Heading to Newcastle to see Hadrian's Wall

We woke up to a rainy, foggy day in Edinburgh.  Our plan was to walk to Calton Hill above Edinburgh to see the city from above.  Even with the rain and grey fog, we forged ahead.  We noticed that there were a lot of people out on the streets at 7:30am.  Today was a marathon in Edinburgh.  As we walked south on Princes Street, we could see that people were massing right in the path we wanted to take.  Time for Plan B.  No Calton Hill today, we bought train tickets for the ride to Newcastle and went to get breakfast.  Robert and I had scoped out a possible spot yesterday, asking what time they opened on Sunday.  We were told 8am.  Great!  When we arrived, the door was locked and no one was around.  Time for Plan C.  Breakfast in the pub.  We found Standing Orders just around the corner.  The building was fantastic.  This was an old bank building that had been restored.

We packed up and headed to the train station for the 11:05 train to Newcastle.  We were glad it had stopped raining.  One and a half hour train ride (with wi-fi) brought us to Newcastle.  The sun was shining as we took the metro to our hotel, the Oak Tree Lodge in Whitley Bay.  Dropped our bags and took the metro to Wallsend to visit Segedunum, a Roman fort.

Segedunum is the site of a Roman fort that has been archaeologically excavated.  There is a small museum and some pieces of the wall.  This was our first glimpse of the wall!  This is the start of our walk!  We spent about an hour there.  Originally, we were to begin at Segedunum tomorrow morning before beginning our day, but the museum opens at 10am.  We hope to get an earlier start tomorrow by seeing the museum today.

The metro station near the fort has signs in both English and Latin.

Our hostess at the Oak Tree Lodge had suggested that we explore Tynemouth on our way back to the hotel.  We got off the metro there and just missed a huge antiques show that had been held at the train station that day!  We walked to the sea, then walked along the sea back to our hotel (about 3 miles).  It was mostly sunny, but got cloudy.  We saw a rainbow and considered it a good omen for our trip!

Back to the hotel, then we walked around the corner to eat at Kismet.  Steve Saunders, our friend who first told us about taking this trip, bills this restaurant as "the best Indian food in the world."  We were all hungry (did you notice no lunch?).  We figured that the place must be pretty good because there are Indian restaurants EVERYWHERE you look here.  To stay in business with competition like this, the food must be outstanding.  In the block where the Kismet is located, there are four restaurants.  Three are Indian.

On Sunday, there is a special six course meal.  We all ordered and waited expectantly.  The food came quickly and was quite good.  As we sat there, the restaurant filled up with customers.  Literally, no open tables.  And the "take-away" orders kept coming in too.  The 4-5 people who worked there were swamped!  We finished our meal, but still had ice cream coming.  We waited and waited and waited--for an hour.  We enjoyed talking to each other, but were all getting sleepy!  Finally we asked for the ice cream (waited another 10 minutes) and it came.  We asked for the bill shortly afterward and left three hours after we arrived.

Robert and Dave walked to look at the sea (one block away) and we are all headed to bed.  Big day tomorrow!