We set off on our tour this morning with a very thick haze in the air. We had a bit of driving to get to the our first stop at the Holy Island, and it was unfortunate that we were unable to see for most of the hour and a half drive. The bus driver did his best to make light of the weather saying because of it we were getting a more "authentic experience".

The holy Island is accessible by a lone road. During high tide the roadway is completely covered by water, stranding anyone who was running a little late on their return journey. In the mist we were unable to see the sea in the distance, however our guide assured us it was out there somewhere.

We had an hour to explore the island on our own before we needed to leave for our next stop. We used this time by wandering around the island, taking a walk along the beach to see the outside of a castle (no matter how close we got we never saw it due to the mist), and then walking through the little town. I believe the guide said that less then 200 people live on the island, so it is a very small town indeed.

Next up: Northumberland and the Alnwick Castle. First off Alnwick is not pronounced as you would expect (a bit of a shocker/sightly embarrassing moment for me for sure). It's pronounced more like "ann-ick". There now you can pronounce it properly for your trip :D

The Alnwick Castle has been in the Percy family for the last 700 years and more recently been used to film a few movies and TV shows. The most important of which (at least to our party of 2) is Harry Potter. Now, you might be thinking "What a nice thing to plan for Amanda knowing that she loves Harry Potter"... And it would have been very nice indeed ... ... Had I known this in advance. Oh yes, this ended up being a very nice surprise indeed for both of us.

We walked through the staterooms that are ornate enough that I am comfortable drawing a comparison with the rooms in the Palace of Versailles. The scale is a bit different, Versailles definitely has many many more rooms... But the dining room was so very intracate that you could spend hours looking at just the ceiling (nevermind all of the artwork on the walls).

We then took a film tour of the castle. Here we followed a guide who showed us where various films had been shot. Most of this was dominated by Harry Potter much to Amanda's delight, as the guide relayed lines from the movie in the location they were filmed.

We noticed there was a broom flying class going on for the children (and a few adults). We found out that this was the exact location where Harry and co. learned how to ride broomsticks for the first time. We also were shown the field where the quidditch arena was built (CGI). It was interesting to see and hear a little more about the behind the scenes stories of each location.

I'm obviously condensing things down quite a bit for each of these posts, but we ended up spending about 3 hours in the castle before heading back home. While the journey in was plagued with no views due to the mist, the return journey made up for it.

Despite the fact that a lot of our pictures are in museums or castles or cities, we actually are spending a decent amount of time out in the country as well. Granted, much of that is spent either in a bus or train so we don't bother taking many pictures through the window... But we get a lot of opportunity to just sit there and watch the beautiful landscape go by. It's one of those things that is difficult to capture with a smart phone camera, but is more truly understood in person.

Scotland seems a bit different than Ireland. For instance there are a lot of trees here, whereas we really only saw small tree farms in Ireland. As a result you get a bit of a different scenery with large rolling hills. That paired with the large yellow rapeseed fields really makes for a nice way to pass the time.

The bus stopped and gave everyone the opportunity to walk across the border from England back to Scotland (btw, the holy Island and Alnwick Castle are in Northern England). It was a bit silly walking across a single bridge with the bus within sight, but we did it anyway :)

Oh I nearly forgot... At Alnwick I find a bottle of Mead made on the Holy Island. Having never tried it before, I decided this was something I needed in my life. We drank the Mead while waiting for our bus. It was dangerously easy to drink (14.5%), perhaps this explains why the scenery on the way back was so beautiful...