Life's going to be a beach in Gateshead and Newcastle, and it's all for free

There isn't a better place in the world for bridges than Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead; the sheer variety and concentration of them has no equal.

So it's good to see that the weekend of 13 and 14 August marks a new – and free – festival based on all 11 crossings, from the magnificent High Level of 1849 to the 'winking' Millennium Bridge and the most recent of all, the twin arch crossing of the side stream, the Lemington Gut.

Frolics include the planting of a garden based on Lord Armstrong's Cragside estate on the Swing Bridge, one of the most characterful of them all. It is painted with a special heat-reflecting pigment which stops the metal swelling on warm summer days and jamming the mechanism. In former times, the fire brigade had to come and soak it until things contracted enough to release the cogs and allow big ships through.

Not beautiful maybe, but Gateshead's car park had a presence all of its own.

The festival continues the growing and sensible embrace of Newcastle and Gateshead which has been helped by the latter's brilliance at commissioning iconic work. Although the battle to save the brutalist Get Carter car park was sadly lost, it was Gateshead which brought us the Millennium bridge, the Baltic gallery, the Sage concert hall and the Angel of the North.

Events include a nautical photo booth, recreating Geordie navigation all over the world, and a 'temporary tattoo' parlour run by an alarming-sounding lass called Inky Jenny. Fireworks engulf the city centre bridges on the night of Saturday, 13 August, 100 model boats take part in a miniature Tyne regatta and 5000 yellow plastic ducks in a river race (not at the same time).

There's also going to be a temporary restaurant whose menu changes every half-hour as the Tyne tide ebbs and flows. And most memorable of all, an 800 square metre sandy beach on the Quayside, complete with palm trees, volleyball and buckets and spades for sandcastles.