The Alnwick Garden Light Trail, England, Northumberland

 

 

We were lucky enough to be invited along The Alnwick Garden Winter Light Trail. The Winter Light Trail is an immersive experience of light and sound with different installations along the way. A perfect way to kick start the Christmas season! The weather in the North East of England has a reputation for having cold weather in the winter, and as expected being in England it was raining. However this did not put us off and wrapped up in as many layers as we could fit, complete with hat and gloves, we headed off for our Christmas experience.

 

 

Light trail tickets permit entry into Lilidorei and The Light Trail. You can visit Lilidorei at any point during the evening put it is really important to arrive at The Garden for the time slot of the Light Trail. As we had previously visited Lilidorei, we didn’t visit, but if you have a later time slot on the Light Trail, I think Lilidorei would be a great way to fill in time or keep children entertained until the Light TrailWhen we arrived, the entrance was quite busy with people who were waiting for their time slot, and the café looked extremely busy (maybe because of the rain!), so we decided to go straight to the start of the trail. At the start, the staff member on the gate checked our tickets and directed us where to go, and we were off! There are projections on the ground, that are cute and the path ways are lit up with Christmas Trees and fairy lights which are pretty.

 

 

 

As you start the Trail, you are greeted with a food truck area. There was a Hot Dog Truck, a Waffle truck, that also sold hot chocolates and other hot drinks, and there was also a Wine truck that sold alcoholic drinks such as Mulled wine. I must say, as it was so cold this area was a welcome surprise! After some thought, we settled on hot chocolates, perfect to warm up and look at the pretty lights!

 

 

 

 

There are many interesting installations along the way, including the windows that look like stain glass, that suddenly burst into life as an animation of Christmas characters play. The music is different in every area and it matches the vibe of each individual area.

 

 

 

 

It really does make you feel in a festive mood! The music is perfectly Christmas themed, and I was surprised to see that the usually dark maze, was illuminated by Christmas trees at every turn. The installation above the pond at the top was truly mesmerizing as it changed colours to the rhythm of the music.

 

 

 

There are many great photo zones set out along the way and I thought the gingerbread family and penguins were particularly cute!

 

 

 

Another great surprise was the Snow zone! You press a button, and it starts to snow! This was great fun and I really enjoyed this area as I thought it was clever to add snow to make it even more festive! The Poison Garden was also open! I wasn’t sure if we were able to go in without a guide and we hovered around the entrance deciding if we could go in or not. Then a staff member told us we could go in but with there being poisonous plants in there, we were warned to not touch, eat or disturb anything! I can confirm that we didn’t touch or eat anything in there and just looked at the lights and we survived ha ha

 

 

 

 

Finally, we came to the main event! The grand Cascade, we arrived and there was a count down of 50 seconds on the clock. We waited and when the count down reached its end, the Cascade burst into life with animations of Father Christmas and his reindeer at the bottom. At one point I had to question if the Father Christmas was real, as the animation was that good! It really was spectacular, with the lights that shone huge beams straight up, I am pretty sure they can be seen from a far!

The whole experience was really good even though it rained, we still enjoyed it despite the weather! I would recommend for anyone wanting to get into the Festive spirit but make sure you prepare for the weather.