Skip to main content

Newcastle: Bridges, Buses and Beaches

After Fountains Abbey we continued north to Newcastle - or more precisely Gateshead, Newcastle's sister city across the Tyne River.  Our hotel was on Gateshead Quays, an area which includes the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and the Sage Gateshead concert venue.  It's obviously undergoing serious regeneration; the remaining derelict industrial buildings and weed-strewn vacant lots were overshadowed by modern metal and glass springing up all around.

On the Millennium Bridge with the BALTIC Centre behind.

Millennium Bridge with the Sage behind (that wavy building).
We had a view of the river from our fifth-floor room, and Toby was most excited about sleeping on a sofa bed: "They're going to make my bed by magic!"  Theo seemed content enough with his familiar Moses basket, which we placed in the bathroom - a travel tip I'd seen somewhere.  It gave us a little more space in the main room, but whether it improved the quality of anyone's sleep is difficult to say.

I think we hit the sweet spot with our boys' ages on this trip.  Toby coped amazingly well with a fair amount of walking, while Theo was happy to be carted around anywhere, as long as he got milk on a reasonably regular basis.  We got a DaySaver ticket which meant we could hop on and off the Metro and buses - at least we thought we could; the fourth and final bus driver of the day insisted it wasn't valid and made us pay.  Up until that point we had been most impressed by both the value and frequency of public transport, and it was great to be able to rest our legs now and again.

Toby likes buses!

A whistlestop tour in photos:  We visited Grainger Market and ate pasties by the Grey Monument, which appeared to have a permanent seagull in residence.






On our way to Leazes Park for the obligatory playground stop, we passed a diminutive Chinatown, part of the old city walls, and Newcastle United's football ground.


For you public nursing advocates (I'm looking at you, Eva!): Theo having his lunch by the old city walls.


Daisy chains in the park

We were able to take a bus part way to the Discovery Museum, where Toby got ecstatically drenched in the Play Tyne room, with a replica of the Tyne River and its bridges.


Out to the real thing, we rode a bus along the quayside, and walked across the sweeping curve of the Millennium Bridge.

That's the Tyne Bridge in the foreground, but you already saw the Millennium Bridge.

Dinner was at Zizzi's, located on the solid Georgian splendour of Grey Street, from where we caught our final bus practically to the hotel door.


Next day was the beach at Cullercoates, a short drive away.  It was cooler and a little drizzly - but what does that matter when you're a three-year-old boy with a bucket and spade?



Labels:

Comments

Zoe Richardson said…
Sounds like a lovely family holiday with great pictures. I have three children and have always wanted to try and holiday in the North of England, but find it hard to see beyond family holidays in Devon.
13 April 2015 at 00:11
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Churnet Way: a wonderful walk

The loop from Oakamoor to Froghall and back was one of the most enjoyable walks I've done in a long time. It had a bit of everything: woods, ponds, rivers and railways; steep climbs and sweeping views; an unusual church, an ex-industrial wharf, and, as a final bonus, car parks with toilets. Of course, the sunny weather helped too. I parked in Oakamoor and set off along a quiet lane called Stoney Dale. This is the route of the Churnet Way, which deviates away from the river for a couple of miles. After a while I turned right and climbed up through the woods on a gravelly path, then dropped down to the B5417. a spring in Oakamoor   Crossing the road, I entered Hawksmoor Nature Reserve. It has some fine gateposts commemorating John Richard Beech Masefield, "a great naturalist". I found a photo of the opening of the gateway in 1933; unsurprisingly, the trees have grown a lot since then! A track took me down through the woods to East Wall Farm. Lovely view! Nice duck pond as
Post a Comment
Read more

The Churnet Way: bells at Alton

Alton village and Alton Towers are perched on opposite banks of the Churnet, with the river cutting a deep valley between them. Most people drive straight through the village on the way to the theme park. But I have a great liking for walks and no fondness at all for rollercoasters, so I found a large layby to park in at Town End, in Alton, and pulled on my boots. The church bells were ringing as I set off. I vaguely wondered if there was an event. A wedding? Unlikely on a Tuesday morning. Maybe a funeral. I followed a footpath across a few fields to reach Saltersford Lane. This was the width of a single-track road, but mostly overgrown and muddy. I was grateful for the strip of stone flags (and some more modern concrete slabs) which provided a dry surface to walk on. Presently I came out into some fields and dropped down a slope to the old railway line, at the point where I left it on my previous walk .  bit of old rail   There followed several miles of walking along the railway path.
Post a Comment
Read more

The Very Persistent Widow, or, We're Going on a Judge Hunt

Image by Pexels from Pixabay   At church this morning I was leading the kids group for the five- to seven-year olds. We are studying parables at the moment - the short and punchy stories that Jesus told. Today's was about the persistent widow, who kept on going to the judge's house to demand justice. As I read it, echoes of The Very Hungry Caterpillar came into my head: "...and he was STILL hungry!" as well as images from We're Going on a Bear Hunt: "Mud! Thick, oozy mud!" So here is the version of The Persistent Widow that Jesus would, I am sure, have told, if his audience had been a group of infant school kids. They seemed to enjoy it. I hope you do too.  If you have a small child to help with the knocks and the "No!"s, so much the better. The Very Persistent Widow Lydia was a widow. That means her husband had died. She didn’t have any children, so she lived all by herself. Now someone had done something wrong to Lydia. Maybe someone had
Post a Comment
Read more