Embleton

The weather's taken a turn for the better today. We woke to a beautiful blue sky, lots of sunshine and a lot more pleasant temperature, even if it's a bit windier. Today we're moving on but first we are visiting Alnwick Castle and Gardens,

Not NT so it's going to cost, but not a bad price at £18,90 but having to pay an extra £3.50 car park charge was a bit steep.

The first thing you see when you enter the Gardens is the huge stepped fountain reaching up to the formal garden. The water display goes off at regular intervals and it's fun watching all the unsuspecting people getting sprayed with water when it starts up.

The gardens are symmetrical on both sides of the fountain steps with huge arched frameworks with trees and bushes trained to grow over them. There are smaller fountain displays dotted all around the gardens.

The Formal Garden is surrounded by high walls and so there are a lot of plants in flower here earlier than at home. The displays are intermingled with flowers and vegetables.

After this we were going to walk through the cherry blossom trees but this had all gone over so we went and found the 250 year old Sycamore tree instead, before walking back down the steps to the café.Read more