We passed the ‘Angel of the North’ as we walked towards Birtley.
Neighborhood 3: Birtley
Birtley is just south of where we are currently living, about 2.5 miles. We decided we'd walk there. There are quite a few ‘things’ in the town center, including several nice-looking pubs sprinkled along the way. There is a very large Morrisons (grocery store) with a cafe right in the center of town. Most town centers only have small grocery stores (ours has 2 small ones plus 2 veg/fruit stands).
There are some very nice residential areas as you come into town from the North.
West of town (down the hill) was not quite as nice.
On to Neighborhood 4: Benton and Longbenton
We took a bus and metro to Benton and walked around. Very nice residential areas….but very few ‘things’ to walk to unfortunately. You can walk to the metro and maybe 1 or 2 pubs but not much in the way of grocery stores and cafes, etc.
We walked towards South Gosforth (got on the metro here to go home), which has a few things but there's much more in Gosforth (expensive area). We didn't get all the way to Gosforth as we are really only looking at towns we can afford currently. We'll get there eventually….supposed to be quite nice.
Next neighborhoods: Wallsend and Heaton