Just In Alnwick Of Time

Day: 197

Towns / Cities Visited: 129

Countries Visited: 23

Steps Taken Today: 11,052

Steps Taken Around the World: 3,243,219

Our morning began, like so many before it, with an early start, a lengthy drive, and our eventual arrival at a castle. Today would see us basking in the world of Alnwick castle and its gardens. Now, much like how a large portion of Australian’s pronounce our country’s name without half of its letters, and thus dub it Straya; Alnwick is similarly, although confusingly to those out of the know, simply pronounced Anick. Regardless of its blatant disregard for several of its consonants, it has a full and rich history, which I will share with you when this story finally makes its way to the castle itself.

Firstly however, we directed ourselves to the site’s gardens which, despite the long history of the castle, were only constructed relatively recently. As you duck through the gate into this spectacularly landscaped place, you are faced with a rather stunning water feature which cascades down the hill in a rather curvaceous fashion. The trickling of water fills the air, and makes its way down the airy hedge covered arches that stretch out from it. It is a picture of peacefulness and wellbeing. With that being said, there was something more sinister here that we had come to visit. You see, given my fascination with chemistry and medicine, I had long since discovered that this unassuming place houses a rather impressive poison garden, and it was over to its forboding rough iron gates that we headed. Now, for obvious reasons, you are only allowed to enter this area under the sensible direction of a guide, and thus finding out that the next tour was to being in a quarter hour, we filled the interim by admiring the aforementioned water feature.

Finally, the time came to enter the garden, and, joining the small group that had gathered, we filed in through the gates with our umbrella wielding guide. To answer the immediate question here, no it was, rather uncharacteristically, not raining. So why the umbrella then? Well, a number of the plants in this…