice. It is also located just a few blocks from the market square.


We are the blue door.



We can walk almost directly to the market square through a series of alleys and paths.



The town is very picturesque with an arch at either end of the Market square.







We visited Alnwick Castle. It is a private home that has been lived in by members of the Percy family for 702 year! The castle's state rooms were open for viewing. They were amazing; incredible woodwork, silk wall paper, paintings, china, artifacts. Such wealth! Unfortunately photos were not permitted.

Some scenes from the Harry Potter movies were shot at the castle. There was a broom flying training session for little witches and wizards going on while we were there.

This is a picture of the keep.



A view of the castle from the outside the main wall as we were walking to Alnwick Garden.



Near the castle is Alnwick Gardens. They have a giant treehouse where we had our lunch.






The treehouse has a series of suspended bridges and boardwalks that made a loop path. We could not resist doing it once. David said it was like walking on the deck of the Caribou on a rough crossing.



The centre point of the gardens is a large water feature called the Grand Cascade.




One interesting area of Alnwick Garden is a section called the Poison Garden. It is in a special fenced and locked area that contains various poison plants. We did a tour. It was quite interesting. I think that I might get rid of our monkshood.

Tomorrow we plan to visit the ruins of a castle on the coast and then make our way to the Lake District.

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