Tina & Rob’s excellent adventure

We (Rob, Tina and Lil Booger) took the ferry from Ijmuiden Holland to Newcastle England. The crossing over the North Sea took 17 hours, but there is plenty of lame entertainment in the lounges to keep you occupied! The seas were a bit rough, so the journey was 4 hours longer than usual. The photos show our departure from Ijmuiden, Rob enjoying a beverage, and arrival in Newcastle.

Newcastle used to be one of the largest cities in Britain, because of it’s coal and ship building industries. Now it’s Victorian architecture and river walk with art galleries and statue parks seem to be the draw. We enjoyed Newcastle and surrounding coastal towns. The eastern end of Hadrian’s Wall and remains of a Roman fort is in Wallsend (hence the name of the town). Hadrian, Emperor of Rome in the early 1st century built the wall to keep out the the Savage Scots. The wall extended coast to coast for 75 miles. Hadrian is also responsible for building the Parthenon in Rome.

We stayed in Whitley Bay, a coastal town that has seen better days, but in its time was quite the seaside destination. From the photos of the lighthouses that guard the coastline, you can see the seaside still has appeal.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 12:24 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.