Newcastle

Over the years I must have been through Newcastle a hundred times on the train. Well, quite a lot, anyway. And I love it. If I’m too buried in my book to notice that it’s time to look out at the Tyne bridges I feel cheated, short changed. So this week I decided to get off. You hear enough about Newcastle, I know it’s got coast and culture and bridges, and … a certain something. I was here once before, at the start of my Newcastle-Edinburgh cycle ride. I didn’t have time for sightseeing then.

I found myself a B and B in Whitley Bay, and started my Grand Tour with a walk out to St Mary’s Island and lighthouse, reachable at low tide by a short causeway. Fortunately, the tide was low. The wind cut icy slices off my breath.

Over the next two days I visited galleries, museums and bridges – including an extra riverside detour to see the Millennium bridge opening, tipping itself elegantly backwards over the river. I whizzed about by Metro, gaped at sculptures, grand buildings, cobbled streets and city walls and thought of Paul wandering this city and tried to remember what he wrote about being uplifted by it. I walked the seafront from Whitley Bay to Tynemouth and took a trip out to the Angel of the North, sat on its feet and marvelled at both how big and how small it was.

What a city! I can see why it’s been voted the country’s best. Or something like that. It gets my vote for sure. And no paragraph in praise of Newcastle would be complete without mentioning the people. They really are warm and friendly and open, they call you "Pet" and bizarrely this leaves you feeling rather chuffed.