Pons Aelius

Pons Aelius
Originally uploaded by samknox

When Hadrian commissioned his great wall in AD 122, he ordered six forts be built along its length, a castle every mile, and two watchtowers between each milecastle. With today's visit to the Castle Keep in Newcastle (from which the modern city gets its name), we have been to the site of five of the six forts. There is nothing left of the fort at Pons Aelius (the bridge of Aelius: Hadrian's family name), but there is a fun Norman keep. We climbed all the way to the roof up the scariest spiral stairs we've yet seen to some beautiful views on this beautiful day, our last here. The two modern bridges you see in the background are the main car and pedestrian routes, respectively, to the city of Gateshead across the River Tyne. The pedestrian bridge is an engineering marvel - it's a drawbridge that hinges at its abutments and swings vertically out of a passing ship's path.

We visited the Diamond pub one last time, and much to our delight the man in grey was still there, as was cask conditioned Black Sheep ale, our favorite on this trip. Having said our goodbyes to the beer barrels, we are now ready to travel for 30-some hours tomorrow. The only form of motorized trasport we won't use is a boat! We will post if time and brain allow. Thanks for reading this, and we look forward to showing you all of our pictures when we return.