A little adventure to Newcastle

On Tuesday, Harry and I jumped in the car on a sunny Brum morning, armed with waterproofs and wellies, ready and on our way for a few days up north in Newcastle. The wellies didn’t come out once; we were greeted with blue skies and sunshine and we left with the same. Albeit a few degrees cooler, the weather was wonderful. Who says the north is always wet? Newcastle is a city that I’d yet to explore; having never been further up the country than Leeds, when we were offered a few nights in the Travel Lodge in Gateshead, we decided to seize the opportunity to have a nose at somewhere new and for me to try my hands at a bit of travel blogging …

After checking into the hotel on Tuesday afternoon, we freshened up and headed into town. The hotel was around three miles south of the city centre, across the River Tyne and dangerously close to the biggest shopping centre in Europe. It was a very basic place to stay which meant we had to plan to eat out. This wasn’t a problem, as Newcastle has a wealth of independents (just like Brum!) to choose from. We had a little shop in the Eldon Garden Shopping centre and Harry witnessed a crazy beauty blogger finally getting her hands on some Kiko products in their new store. I also fell in love with Fenwick, which is a department store and essentially Selfridges on steroids. Every designer brand under the sun, including some really obscure ones and a Ted Baker section so big I nearly fainted.

Dinner and drinks at As You Like It

Harry’s best pal, Nial, goes to Newcastle University and I third wheeled on their date … I’m joking. Kind of. We headed to As You Like It, which is a bar and restaurant in Jesmond and it’s absolutely beautiful! It’s around a 20 minute walk from the town centre but there is a car park outside. The interior is dreamy and the food is incredible. Along with the cocktails, I think I’m fully in love with the place. It’s my friend Su’s favourite place to go and I’m so glad she recommended it to us. If you ever head to Newcastle, this is a fabulous place to try so make it top of your list. (Though if you drive, don’t drink too many cocktails plz)

Brunchin’ at The Butterfly Cabinet

A hefty breakfast was most definitely on the cards on Wednesday; the hotel offered a limited brekky and we weren’t keen on doing a day out on a muffin and juice box. Prior to our trip, I’d been scouring a few Northern food bloggers and one brunch stop stood out which was The Butterfly Cabinet. It went down a treat with Harry as they served chocolate milkshakes and American style breakfasts – a winner for any hungry boy who’s had to wait until 11;30am to eat? I was an angel and had their smoothie of the day … along with ‘eggs bean-addict’ which was a bean filled eggs benedict. Eggs-ellent. It was a quirky little place, with mismatched furniture and a buzz of people. When we left, there was a rather large queue extending out of the door, suggesting it gets rather busy. With full tummies, we set off on our way to Alnwick!

Alnwick Castle

If you’re a fan of old houses and a bit of a history buff (me and Harry both) then Alnwick castle would be right up your street. It’s been in the Percy family for over 700 years and is still home to the Duke of Northumberland. The sunshine and blue skies made the location look all the more breath taking and we had a wonderful afternoon mooching round the grounds and looking inside the lavishly decorated state rooms. The rooms were actually the set of the Christmas episode of Downton Abbey (not that I watch it) and the grounds were in the first Harry Potter film, when Harry took his first broom flight (definitely watched that film too many times). There’s plenty to do there for the day if you so wished; we were there for a few hours looking at the exhibitions and then headed into town. The Alnwick Gardens also looked very pretty and it’s also home to the Treehouse Restaurant, which annoyingly is only open Thursday to Sunday after August. After wandering round the castle, we were gasping for a cuppa and I’d caught wind of a certain book shop …

Barter Books (in other words, heaven)

My Grandma and my friend Su had warned told me about a second hand bookshop in Alnwick. Barter Books is in the old train station at the top end of town and it’s absolutely incredible. I could get lost between the shelves and fall asleep in an armchair comforted by that wonderful musty smell of once-loved books. You’ll find everyday fiction to original first editions from writers such as Chaucer and Mallory (literature nerd over here) but they’ll only be yours if you can find around £500 … and the rest. There were some beautiful editions of Dickens books in there too which I could have easily given homes. Unfortunately there were too many for me to give homes to so I actually walked out with nothing *gasp* but Harry gave a new home to some books. As we hadn’t eaten since our brunch, which had fuelled us all day, we sat down to a well earned cream tea, complete with home-made scones! Bliss.

The brunch of dreams

We were going to head to a cafe called Jam Jar for breakfast on Thursday, but it didn’t open until 10:30am and we wanted to be on the motorway on the way back to Birmingham by this point. Cue a panic, a quick Google and a spontaneous, little informed decision to head to ARLO bistro and cafe. Possibly the best spontaneous decision we’ve ever made because this place was the bomb. It was the bees kness, the cats pajamas, the absolute best. Okay, I’m getting excited now but it was a bloody good brunch!!! Five stars all round from me. On the web it didn’t look much more than a greasy spoon but this place was trendy as pie and a very sassy brunch destination indeed. They also serve mini brownies and rocky road with their hot chocolate. I say no more.

Stay tuned …

All in all, a pretty successful trip I think, and one that’s given me a bit of a bug for wanting to explore more cities. Harry suggested York next which I think would be marvellous. Newcastle is a great city with a lot of character, a lot of things to do and get lost in. Even when it’s raining you can lose yourself in the Metro centre, curl up in Barter Books with a scone and a musty old book or tuck up in a coffee shop with a mega hot choc. This was the travel diary type post but do stay tuned for the individual reviews of the restaurants – you didn’t think I was just going to tease you with a few snaps did you?

Have you ever been to Newcastle? What city do you want to visit next?

*Our accommodation in was provided by Travel Lodge and our travel expenses were also covered. This only gave us more of an excuse to go and explore, and most definitely doesn’t affect our opinions of anything we did.