Getting to Alnwick!

During our first weekend of free time we had a plan: going to Alnwick Castle to see where the first two Harry Pitter films we done. Our trip would be pretty simple. According to the Internet, we just had to take the train to Newcastle and then take the bus from the Berwick station to Alnwick.

So we landed in Newcastle with plenty of time to get from the train station to another station called Berwick-upon-Tweed. The only problem was that we couldn't find the station on any city maps. Finally we ended up at the local bus station and asked a worker where the Berwick National Express station was. He told us to take the city bus, and since we were being money conscious and thinking it was just at the other end of town, we said we would walk.

"Your going to WALK to Berwick!?!?" His face was priceless. What the Internet had left out and what we had not investigated fully was that the Berwick-upon-Tweed station was an hour and a half bus ride away. We definitely weren't walking. After getting some comedic directions to the national express station by said worker (they included some impressive dance moves), we made it to the National Express station, and in lime with our day so far, could not get a bus. Back to the train station we went, a little bummed we have to pay for another train ticket to get to Berwick, but we did and we were on our way.

Now that large amount of time we had to get to the bus station just got incredibly shortened. Arriving in Berwick we quickly got directions from a cabbie, and took off running through the town. After asking one more cabbie and a fellow passerby, we finally made it to a random bus stop in the middle of Berwick that the National Express stopped at.

Finally we made it to Alnwick. We had a great time there and this experience has become one of those moments of our trip that we laugh at. It is a bit disputed amongst the group but I personally count both Newcastle and Berwick as places we visited. We didn't go to any tourist attractions or stay there over night but we got lost and or ran through the towns, frequented several different public transportation centers, and we got to speak to several locals who helped us out. Many thanks for that!