ALONG THE HADRIAN'S WALL TRAIL, England -- About an hour outside of Newcastle Upon Tyne, the sleet started.

As we pulled on our ponchos, my hiking buddy and college roommate, Jim Everitt, and I looked at each other grim faced. What had we gotten ourselves into?

We need not have worried. The sleet lasted only about 15 minutes. While the sky remained overcast for the next few hours, we faced just a few more sprinkles during the first day of our seven-day hike across the north of England.

From Wallsend, known as Segedunum to the Romans, to Bowness-on-Solway -- the route of Hadrian's Wall -- is about 84 miles. The walking path mostly parallels topography chosen by Roman soldiers, who, starting in A.D. 122 built a wall across the northern border of what became England.

The Emperor Hadrian had ordered the wall's construction. Almost 1,900 years later, long sections of it remain, although much restored and much reduced in height.

Being immersed in that much history called up memories of my boyhood in Slatington, a small town in eastern Pennsylvania, and was one aspect that drew me to Northern England for this trip in May.

In the imagination of my 10-year-old buddies and me, a set of wide stone steps in front of one large house was turned into the Sheriff of Nottingham's castle. The dilapidated remains of an abandoned factory stood in for the Alamo. Perhaps once or twice, it also served as the backdrop for Roman gladiatorial games, during which we whacked each other with homemade wooden swords.

Now almost 50 years later, Jim and I were exploring the ruins of real castles and Roman forts. We were following much of the same route trod by Roman legions, looking out over a rural landscape that, in at least a few places, was little changed.

The east-west route passes through the centers of two major cities, Newcastle and Carlisle, and through dozens of villages, each one prettier than the last. Much of the route leads walkers through green pastures, occupied by curious horses, indifferent sheep and occasionally hostile cattle. Those fields, some farmed for two millennia, most often are separated by stone fences.

As a result, following Hadrian's Wall Path requires climbing the steps of a hundred stiles and passing through scores of triangular "kissing gates." Both ancient traffic-control devices are designed to allow pedestrians to walk between fields but keep animals from wandering off.

The presence of so much livestock makes it critical for walkers to keep a close eye on where they place their feet. Cow pies and sheep dung were as ubiquitous along much of the wall as goose droppings are in Allegheny County's North Park.

We made our hike in late May, and locals told us the weather could not have been better in northern England. While prevailing winds sweep in from the west all year round -- which meant we were always walking into a headwind -- skies were at least partially sunny six out of seven days. Spring flowers, including yellow gorse and buttercups, wild roses, bluebells and white cow parsley, lined much of the path. Cottage gardens were bright with late daffodils, tulips, lilacs and awnings of purple wisteria.

While there was little rain, the combination of morning temperatures in the high 40s and brisk winds meant we needed gloves, sweaters and stocking caps some days.

The wall was built across the narrowest portion of England, dividing Roman Britannia from the wild north country occupied by the ancestors of the modern-day Scots. Most historians agree that the wall was not designed to stop full-scale invasion, but to discourage raiding parties and control north-south trade and immigration.

Both at Wallsend, near the North Sea, and at Bowness, near the Irish Sea, the countryside is mostly flat. That makes for very easy walking.

Little evidence of the wall remains at either end. Its laboriously cut stones were hauled away centuries ago and reused in churches, castles and houses. In many places the only remaining indication of the wall's construction is the vallum, a wide ditch dug parallel to the wall.

The middle sections of the Hadrian's Wall Path, however, run for mile after mile across rolling hills. The more isolated the area, the more original stonework remains.

Originally six to 10 feet wide and as much as 18 feet high, Hadrian's Wall was one of the Roman Empire's greatest engineering feats. Along its length walkers can see the ruins of small temples, the foundations of observation turrets and the remains of multi-room "milecastles." Near or along the wall are the ruins of several large fortresses that housed Roman garrisons of as many as 1,000 soldiers.

Several of those fortresses are open to visitors. Our average pace of 12 miles a day gave us sufficient time to visit several of the best preserved, including Housesteads and Birdoswald.

And in a region where farm families live in cottages built centuries before the oldest structures in Pittsburgh, each mile along the Hadrian's Wall Path also offers looks at other eras of English history.

The remains of Lanercost Priory are about a half-mile south of the wall. Its construction dates to 1165, when Hadrian's Wall already had passed its 1,000th birthday. The priory -- home to a religious order -- began its descent into picturesque ruin in 1538, after Henry VIII ordered the dissolution of Roman Catholic monasteries. Only a portion of the complex has retained its roof and still is used as an Anglican parish church.

Just a few miles east, right on the route of the Roman wall, is Thirlwall Castle. Built in part with stone taken from Hadrian's Wall, Thirlwall survived as a fortified house until the 18th century.

The ruined building has a link to Richard III, the hunchbacked villain who, in Shakespeare's play, arranged the murder of his young nephews. Sir Percival Thirlwall, a supporter of King Richard, was killed along with his sovereign at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485.

For several tiring miles, the remains of the wall stretch across the tops of 100-foot-tall cliffs, or crags. The views from there, north to Scotland and south toward the Lake District, must have made the Roman soldiers -- and make modern-day visitors like us -- feel like kings of the world.

The unanswered question my buddy and I had when we began our walk was not whether we could walk 12 miles a day, but rather could we walk 12 miles a day every day for a week.

We could.

It wasn't easy, but the beautiful countryside, the good conversations with walkers from around the world and the 1,900 years of history surrounding us made it a hike worth taking.