We have never been to Newcastle and I always imagined it as a drab, coal-dusted working class town. Like most of England, it has had a severe make-over in the past decade. The town itself is slowly being re-done, cleaned up and pulled in to the 21st century without losing its historic past. Winding, steep streets spill down to the banks of the Tyne, where the waterfront has been re-furbished and is now an inviting place to stroll on a lazy Sunday (there is also one of the coolest pedestrian, draw-bridges that I have ever seen). The “New Castle”, originally built by William The Conqueror in 1080AD still sits watch over the river. I took the opportunity of our day-off and went wandering through the castle. It’s hard to get your head around a structure that was built almost 1000 years ago (even if just a little bit of the original structure remains). It must have been a miserable time to live, no matter how much money and power you had.