A friend, who relocated to the North East from London many years before me, recently told me that one of the moments that really sold Newcastle to her was when she spotted her first Metro displaying its destination as “The Coast”.
And what a selling point it is.
The sun shone today and being true Brits we hurried to put on our shorts and skipped out to catch the Metro to The Coast.
We decided to spend the day taking our time and enjoying the sunshine so got off at Whitley Bay and had a gorgeous stroll to Tynemouth.
Our route along the sea front took us through Cullercoats, a gorgeous “blink and you’ll miss it” stretch of coast housing the most amazing ice-cream parlour I’ve seen in a long time, “Beaches and Cream”. I enjoyed a banana and ginger ice-cream in a sugar cone and it was just delicious. We will definitely be returning as inside looked lovely and I spotted a few people enjoying afternoon teas (one track mind!).
A little further up the coast and we hit Tynemouth where we had a very enjoyable hour strolling on the beach admiring people’s dogs and watching people dash about in the sand. I also couldn’t resist picking up a few shells on the way. What is it about being on a beach that makes you revert to being a child?
For lunch there was only one stop, Marshalls for fish and chips. As usual for a sunny seaside day the queue was out of the door so after a little while of waiting our hungry tummies got the better of us and we ended up eating inside and ordering extra bread and butter and baked beans to go with our lunches.
Tynemouth Village is such a charming little place I spotted quite a few places that I would like to try in the future and it’s definitely becoming one of my favourite places to visit. There are cute little gift shops and boutiques, lovely looking restaurants and plenty of tea rooms and cake shops that got our mouths watering despite the big lunch. Tynemouth Metro Station is also home to a really fun looking flea market every weekend and after a very quick stroll round before getting the Metro home I’ve decided that it’ll probably be worth a trip of its own.
