We left York after a last breakfast at our hotel, and I couldn't help but wonder if any other point on our trip would charm me quite as much as the city had. To add a little touch to the bitterness, a ways out of York we dug in to the shortbread we were given with our room and discovered it was the best shortbread we had ever had. And it was far too late to turn around and find the bakery it had come from to get more, which trust me, we would have.
This day was designated for travel between York and Edinburgh, with a few stops to see some sights - most notably the amazing Hadrian's Wall. But first - Corbridge!
As we headed north to the border between England and Scotland the scenery became more and more rural. Little villages with perfect town squares - one pub, one church, and a collection of cottages -popped up at intervals. In short: we drove through paradise.
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| If you've ever wondered where all of your Canola oil comes from.... |
The visitor's center was pretty quiet, so we spent some time chatting with the one woman working there. She was super fun to talk to, even if all the directions she gave us for the best places to see the wall were useless. She also pointed out that they had some mead samples. Never ones to pass up free booze we were happy to partake. One of the bottles out for sampling was a traditional mead and was one of the best I've ever had. It tasted exactly like you would expect Christmas to taste. In fact, it was so good, we bought a bottle and brought it home. I don't have a picture of it, and as it's currently half empty on my bar I'll use this one from the English Heritage Shop website (www.english-heritageshop.org.uk).
The other one that was out was a ginger mead, which the woman working there described as "feeling like you've been kicked in the teeth by a donkey". I didn't partake of that one, but Adam did. After he regained his ability to speak we agreed to not purchase a bottle.
With our mead and useless directions in hand, we thanked our hostess and took a little time to meander through the visitor's center's small display of exhibits. At the very end there was a map showing the ancient Roman/Scottish border and the current towns of the area. Here's one of the worst pictures of me ever, but I was all excited to see Loudoun on the map, as it is the place for which my home county in Virginia was named.
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| I don't know why I'm making this stupid face. |
The site outside the visitor's center consists of the remains of Coria, a Roman town that went through quite a few iterations before it's eventual abandonment - and even then there's lots of evidence of the people who lived in the area afterwards using the structures and building materials for other uses. The main structures seen now are consistent with Coria having been a garrison town - a place where soldiers at the wall and beyond could come to pick up supplies, their pay, take a rest, stop in a temple. The buildings are remarkably easy to imagine in their full glory, and there's some truly cool stuff like the ruins of an ancient fountain that would probably run just fine if you put some water through it.
Picture time! Most of what you see in these pictures dates to about 163 AD. Which just blows my effing mind, I can't even tell you.
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| Standing on a two thousand year old Roman road, NBD. |
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| Where does a mansplainer get his water? From a well, actually.... |
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| Experts aren't sure what this room was used for, but as it is sunk into the ground with very thick walls and only one entrance/exit, it's thought to be a storehouse for weapons or gold. |
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| As the ground settled, many of the walls took on this undulating pattern, which I kind of love. |
Okay, maybe I got a little bored of the Roman ruins after a while. I started taking shots of other awesome sights in the surrounding hills. Like this. Which I don't know what it is or who it belongs to, but can I please be invited for dinner?
We knew once we left Corbridge there wouldn't be a lot of other options for lunch, so we stopped in to the Golden Lion, seen on the left in the picture below. Also seen in the picture below, irresistibly adorable Corbridge town center.
We ate a fairly typical pub lunch and were served by an absolutely adorable young woman with the richest Northumberland accent in the world. She asked me if I wanted chips or roast potatoes with my entree and I asked her what she would recommend. She screwed up her face in sincere deep thought and said "Proper chips, that way you can dip it in the gravy." At that point I do believe I died of an adorable overdose.
Lunch over, we were off again. However, it wasn't too long before we were seeing signs for Aydon Castle and figured "why not?" To access the site, you park a bit down the road, climb a stile, and take a little bit of a walk down a country lane. If it weren't for the sun and the bright blue sky, I'd say it was the Englishiest moment.
Aydon Castle stands on the site of an original timber building, of which nothing remains and nothing is known except it was there. The stone building was started in 1296 and variously updated, most notably in the 17th century, all the way through its last use as a lived-in space in 1966. The families which built it and subsequently lived in it were well-off farmers, merchants, and sheep, er, growers. Why would agricultural people need a fortress complete with curtain wall, you ask? Scots. Lots and lots of Scots. The Scots actually did manage to capture Aydon in both 1315 and 1346.
Picture time!
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| The outer wall as seen from the approach. |
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| Never did find out 100% what this was, but our guess was cold storage or ammunition storage. Either way it was cold and really slimy inside. |
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| Family marker and date over one of the more substantial mantelpieces inside the home. |
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| Atmospheric kitchen shot. |
Stupid confession time: I have absolutely no idea why it entertained me so much to find that the kitchen had built in cabinets with shelves. But it did. Medieval shelves!!
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| Up on the wall! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's your very own panda travel blogger!!
After Aydon, we continued up the road a bit, looking everywhere for a good place to stop to see Hadrian's Wall. Dating back to about 122 AD, the wall is considered the largest existing Roman Artifact and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. And if you want to know more about it, well Google is your friend.
I had known about Hadrian's Wall for a long time, and I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting. Maybe some crumbling stones you can use your imagination on to remember it was once a wall. Certainly Adam and I both thought we'd find a designated spot to go see what there was to see. But after driving around for a bit, we decided "Hey, this wall is about 84 miles long. If we just stop the car and meander, surely we'll find it." And that is what we did.
