Today started with shadows from the sun illuminating our hotel room - a nice departure from yesterday's rain - then the shadows became sinister when Blue stepped into a vast puddle of congealed blood at the bus stop on Golden Square. Then there was human hair. Then a general feeling of uneasiness. Then we missed the bus to Bamburgh Castle (pronouced Bamburra).
That was all by 10:30 am! After an hour back at the hotel to figure out what went wrong on missing our bus, helping Blue get his equilibrium back, and replanning the day, we started anew.
The next bus was sheduled to leave at 2:30 so we had time to hit the "art" museum at the Berwick Barracks (pronounced Bearik Beariks). Most of the exhibition featured an eclectic mix of art collected by Burrell. In addition to the orginal Degas crayon sketch, the exhbit featured more of the Glasgow Boys, first introduced to us when we visited the Kelvingrove Museum in Glasgow several years ago.
We stopped in at the Tourist Center to hear a quirky rendition of Berwick Upon Tweed's history, plus enjoyed a cuppa and a scone and a chin wag with a group of volunteers. This helped erase some of the trauma from the morning! Then we caught the bus to Bamburgh Castle!
Bamburgh Castle is inhabitated and HUGE. Built on an extinct volcano core, this was the first castle to fall due to the use of gunpowder ammunition. Since our day was cut short, we did not go INTO the castle, rather, we hiked around it and then out onto the miles and miles long white sand beach that visually identifies this castle. We could see the holy island of Lindisfarne to the north, and the Farne Islands to the south with the nearly full moon overhead.
