Visiting Durham Town

Would you like a piece of very good advice?
If you are going to visit somewhere then please check it out on line ....

We visited Durham this past weekend and did not have a Plan B!!!
We were going to visit the Trains as Shilden but were having a few hours to explore the City of Durham.
We met the coach at 05.00hrs - yes! there is a five o'clock in the morning - six of us waiting in the dark.  Our driver was James and he was nice and chirpy, early too so that set the scene for the whole trip.  We collected from around the country, as one does on a coach trip, and our last stop was Derby.  We pulled into the services five minutes later, but James explained that some of us had been travelling since five, and everyone was ok with that.

Narrow streets uphill & downhill

We then travelled on to Durham, James gave us full instructions before dropping us all off.  PJ and I were looking forward to a river cruise again, it took us some time to find the river dock mostly uphill and down.

While seeking the ferry boat we spotted these monks, apparently they are carrying St Cuthbert's coffin  ..... 

.... up to the Cathedral ..... 

So as we stood by the muddy river bank, looking around for the boat, we realised that the cruise was not open .... oops!

The Market Square

We walked back to the shops and had a cup of coffee while we tried to work out what to do.

The Market Square as we saw it.

The Castle and the Cathedral were out of the question as they were too high up the hill for me to climb.

We walked around the town, the market, the shops and then made our way back to the pick up point. (We found out later that we could've caught a minibus from the square to the Cathedral  ..... )

on those metal chairs, in the sun ....

On the way round we found a superb cafe and sat outside in the sunshine - basking....

All too soon it was time to leave and go to the hotel so we climbed aboard the coach and set off.
An hour or so later we reached our destination - Sunderland.  After our last visit - Bruce Springsteen Concert - we were a bit wary of the weather but we knew the people would be great.
The hotel was on the sea front and we hoped that we would have a sea view room but more about that later .....