All direct flights from Newcastle airport

Destination Summary

Newcastle is the largest city in the North East: a place with a fiercely proud industrial heritage, sporting tradition, and a notoriously - how shall we put this delicately? - lively nightlife. Geordies have a reputation for working hard - and playing even harder. A night out in Newcastle's infamous Bigg Market is not forgotten easily; just ask the creators of the adult comic Viz, some of whose creations bear marked resemblances to the sights one might witness on a Saturday night.

One of Newcastle's great trump cards is a cheap and efficient Metro system, which links disparate parts of the city with far greater ease than the London Underground. So it's easy to get around from, say, a day trip to Beamish, the working history museum, to a weekend in Gateshead, whose Baltic Centre and Quays development mark it as yet another part of the current Tyneside renaissance.

The river Tyne hosts two of the city's most prominent monuments. The Gateshead Millennium Bridge is an impressive recent addition to the local skyline, but inevitably pales beside the Tyne Bridge itself, constructed by the same company which built the Sydney Harbour Bridge and a stunning sight at night when viewed from the Quayside.

Culturally, Newcastle can offer the Theatre Royal, a third home for the Royal Shakespeare Company after Stratford and London. But the city's real theatre plays out at St James' Park (woops, we mean the Sports Direct Arena), home to Newcastle United, where passionate crowds have cheered a roll-call of football legends since 1892.