Heading Back South and Into a Hilton!!

 

Up this morning about 6 am and we were reassembled, packed up and ready to leave the freezing cold apartment by 7 am … which might give you some idea of how much we wanted to leave.  The benefit of leaving so early, though, was that we were able to make really, really good time!  We drove first up through Inverary – past the beautiful Castle of Inverary, and then headed toward Glasgow.  We actually made it to the suburbs of Glasgow by about 9:30, and had no problem at all getting through the city.  I had actually expected much more traffic, but we had thankfully no problems at all!  From there, we headed south to Carlisle, and suddenly, we were back in England!  Not sure if or how we missed the signage – because there was definitely “Welcome to Scotland” signs – but there were no “Welcome to England” signs at all, or we somehow missed them!  (I do have to admit that when I’m driving, I tend to pay very strict attention to the roads and don’t do very much looking around at things, but I would have thought that something like that would have been a bit more noticeable!)

 

At any rate, as we moved into early afternoon, the clouds rolled away and we had lots of blue sky and sunshine.  We stopped at a rest stop for a bathroom break, and I got out of the car without my heavy coat!  Incredible!!  Couldn’t believe it!  Just north of Carlisle, we turned east, to follow the basic course of Hadrian’s Wall, which runs all across the country from Carlisle to Newcastle.  Originally ordered built by the Roman Emperor Hadrian (117 – 138 AD) (my favorite emperor, as he loved to travel, and spent the majority of his reign traveling from one part of the Roman empire to another).  We’ve seen evidence of his travels from Turkey to Northern England and so many places in between.  

 

The Wall, though, has always been of special interest to both of us.  In fact, it was also a favorite place of my Mom’s!  She visited with us on several occasions – our favorite was a time we did some hiking along the wall – and we came to a field that had a stile where we had to climb from one field into another – and there was a painted board of a picture of a furious bull with the warning “Bull in Field” painted on it.  We weren’t sure what to do – but my thinking was, as long as I could out-run Mom, all would be well!  That didn’t make Mom any too happy, but we managed to pass through the field unscathed, and all was well – no bull, although there were many rabbit holes to trip in.  Fortunately, we none of us went down or twisted an ankle, and a good time and hike was had by all, but it always gave us a laugh to reminisce about it!  

 

Sunshine and blue sky!!

Our lovely hotel room!

Lots of bridges in Newcastle!

At the Launderette!

R's tomato soup

My burrata and tomato salad

My delicious chicken wings

R's steak and chips

We arrived at the Hilton Newcastle Gateshead about 1 pm.  It is smack dab in the center of town, and as it was definitely early for check-in, I wasn’t sure what they would do with us.  However, not to worry, as our room, 511 on the 5^th floor, facing the River Tyne, was ready and waiting for us!  Up we went to drop off our luggage, after first parking the car, in their truly cramped underground parking garage … UGH!  However, I’m thinking that at least for today, the car can remain parked, as my plan is to do the laundry, and thankfully, they have UBER here in Newcastle!  YEAH!!! 

 

Got settled in our lovely Executive Queen room – very comfortable, although R says it’s still too cold; the in-room heating won’t go above 70 degrees.  (We requested a space heater, which arrived immediately, and has done a wonderful job of taking the chill off!!). Then, gathered up the dirty clothes, contacted UBER, and in less than 3 minutes, Anthony (our driver) arrived to take us off to Bensham Launderette.  I had called first, to make sure they were open – and a nice gal answered and said they were up and operating and to come on down!  So, we did!  Found a nice clean launderette and in 22 minutes, our load of laundry was ready to hit the dryer.  Then, into the dryer and in about 45 more minutes, we were resupplied with clean clothes.  

 

When we got back to the hotel, we did the calculation of what the hotel would have charged for them to do the laundry.  The washing was £4.20; the drying was £4.  In total, with tips, the Uber rides there and back to the hotel probably totaled around £20, for a total of about £28 and change.  Calculating on the laundry list, at £5 a t-shirt, and £3 per pair of undies, and £2.50 per pair of socks, it would have been something like £88 to have the hotel do the washing.  Incredible…nope, not worth it!  Such a big difference from Egypt, that’s for sure!  

 

So, back to the hotel about 3:30 and settling in for a rest.  Our room at the hotel has such a wonderful view.  We’re looking out over the River Tyne and multiple bridges, including one that R calls a “swing bridge” – but I’ll let him describe things more fully, once he reviews the blog!  I think we’re probably going to go to the Executive Lounge here at the hotel for a drink and snacks and 6, and then possibly the hotel restaurant for dinner and an early night.  Again, about 6½ hours of driving, although through beautiful scenery.  Thinking we’ll probably “do” parts of Hadrian’s Wall tomorrow, although not sure exactly where we’ll start!  We have an entire free day, as we hadn’t planned on moving into this area until Saturday, so I’m also going to be investigating museums in the area as well!  Just so nice to be comfortable rather than frozen!!  

 

So, more later!  Much later!

m

xxx

 

Quick note on food!  We had glasses of wine/sparkling something or other, and then some lovely pakoras and hummus and pita bread at the really lovely Executive Lounge down the hall.  Then went downstairs to the hotel’s restaurant.  I had their burrata and tomato salad, followed by excellent chicken wings.  R had their tomato soup followed by steak; he loved both!  Too tired to write anything further!  Upstairs now and to bed!

Good night all!

m

xxx