Start of Hadrian's Wall

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood. This post is from Nicola


We're breaking ourselves in slowly to the challenge of walking 84 miles along Hadrian's Wall http://www.hadrians-wall.org/ by visiting the start (or the end) in Newcastle upon Tyne. You can get to Wallsend easily on the Metro (like the London tube) and that's where the surprises start: the signs are in Latin (see pic)!

I learnt Latin at school but really only remember the first lesson given by a grumpy teacher who resented telling us that:

"Latin is a language,
As dead as dead can be.
It killed the ancient Romans
And now it's killing me!"

But at Segedunum http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/ the Romans' life in the comforts of a fort is made very real. The bath house - with communal loos (lavatores) and an underfloor heating system (hypocaust) are there to see. You can also go up nine floors to an observation tower and see an overview of the Roman fort where the soldiers and their horses lived. The north side of the site is sliced through by a busy road but looking the other way you can see an original chunk of wall next to the cranes of the Swan Hunter shipyard.

Inside the museum there are loads of computer games including one where you make up a menu for a visiting Roman dignatories. Lola choose snails, then dove, followed by egg custard. I thought dormice, then suckling pig, then omelette with honey poured over the top might be more disgusting. But in the end Nell's choice of squid stuffed with calf brains made us say yuckus louder!

It just proves that school dinners aren't that bad.