For our first "3rd weekend" trip, we took a drive 2 hours North of us, to visit Alnwick Castle. You know it better as Hogwarts. The castle and grounds were used in some of the Harry Potter films. What was especially nice, was that we were quite impressed with lack of commercialism we saw. In fact, unless you knew it was Hogwarts before you came, you might not figure it out while you were there. We saw a few signs and stumbled across Hagrid (photo below) and while Dave and the kids were touring the castle I saw an outdoor short performance with Harry, Hagrid and Dumbledore, but that was it. And it was obvious why, the castle and grounds were amazing, no need for added commercialism to get people to visit. If you end up in the North of England, you have got to check it out. It is one of our favorite places we have gone to and if we were here for longer, I would definitely go back. Here are some highlights from our grand day out:
At the gardens they had these awesome tractors where you could drive up, get a load of water, and drive and deposit it somewhere else. Super cool.
This is one of my favorite shots of Phinn and I.
The gardens included a bamboo maze which the kids thought was the best thing EVER.
When we found the center of the maze, the kids decided it was time for a swordfight. Don't worry, nobody was harmed in the making of this picture.
Something we didn't expect to see was a poison garden. They let you in as small groups, with a guided tour and pretty close supervision. The plants were mostly illegal in the UK and other parts of the world and they had gotten special permission to have them. They only pointed out a few things, but you could have spent much longer being amazed. I kept a VERY close eye on the kids while we were in there.
As we walked from the gardens to the castle, this is what we saw. And the picture perfect blue sky was a special bonus all day.
A decent picture of me, thanks babe.
Dave and Phinn, you can't see Phinn's whole face, but he is so incredibly happy, I love it.
One of the special things for kids was the Dragon Quest. Enoch looked forward to it all day. They had costumes and a training area.
Hilde practicing the kill stroke.
Hagrid, as promised.
Quidditch anyone? This is where they filmed the scene where the kids learn to fly on their broomsticks. As soon as we got home we watched this scene with the kids and everyone was pointing and saying, we were right there!
Dave and Enoch fighting in the barbican.
The kids were too young to shoot arrows, but they let us take pictures of our aspiring archers with their bows.
A regular Robin Hood.
So how are we going to beat that? Well, we will do our best and you'll be the first to know what we find!
For all the pics, go to flikr.
