Durham; Friday, 28 May, 2021

I’d stayed overnight at Newcastle airport and worked out of the hotel for the morning, before my half day’s leave kicked in just before midday. I checked out of the hotel, headed over to the metro and caught the train to Newcastle station.

I managed to time it just right and only had about 10 minutes wait until my train down to Durham left, so it was already available for boarding, but still quite empty. The train took the scenic route out of Newcastle, passing the castle and over the high level bridge with it’s stunning views of the bridges over the Tyne before looping back round to the mainline back south.

A quick 15 minute journey later and we pulled into Durham where I hopped out of the train, and straight into a cab for the ride down the steep hill into the city centre and then onto my hotel for the next three nights. Despite being early my room was already ready so I was able to checkin, drop my stuff off and then head out into town.

As I hadn’t had a chance to grab food on route I stopped off at the Nando’s down by the river for a quick lunch before heading on up into the oldest part of the city, past the market place and up the steep hill to Palace Green, the heart of the medieval city between the castle and the cathedral.

I had a bit of a wander around the Palace Green area, before heading out onto the riverside path that runs high above the water, just below the impressive towers of the cathedral. I followed the path down to the Prebends Bridge, located a little way north of the cathedral, and just after the major turn in the River Wear as it snakes its way round the rocky outcrop that the cathedral and castle are built upon.

Due to it’s location the view from Prebends Bridge are excellent, both of the cathedral and the gorge that the river runs through, as well as the man-made weir in the river that runs between the two former mill buildings. As I was watching from the bridge a number of rowing boats were out practicing on the river, making it all feel very English!

I walked back up into the centre of the old city and then down by the side of the Durham Museum to the Kingsgate bridge. The views from here down to the Elvet bridge are particularly pretty, with the medieval Elvet bridge helping to give an old world feel to the view. One of the nicest parts of the view from the Kingsgate bridge is that it doesn’t include being able to see the actual bridge structure, which is by some way the ugliest of all the bridges in Durham city centre – being a relatively modern concrete footbridge.

I followed the river back towards the centre of the modern city and crossed back over into the centre via the Elvet bridge before wandering back through the marketplace and down to the river on the opposite side of the loop to find a bar to have a quiet drink in.

After a relaxing drink I wandered back to the hotel to freshen up before popping back into town for a quick dinner getting back to the hotel just as dusk was starting to fall.