Here we are ready to road trip on up to Scotland! We are so excited and YES my eyes are closed. I look like I should be on one of those horrible family photo websites in this picture. I also look like a dwarf next to my E-GINORMOUS 16 year old nephews.....oh well.
We stopped off at Alnwick Castle which is a lovely Castle and has been made famous most recently for the filming of the flying lessons in the 1st Harry Potter. Many people refer to this Castle as "the Harry Potter Castle." Ads thought that it was pretty cool. The family who owns the Castle still lives there at various points in the year so you get to see all of their furniture, decor, and taxidermied family pets.
Since it was the summer break from school they had archery at the Castle as well as flying lessons and medieval weaponry. They also had a dungeon type part to the Castle where they had a few severed heads. What good is a Castle without a little gore, right?
They hold the flying lessons in the exact spot they filmed them in the movie. Ads was a bit hesitant about joining in the fun at first, but quickly embraced her opportunity to fly. Liam on the other hand was prevented from beating people with his broom that he was riding and smashing backwards.
The have a little area where kids can dress up in costumes of the medieval period. Ads LOVED this.
Liam would only wear his costume a short while, but managed to find many other knights of King Arthurs court his same age whilst he was in costume. The kids really cracked me up as they attempted to slay the giant dragon.
After we had our fill of the Castle we went into the village to have some good food at the Black Swan Pub. I was thrilled to see that there was a Cafe' Rio in Alnwick......too bad it wasn't THE Cafe' Rio :) We had a great dinner of fish and chips and then headed back to our car before the car park to the Castle closed. We rushed out of the Pub so as to not get locked in the car park and managed to forget something......which 2 days later and hundreds of miles North was realised to be my camera. My FANCY camera. I cried as if I had lost a loved one. When we realised we had left it at the pub we were at The Castle home of the Queen Mother and John quickly exited and called the Black Swan. Bless their souls they had picked up our camera and said they would hold onto it for us and we could pick it up on our way back home. *sigh* What. A. Blessing. My faith in mankind was restored in that brief shining moment. For the rest of the trip to Scotland I had to depend on my iphone for pictures and was at the photographic mercy of the others I was travelling with.
