North East England runs from the Tees to the Scottish border, and from the North Sea up into the Pennines. It is the least visited corner of England, which surprises most people who come, because it has some of the country's best sights: the most dramatic stretch of Hadrian's Wall, a coast lined with castles, two of the great early Christian sites of Europe, and Durham cathedral on its rock above the Wear.
Newcastle is the regional capital and the best base: a handsome Victorian centre, the bridges over the Tyne, a famous night out, and the Metro out to the seaside at Tynemouth and Whitley Bay. Across the river mouth, South Shields has a rebuilt Roman fort and the cliffs of Marsden Bay. Sunderland has the National Glass Centre and Souter Lighthouse on the coast, and Hartlepool has its historic quay and HMS Trincomalee. Further south on the Tees are Darlington, where the modern railway began in 1825, industrial Middlesbrough, and the Victorian resort of Saltburn.
The Northumberland coast is the reason many people come, and it rewards a few days. Castles stand on almost every headland, from Warkworth and the market town of Alnwick to Bamburgh, with fishing villages like Amble, Craster and Seahouses between them, and offshore are the puffins and seals of the Farne Islands and the tidal Holy Island of Lindisfarne. At the top of the coast, Berwick-upon-Tweed still has its Elizabethan walls. See the Northumberland Coast for the whole stretch.
Inland the country empties out. Hexham and Corbridge in the Tyne Valley are the bases for the wall, and Morpeth is the county town. Northumberland National Park and the Cheviot Hills, reached from Wooler and Rothbury, are the least visited national park in England, and Kielder has a huge reservoir in a huge forest under some of the darkest skies in Europe. To the south-west the North Pennines have high moors and the waterfall of High Force, reached from Barnard Castle. Bishop Auckland, the old seat of the Prince Bishops, has a castle and a cluster of new museums. Up by the border, Ford and Etal are two estate villages near the battlefield of Flodden. West of Newcastle, Consett sits on the edge of the moors at the top of the old railway paths.
The region was an engine of the Industrial Revolution: coal, shipbuilding and the first railways. George Stephenson was born at Wylam, and Joseph Swan lit his house in Gateshead with electric light before Edison. The mines and yards have closed, but museums like Beamish, the Discovery Museum and the Washington F Pit keep that history.
