Newcastle is incredibly far away - you need to have a pressing reason to visit. In fact, it’s so far north that the oxygen is much thinner than it is in the south, requiring anyone travelling from Wiltshire to employ some form of breathing apparatus before becoming fully acclimatised. 
Our pressing reason to visit was the Great North Run - which my brother Matt and I had decided to sign up for in a fit of middle-aged anxiety. For Matt, it was also a return to the stomping grounds of his youth and for me an opportunity to politely nod along to a series of tedious reminiscences. Newcastle prides itself on its strong cultural identity and makes a point of doing things differently. It’s also in a different time zone - not hours behind, like New York - or decades, like Wales - but approximately five weeks ahead. In the six or so hours it took to drive up the spine of England from the sun dappled south, still bathed in a Summer glow, we stepped out of our car up to our ankles in fallen leaves - the sun slanting diagonally through the bare trees. We pitched up at our city centre Premier Inn and the first question demanded of us - before any talk of room keys or luggage - was “Where are youse lads off to tonight then?” Hard drinking, although not compulsory, is expected of you. And we were happy to oblige. 
So after checking into our room, half expecting to see Lenny Henry testing the pocket sprung mattress, we hit the toon. Newcastle city centre is brimming with amazing boozers - and has undergone somewhat of an evolution in recent years. Previously, you might have been assured a good kicking if you had ordered a half pint or been laughed at for wearing anything other than a t-shirt or attempting to order anything containing exotic avocado. But now there’s a whole range of different drinking establishments catering for a range of differing tastes. We started in the Crown Posada, an amazing traditional Victorian bar with the dimensions of a railway carriage, all dingy lighting, squashy sofas and stained glass. Next stop was the Red House, a pie and ale pub with a sort of flow-chart based menu where you choose your pie following these steps: 1) choose pie 2) choose type of mash accompaniment 3) peas (mushy, peas pudding or minted) 4) type of gravy. And to round off the evening a flying visit to Brew Dog - a Scottish craft beer company riding the crest of the hipster wave. There were many more pubs we needed to visit, but we had a date at an amazingly cheap pizza place in Jesmond, a 15 minute stroll out of the city centre. We walked past plenty of other pizza places on the way - but there is nowhere quite like Pizzeria Santana’s. Lasagne was £5.95… as was our amazing pizza and pretty much anything else on the menu. You couldn’t hope to buy a fistfull of dough balls for the same price down south - obviously he only took cash. 
Don’t get me wrong - we did actually take part in the Great North run - crossing over the finish line like a wide-screen version of Brownlee Brothers. We also went a did a bit of culture - mooching around the Baltic art gallery, staring at some amazing bridges and taking in the stunning Georgian architecture. But very quickly we had to go and find a decent ‘stottie’ for breakfast before thinking about where to go drinking the following night. I think I’m a little bit in love with Newcastle.
