Alnwick is a fairly ordinary market town but it does boast the Windsor of the North- Alnwick Castle.
Home of the Duke of Northumberland, younger visitors will know it better as the setting for the film Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
There's plenty to see and do, from the sumptious rooms in Italian Renaissance style to the dungeon and a museum of antiquities. The Regimental Museum of the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers is housed in the castle's Abbot's Tower.
The gardens are undergoing a huge transformation with a grand pavilion, cascading fountain and a garden of the senses which will take the best influences from the 18th and 19th centuries as well as the 21st.
