UK - North East England
Alnwick
Alnwick is one of those Northumberland towns that has somehow kept its character, despite every modern temptation to replace it with glass boxes and identical coffee shops.
The castle sits grandly above it all, looking exactly as a proper castle should: vast, slightly intimidating, and far too good for the weather it has to put up with.
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Durham
Durham is the sort of place that reminds you Britain used to know how to build things. It rises up from the River Wear in great swathes of dark stone, with the cathedral and castle perched above the city like they have been keeping an eye on the population for the last nine hundred years.
And quite right too.
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Hexham
Hexham is a handsome old market town in Northumberland that has thankfully avoided being polished into something unrecognisable.
It has solid stone buildings, a proper market place, hills just steep enough to make you notice them, and the sort of peaceful, lived-in atmosphere that makes you wonder why anyone is in such a rush to get elsewhere.
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Newcastle
Newcastle upon Tyne is a city with real character, which is more than can be said for plenty of places that have spent the last twenty years putting the word “vibrant” on every available sign.
It is proud, lively, handsome in places, rough around the edges in others, and all the better for it.
The River Tyne runs through its heart, crossed by a collection of bridges so good that most cities would make a great song and dance about just one of them.
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