Hadrian's Wall
The cottage in Elsdon
Durham Cathedral
Hello all! Sorry I've been delinquent in my blogging recently! Shane has been working like crazy so we haven't had anything too exciting to report. However, Good Friday and Easter Monday are bank holidays here so we were able to escape London for a long weekend and head to the North East England cities of Durham and Newcastle.
We decided to take this trip because we were interested in seeing Hadrian's wall - one of the best remaining Roman walls in all of Europe - near Newcastle and seeing the Durham Cathedral where N.T. Wright is bishop and was preaching on Easter Sunday. So, we hopped in the car Friday morning and headed north.
Our first stop was Hadrian's wall. It was built by Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century AD. He had decided that Rome was big enough and made plans to protect it, thus building an enormous wall around most of the outermost territories. We visited Vindolanda, an ancient Roman fort and part of Hadrian's wall. It is still an active dig and had a great outdoor museum showing what life would have been like for Roman settlers, as well as later British settlers. Next was the Housteads Roman fort which contains the best-preserved segments of Hadrian's wall.
After a few hours touring the wall we headed to Elsdon, a tiny town in Northumberland where a friend from London has a cabin that her family offered us for the evening. It was adorable, surrounded by beautiful countryside and horse farms. We felt very British :o)
The following day we decided to tour the area. First, we drove 15 minutes north to the border of Scotland and England. It was snowing in Scotland but we bundled up for some pictures and then headed back south. The town of Elsdon is tiny and didn't even have a stop light but it did have a beautiful cathedral and an excellent tea shop where we ate the best scone either of us has ever had! We drove into Newcastle but it is mainly a college town and we couldn't find many tourist attractions (the Newcastle brewery moved a few years back, much to Shane's dismay!). So, we stopped quickly at the Angel of the North - huge steel sculpture that is the pride and joy of Newcastle and the largest standing angel sculpture in the world - and then headed to Durham.
Durham is an adorable little town with a castle and cathedral in the town center, reminiscent of the middle ages. The castle is now part of the university and houses students, as well as the Bishop of Durham. There were weddings going on all weekend so we never made it all the way into the castle but did spend a fair amount of time outside of it and wandering through town. The cathedral (and the castle) is approximately 1000 years old, built over a period of years in the early 1100's AD. It is massive and has been well maintained. It is still a very active church and mass (first Catholic and now Anglican) has been said daily in the nave for 900 years. Easter service was excellent and NT Wright proved to be as good of a preacher as he is a writer.
After spending 2 lazy days in Durham we headed back to London. It was a very relaxing vacation in a beautiful part of England. We are hoping to do one more trip to part of South East England before T3 arrives so look for another blog in a few weeks! Also, more pictures are posted on Facebook.
Love to you all!
Sarah and Shane
