Newcastle

We spent Wednesday in the city centre, took the metro in, the local station was close to our hotel. Quick, clean and oh so cheap and a restful journey back to hotel.

Neither of us have been here before, so we had no expectations, just a couple land marks. Looking up at all the old buildings  most using red bricks, it was a delight amongst the new buildings.

I adore old shopping arcades, this one is stunning, from floor tiles, carved wood to the glass roof, not too huge, there was a second level, but no shops up there.

We found a lovely bistro to have coffee and cake, time to enjoy all the beauty.

As with everywhere else, Christmas has arrived, the market was tiny, I'm sure there must of been a bigger one, but we were not interested in finding it.

The tree inside the huge shopping centre, I liked it, very different, I'm not keen on these huge shopping centre's, it was very warm and very bright inside, I find these spaces very tiring. 

The main reason for going north was to visit hubby's older brother and sister, both settled here years ago. Neither drive far, both partners are not well, I loved watching hubby chat away to them. We promised we would come north again next year. Hubby's  sister gave me loads of books to read, a new author for me, best gift ever.

We are not big on shopping  the city is full of big brand names we walked past most of the shops, we did go into Fenwicks, after having a lovely look at their windows. It was raining when we arrived, but dried up quickly, we found a nice pub for lunch, just away from the main streets, and was back to our room by mid afternoon tired but happy. We missed far too much, but in 1 day you can't see everything, a lovely reason to go back for more days next year.

The drive home was good until we got to A34, the heavens opened for almost 2 hours, at one point the road came almost to a halt as the rain was so heavy, this part of the journey took much longer, most drivers were sensible, but as always a few were reckless. Most of the drive was on good roads and plenty of places to stop, we remembered to pay the final toll for the Tyne tunnel, which is done online.

As with Liverpool we found the locals to be lovely and very helpful, purchasing our metro tickets, two young men were very helpful, a lady on the platform gave us information where to go when we got off the tram. In the city centre we were guided to various places, twice people stopped to ask if we need help.