We saw a family walking through a field and decided they had the right idea. A bit down the road we saw what we assumed was their car and we parked behind it and got out. First things first, let me say it was windy. Like, finding it difficult to catch a breath windy. Like, your husband's favorite hat which was on your lap gets blown away when you open the car door and you don't even notice windy. (I'm so sorry honey.) But it wasn't cold, so it wasn't a horrible experience. Second thing, we climbed over the stile (lots of those in the UK) and realized why the Romans chose this place to build their wall. Contrary to popular belief, the wall does NOT divide England and Scotland. What it does (did) do, is protect the Roman settlements in the north of England from the wrath of the warrior Scots. When you look down and realize just how steeply the ground drops off just over the ridge, you realize that yep, this is great place for a defensive wall. It says something about the formidable nature of the ancient Scots that even though nature had provided an excellent vantage point, the Romans STILL felt it necessary to build a ditch in front of the wall.
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We encountered the family we had seen earlier as they were on their way back to their car. They confirmed that yes, if we kept walking this way we'd encounter the wall. We were advised by them that it was a bit of a walk onward, but well worth it. At least I think that's what they said - it was so windy I could hardly hear them.
Finally, there it was. The crumbling suggestion of a wall I had expected.
Wait no, that's not it. Here it is.
Not really crumbling much at all. And I didn't need my imagination to think of it as a wall, because, well, it's a wall! It's kind of unbelievable how much it's still standing.
We marveled, we posed for pictures, we walked and we contemplated. After a bit, we found ourselves at the end of this section of wall, which was divided by a narrow lane and (another) stile and continued on the other side. Adam offered to go back and get the car and pick me up in the lane and I agreed.
I sat on the stile and just took in the moment. As I was down off the ridge the wind wasn't blowing so hard. It was very quiet. I listened to some birds, hoped in vain that in my stillness and calmness I would spot a hedgehog, and thought about the remarkable fact that I was sitting alongside a two thousand year old wall that had borne witness to so very much history. It's hard for me to imagine a moment in my life when I felt more at peace than that one.
Even though no other cars had come or gone down the lane while I waited, as soon as Adam turned down to where I was another car followed right after him. He pulled up beside me, but I told him since the other car couldn't go around to just go down the end of the lane and come back up. He did so, but to my surprise the car behind him also pulled up to where I was and rolled down the window. I was half expecting to get chastised for blocking the lane or for loitering on the stile, but instead I was greeted with a hearty "You look like you've found the best seat in the county!" I agreed that I had, and that I might just stay there a while longer. "Well, all you're missing is a drink, I'd say." I said that was a great idea, and that my husband would be right back with a bottle of mead. "Alright, well we live just down the end of the lane. We'll come back with some gin and tonics!" I laughed, they laughed and drove on. They made my awesome moment monumental.
Adam told me that he had actually struggled to turn the car around because the lane seemed to go on and on without ever really widening. He pulled into a driveway to attempt a u-turn, but the same car I had just chatted with pulled up and told him if he continued on a hundred feet or so, he would find a wide spot to do a perfect turn around. He thanked them, and came to tell me of the awesome couple he'd just encountered and I told him of our lovely conversation as well.
I had to stop writing for a second there. Can you get homesick for a place that's never been your home? Can I have this day back, please?
Having seen the wall, the next thing on our to-do list was get ourselves to Scotland. Adam thought it would be prudent to find a gas station as he was under the impression the border was fairly sparse and he didn't want to risk running out of fuel on the way. The only problem was that the drive back into any kind of significant town took so long it actually ate up much of the fuel, and time, we had left. We finally found a station in Hexham, but it wasn't open on Sunday. A local shopkeeper directed us to a 24/7 station another 20 minutes away ("Oh yes, they've finally opened one just several months ago!") and we made it there just as the fuel light came on, and five minutes before the Starbucks across the street closed. (I am a Starbucks addict. Sue me.)
We were now fueled up, but worried about the time. The sun was going down and we were still in England.
Our B&B in Edinburgh had a strict 10pm deadline for checking in and we honestly didn't know if we'd make it.
We crossed into Scotland and came into Jedburgh. It was full of gas stations, I kid you not.
Jedburgh is also home to Ferniehirst Castle, the ancestral keep of the Kerr family. Adam is related to the Kerrs through his mother's side, and he had really hoped to lay eyes on the home. No sooner had he decided that it was just too late to even try to see the house (which isn't open to the public most of the time anyway) than we saw a sign for Ferniehirst. We both craned to see through the trees to at least spot a turret when we came around a corner and there it was. We had about ten full seconds to see it, but see it we did. It was dusk, so no pictures, but here's one from the Googles if you're interested.
Nothing eventful happened on the rest of the drive (except for a bird that tried to race a truck and lost with a *POOF*) and we made it to Edinburgh at 9:45. We found our B&B and as we were pulling in to park a man who we discovered was one of our hosts ran towards us from a house across the street yelling "I didn't think you would make it!" He was warm and welcoming and showed us into the house, which was lovely. We told him we were terribly hungry as we hadn't eaten since the stop in Corbridge. He told us most things were closed but we could find a kebab shop about a quarter mile's walk down the street. Um, yes please.
We made the walk and acquired the legendary doner kebab. If we'd known they were the size of a baby we would have ordered one and split it. We hauled our treasure (which for Adam also included a legendary Irn-Bru) back to our room, ate as much as we could, and fell sound asleep in minutes.
