Tour Bamburgh Castle on its dolerite crag, besieged for nine months in 1464 by the Earl of Warwick with heavy use of artillery, and restored by the industrialist William Armstrong

Walk the sands below the castle towards Seahouses

Find Grace Darling's grave and memorial at St Aidan's church

Look out to the Farne Islands and Longstone from the dunes

Bamburgh Castle stands on a dolerite crag of the Whin Sill above a long sandy beach backed by dunes, on the site of Din Guarie, the fort that may have been the capital of the kingdom of Bernicia and was taken by King Ida in 547. The village below has the church of St Aidan and the grave of Grace Darling, and the Farne Islands lie offshore.

Bamburgh: The Castle on the Whin Sill

Bamburgh and Holy Island

Nine nights from Hadrian's Wall to Berwick-upon-Tweed: Housesteads and Vindolanda, the dark skies at Kielder, Alnwick and Cragside, then the castle coast from Dunstanburgh and Bamburgh to the Farne Islands and Lindisfarne.

Northumberland: Hadrian's Wall and the Castle Coast

Take a boat trip from Seahouses to the Farne Islands and land on Inner Farne, where St Cuthbert lived as a hermit

Look for puffins, Arctic terns and guillemots on the islands' cliffs in the nesting season from April to July

See Longstone Lighthouse, from which Grace Darling and her father rowed out in 1838 to rescue survivors of the Forfarshire

Visit the Grace Darling Museum in Bamburgh, run by the RNLI

The Farne Islands lie off Seahouses. St Aidan came here in 651, and St Cuthbert lived as a hermit on Inner Farne, where he died in 687; the protection he gave the nesting eider ducks and seabirds in 676 is thought to be the earliest bird-protection law anywhere. Puffins, Arctic terns and guillemots nest on the islands from April to July. On the outer group stands the Longstone lighthouse, from which Grace Darling and her father rowed out in 1838 to rescue survivors of the Forfarshire; the RNLI's Grace Darling Museum is in Bamburgh.

The Farne Islands: Puffins and St Cuthbert's Island

Check the tide tables and cross the causeway to Holy Island, then visit Lindisfarne Priory, founded in AD 634 by St Aidan and raided by Vikings in 793

Tour Lindisfarne Castle, the 16th-century fort converted by Edwin Lutyens in 1901

Birdwatch at the Lindisfarne National Nature Reserve on the island's dunes and mudflats

Holy Island is reached across a tidal causeway. St Aidan founded Lindisfarne Priory here in AD 634, and Vikings raided it in 793. Lindisfarne Castle, a 16th-century fort, was converted by Edwin Lutyens in 1901, and the dunes and mudflats around the island are a national nature reserve.

Lindisfarne: The Priory, the Castle and the Causeway

Walk the coast path from Craster to Dunstanburgh Castle

Walk round the curtain wall and the twin-towered gatehouse

Buy kippers at Robson's smokehouse in Craster

In spring and summer, look for the kittiwakes nesting on the Gull Crag cliffs below the castle

Dunstanburgh is the largest castle in Northumberland by area and can only be reached on foot, a mile and a quarter along the coast from Craster, where Robson's smokehouse has been curing herring over oak smoke since 1856. The path runs under the crag with the ruined gatehouse towers ahead of you the whole way.

Craster and Dunstanburgh: Kippers and the Biggest Castle in Northumberland

Tour Alnwick Castle and the rooms of the Percy family

Go through the locked gates of the Poison Garden with a guide

Watch the water cascade at the Alnwick Garden

Alnwick Castle has been the home of the Percy family since 1309 and has stood in for Hogwarts on film. Beside it, the Duchess of Northumberland's garden opened in October 2001 around a great water cascade, and in February 2005 she added the Poison Garden, where the plants behind the locked gates can kill and the guides tell you not to smell anything. In the old railway station in the town, Barter Books is one of the largest second-hand bookshops in Britain.

Alnwick: The Castle, the Poison Garden and Barter Books

Walk the full circuit of the Elizabethan ramparts

See from outside the barracks of 1717–1721, attributed to Hawksmoor and among the earliest in Britain

Cross the Old Bridge and look at the Royal Border Bridge and the Royal Tweed Bridge

Follow the Lowry Trail round the spots he painted

Berwick changed hands between England and Scotland again and again, and Elizabeth I spent a fortune — one source puts it at £128,648, the most expensive undertaking of her reign — on ramparts in the new Italian style, designed to take artillery fire and to fire back. They are among the finest of their kind left in the country, and the barracks of 1717–1721 inside them, attributed to Nicholas Hawksmoor, are among Britain's earliest. Three bridges cross the Tweed side by side, and L.S. Lowry painted the town for years.

Berwick-upon-Tweed: Elizabethan Ramparts and Three Bridges

Climb through the Percy keep that towers over the village

Find out how Hotspur's rebellion ended at Shrewsbury in 1403

Work out why seven cannon shots were enough when Henry IV came north in 1405

Walk down to the river Coquet round the loop below the castle

Warkworth Castle stands in a loop of the River Coquet less than a mile from the North Sea. The Percys took it in the 14th century, and Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland, added the great keep that looms over the village. He helped put Henry IV on the throne; then he and his son Henry 'Hotspur' Percy fell out with the king and rebelled. After Hotspur was killed at Shrewsbury in 1403 the earl fled here, then submitted and was pardoned; when he rebelled again in 1405 and Henry IV came north, the defenders gave in, the king wrote, after seven shots from his cannon. English Heritage has cared for it since 1984.

Warkworth: Hotspur's Castle on the Coquet

Visit Durham Cathedral, begun in 1093 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986 with Durham Castle, and climb its tower

Stand at the shrine of St Cuthbert and Bede's tomb in the Galilee Chapel

Tour Durham Castle, the Norman castle of the 11th century that is now part of University College

Walk the River Wear beneath the cathedral, from Prebends Bridge

Durham Cathedral, begun in 1093, and the Norman castle beside it above the River Wear have been a World Heritage Site since 1986. The cathedral holds the shrine of St Cuthbert and, in the Galilee Chapel, the tomb of Bede, and its tower can be climbed; the castle is now part of University College. Prebends Bridge, on the river path below, was built for its view of the cathedral.

Durham: The Cathedral and the Castle on the Wear

Walk the Wall at Housesteads Roman Fort (Vercovicium), built around AD 124 on the Whin Sill crag, and find its well-preserved latrines, granaries and hospital, where the First Cohort of Tungrians garrisoned the fort from about AD 205

Visit Vindolanda just south of the Wall and see the Vindolanda tablets on loan from the British Museum, and the boxing gloves from around AD 120

Walk the stretch of Hadrian's Wall Path between Steel Rigg and Housesteads on the 84-mile National Trail, opened in 2003

Stop at Sycamore Gap, the dip in the Wall where the tree that stood there was felled in September 2023

The central stretch of Hadrian's Wall runs along the crags of the Whin Sill, and Housesteads, Vercovicium, built around AD 124, is the fort on top of it, with its latrines, granaries and hospital still laid out; from about AD 205 the First Cohort of Tungrians held it. Just south of the Wall, Vindolanda's museum shows a selection of the Vindolanda tablets on loan from the British Museum — more than 1,700 of these ink letters on wood have been found, and they were the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain — and a pair of boxing gloves from around AD 120. The Hadrian's Wall Path, a National Trail since 2003, runs along the crags past Sycamore Gap, where the famous tree was felled in September 2023.