Alnwick....

It's the weekend again!!! Yeah!!! We have made it a point to travel every weekend during this SEP, so that we can cover as many places as possible. Today we are going to Alnwick. Alnwick is Northumberland's historic ducal town and also one of the site in the filming of Harry Potter. Well, Alnwick is a small town and also rather near to Newcastle, making it the best choice for a day trip.

We took the 10am coach and the journey is about 1hr. Eventually, we reached Alnwick in the late morning. The streets are rather similar to the ones in Durham, narrow and cobbled. The place is like a small maze and we got lost trying to go to Alnwick Castle. In the end, with the guide of the local, we managed to find our way there.

The entrance fee to the Alnwick Castle and Garden is 12 pds (Wow!!!). Being typical Singaporeans, we stood at the outside for a long time and discuss whether we want to go to both places. Eventually, we managed to get 2 more gals to make up a group of 14 people and get a 50p discount for each person. The castle was really nice and immediately all of us agreed that 11.5 pds entrance fee is worth it. The towers of the castle stood tall and grand, surrounded by nice, carpet green grass. We also came to the spot where they filmed Harry Potter having his first flying lesson.

The imposing Alnwick Castle is the ancestral home of the Duke of Northumberland. Until now, the Duke and Duchess is still staying in the castle, so it is not surprised that we can find plasma TV, VCD players and photographs of the royal family inside the castle. These people only move in during winter. The castle is thus opened to the public from spring to autumn. The interior is sumptuous and extravagant, with an incredible display of Italian paintings. Magnificent carving decorates the rooms, completed by the Florentine-trained Alnwick school.

A 10min walk from the castle brings us to another place of beauty - the Alnwick Garden. This is the garden of the Duke and the place is incredibly large. It's like a larger scale of botanic garden. An interesting part is the posion garden which features the different kind of posionous plants in Alnwick. The highlight of the Alnwick Garden is still the tree house. Well, as the name suggests, the whole house was built on the tree and it was around 2 storeys high. It was rather unique and they even have a chimney that emits smoke, which makes the tree house so alive making us feel as if we are in fairyland.