Durham Cathedral
Following Alnwich, we drove further down in England to Durham. Alex had been accepted to Durham University in 2012 but opted to attend St Andrews instead. We parked our car near the river and then trudged our way uphill towards the University. Our first stop was at the World Heritage Center to purchase tickets to tour Durham Castle. After that, we walked over to the Durham Cathedral. The Romanesque cathedral was started in 1093 and completed in 1133. The Cathedral is technically known as The Cathedral Church of Christ, Blessed Mary the Virgin and St Cuthbert of Durham. St Cuthbert is the patron saint of northern England and is regarded as one of the most important medieval saints of England. The shrine to St Cuthbert was destroyed on the orders of Henry VIII in 1538 but his body remains entombed in the Cathedral. The Cathedral was used as a prison by Cromwell in the 1650s where much of the original woodwork was destroyed. The Cathedral provided interior and exterior views for the first two Harry Potter movies. While we were visiting, a student orchestra was practicing in the main cathedral so we sat and listened to their performance before walking around the beautiful structure.
Lego Cathedral
Starting in 2013, volunteers had begun building a replica of the Cathedral using Lego bricks. When completed in late July 2016, the model will consist of over 300,000 bricks and measure 3.84 meters long, 1.5 meters wide and 1.7 meters high.
Durham Castle
Our afternoon tour of Durham Castle, part of University College was about to begin so we walked over to the castle. The Norman castle is part of Durham University and is home to over 100 students and was the home of the Bishops of Durham from the 11th Century until 1837, when it was donated to Durham University. The Bishop of Durham is still the fourth most signifcant in the Church of England hierarchy and in Norman times, the Bishop had both military and religous power over Durham. Our tour guide was a graduating student who started the same year as Alex would have (2012).
Durham
Since it had been awhile since we had eaten, we went looking for food and settled on Bella Italia, a restaurant Alex had eaten at in St Andrews before they closed. We perhaps understood why after dealing with very slow service and bland food. Rebecca liked the heart shape of her raviolis but she said they had an odd taste, which Janie agreed with. But it was food and it filled our stomachs, so we started our walk back to our car for the drive back to Edinburgh.
Borders
We traveled back to Edinburgh via the Northumberland National Park which meant more fun for Janie on backroads with roundabouts and bicyclists. We stopped at the English-Scottish border to take some photos, then drove back to the Edinburgh Capital Hotel for the night.
