Every vacation needs a bit of time away from the whole tourist thing. Today was that day.

We left Bristol early this morning and caught a series of trains to the little village of Haltwhistle. Haltwhistle is very close to Hadrian’s Wall, an ancient wall built by the Romans in AD 122 that crosses the entire country. This was my Must See sight of the trip. We’re going to be hiking it over the next couple of days and I guarantee pictures.

On a side note – we seem to have a lot of luck with leaving cities just in time to avoid problems. Cardiff played host to the Euro Football 2012 Qualifiers between England and Wales today. The game was played not too far from our hotel so the place would have been a madhouse. And in London, huge protests took place regarding government budget cuts. Estimates are 250,000 people showed up. This would not have been good for playing tourist.

More tomorrow. For now, it’s off to read a book or watch some football on the telly.