Walkable Walled Cities - Berwick on Tweed and Chester

In our travels in Europe we have come upon many thriving walled cities. Some have been scary, some have been empty, some have been busy - all have been very intriguing.

However Berwick on Tweed is in a class of it’s own. It has a wall surrounding the city which is large enough to be a grassy promenade! Beautiful, lush walk with the ocean on one side and the river estuary on the other... complete with Swans a swimming.

It originally was a major defense point and thriving city harbor. It took us a little over a couple of hours to walk around the city... and was a fun way to exit England to Scotland.

Chester is on the other side of England. We stopped here after completing our tour of Scotland. It is an amazingly-stately-refurbished city which I believe was restored during the Victorian age to resemble that of King Edward the somebody’s time period. The buildings have been painted white with black wooden trim... and I also believe Chester must have been the first covered mall in existence as all the shops on the two floors have roof coverings, keeping you dry in all types of weather.

The walkable wall around the city was over 3 miles long... there is a river on one side, a canal and a racecourse on two of the other. We were sad that there were no races during the time we were there.

On the walk around the city you also went through a clock. A gift to the Queen.

Chester also had been originally a Roman city and had one of the largest amphitheaters and baths in England. The coolest artifacts we saw was in a place called Spuds U Like - In their basement they had original stone work for the Roman Bath's free to see and touch to all those who wandered down their stairs.

Sitting in front of the store were two very funny men... turned out they were Welsh and as Wales was our next stop, they had plenty to say... Grand Fellows.