| WHY GO |
Newcastle may have been a favourite for the title of European City of Culture 2008, but the culture here is more earthy Chaucer and Brueghel than refined Poussin and Schubert. Like its inhabitants, the city lives hard and bounces back because over the centuries it has had to learn how. The 'new castle' to which the city owes its origins and its name was built by Henry II in the second half of the 12th century. The first recorded ship built on the Tyne was a galley made for Edward I. By the 1950s, the shipyards along the river were producing more vessels per year than the entire USA and Newcastle was the biggest coal-exporting port on the planet. Half a century later there are no coal mines and no shipbuilding, and yet- with its vibrant nightlife, cool bars and world-class restaurants - Newcastle is a boomtown.
Writing in the 1950s, the historian Arthur Mee said that Newcastle is 'a city that should be admired not for its appearance but its achievements'. You can check those off, from the bridges and the shipyards to the fact that the reading room at the Literary and Philosophical Society was the first public room in the world to be lit by electric light. The city is brimming with confidence. And with its spectacular bridges, edgy galleries and packed streets, it has every reason to be. |
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