I went to Durham city for a Developmental Psychology meeting at the University last week. :) It was nice to get out of Sheffield for a bit. I was strangely excited about going somewhere new even though it was just for a day. Perhaps I have been so 'out and about' the past year that I felt a bit odd staying put in Sheffield and just going to the Department day after day after day since I got back in Oct 2008. It was also more or less going between the lab and my house during my last few months in San Diego, but there were still a lot of places nearby which I have not explored or things I have not done before. So, doing a day trip to Durham after 2.5 months the same weekly routine was a refreshing change of scene.
Durham city centre is quite easily navigable and it only takes about 30mins to get from one end to the other. On reaching Durham at 9.20am in the morning, I took a stroll from the rail way station to the meeting venue and took some pictures along the way.
Look at the nice river view. I was very tempted to take the 'river path' to the University that on my not very high resolution Durham city map looked like a decent way to get to the meeting venue. I thought I asked a passer-by just to check that it was a feasible plan, haha and she advised me against it. :p Probably not an adventure to go on when I had to get to the meeting for 10am.
I do vaguely remember The Straits Times in Singapore suggesting that Durham city is one of the best tourist attractions in the UK. I could not remember what is was famous for. Durham castle and cathedral is the top MUST-DO on the Durham tourism website, so in the little 2.5 hours after the meeting, before my train back to Sheffield I wandered down to Palace green and managed to catch the last tour of the day (at 4pm) for Durham castle.
The castle was amazing. I could not take photos inside the building itself so the above shots are the best I could do. The castle was first buillt about 700-800 years ago. It still a working castle as it is one of the colleges of the university. It houses hundreds of university students, and serves hundreds of meals from its ancient kitchens everyday. Lotsa stories about the different rooms, slanted staircases, double doors for bed rooms, which I won't go into them now.
Durham castle is right opposite Durham castle. This is a night shot of it. :)
This door knocker is for people who want to seek refuge in the cathedral. The cathedral will not refuse anyone who needs shelter, but the person has 37 days to prepare to stand trial or sort himself out or something. :p
haha ok lah I lost steam writing this post. Hungry. Going to cook dinner. Till next time...
Look at the amount of snow!
Look at the amount of snow!
The little snow man
