Durham

Ah, the city of Durham. My paleography class went to Durham on a field trip to check out Durham cathedral archives now based out of the Durham University Library, where we got to play with some fourteenth and fifteenth century documents. Above is the view walking from the train station into town. The big building is the cathedral and to its left is Durham University, housed in Durham Castle. That's right, if you go to Durham U you can have your dorm room in a castle. How cool would that be? Anyhoo, as you can tell, they are both up on a hill way above town (because in the British Isles, 75% of things worth seeing involve a hike up a hill, although Durham isn't nearly as bad as some- here's looking at you, Maeve's Cairn in Ireland)

Lalala, walking through Durham, only slightly confused by the directions my professor provided (we were meeting at the library). I took an early train so I could check out the cathedral.

And now I'm walking across the bridge admiring the castle. This was in late February, hence the snow on the ground, but it had been pretty warm recently. And silly me, the snow was mostly melted in York, so I worm my purple converses. Poor footwear decision for Durham, where it was all kinds of snowy and icey. Now, to get up to the hill where the cathedral and castle are, you have two options. 1) You can take a long and meandering route through town or 2) you can cut down a flight of steps past an Italian restaurant down to the river and then walk along a steep path up the hill. I didn't know about option #1, so up the hill I went. And nearly died.

Ok, ok, so I'm exaggerating. But not by much. If the snow and ice weren't making the path virtually a solid sheet of slipperiness and if I was wearing shoes with any kind of traction, it probably wouldn't have been as bad. But as it was, I basically slid up the hill by pulling on the railing. And while I didn't _actually_ slide backwards down the hill, it certainly felt like I could!

But once you make it up....

Ta da! Durham Cathedral: final resting place for St Cuthbert (who I became tight with over my term paper in the fall) and the Venerable Bede (who you may remember from my adventures to Bede's World). Now, the cathedral is awesome and awe-inspiring and any other adjectives you'd like to use with "awe," but I can't prove it. They don't let you take pictures inside. Jerks. So that's really all I can show you. I had lunch at the cathedral refectory on the recommendation of the professor (along with most of the class!). We were told it was inexpensive. That was a lie. It cost me over 6 pounds for a baked potato with cheese and a small hot chocolate. Even with crazy UK food prices, that shouldn't have been more than 4.50. (Blogger hates the pound sign. I'm not sure why.) Anyway, the cathedral was really cool and I recommend a visit. Architecturally and artistically, I think the York Minster is more impressive, but York doesn't have Cuthbert and Bede.

And then there's the castle:

Entrance to the castle is strictly by guided tours (which aren't exactly cheap either.) I didn't get a chance to go on one, but I hear it is pretty cool to go check out. So that was Durham. In my next post, the Vikings attack :)