Newcastle, England

 Another city touring day.

Newcastle has a load of historic buildings  

The first order of business today was a tour it St Nicholas’s cathedral.   It is just lovely.  

Cool pipe organ. 

Outside of the cathedral, another old building that I thought was cool. 

Different views of the cathedral. 

Next was a tour of the Newcastle Castle.  Long history dating back to Roman days, periods of Norman use in medieval times.  Then falling into disrepair and refurbished in the 1600-1800’s  

Winding stairs to the top of the tower 

Views from the top were spectacular!

The Millennium Bridge  opening. (It’s a pedestrian walkway, no car traffic)

And in the closed position.  Not sure why they opened it because we never saw a ship pass thru.  Very cool to watch. Took about 10 minutes. 

View back towards the cathedral. 

Back inside the castle. 

The potty!

Chapel in the basement.  This stonework was Norse dating to about 1000 AD

Nothing like a little silliness while touring!

Fun castle tour…time for some people watching along the riverwalk and some fish n chips.  

This place offered “mushy peas” as a side item. Interesting…not as flavorful as I was expecting but I’m needing some veggies in my diet right now!

After the nice meal, more touring. This odd glass building is the International Mic Center. 

Approaching the Millennium Bridge on foot you can see the cables holding it together. 

Walking over the bridge. Interesting that they went to such lengths for a foot bridge. 

 

Adjacent to the bridge was a contemporary art museum.  Not our ballywick….so we didn’t stay long. 

View from the top level. 

One thing was pretty cool. On the stairwell, looking down it looks like many,many floors. It’s not!  It’s just a strategically placed mirror!

On the street…odd performance by a guy dressed up as a bride…singing to an accordion…..

Next up was a 2 mile walk to the Jesmond Dene park.  Of course, more cool buildings along the way. 

The park is large and appears well utilized by residents. 

Very nice park but we were about tuckered again. 

We caught a city bus rather than retrace our path back to the hotel. Fun day, we’ll head to Edinburgh on the train tomorrow.