Grand Tour of Great Britain: Durham

We get a bit of a sleep-in on Thursday October, 12. Bags need to be in the Sandman Lobby for 8 a.m. and we need to be on the bus at 9 a.m.. We're moving on to York after we stop in Durham and South Kilvington.

We take one last look out of our hotel window, hit the breakfast buffet and hop on the coach.

Heading out of Newcastle we pass the prototype for the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

We travel into County Durham-George Washington's father was born here-did you know that?

We meet up with Kate, who will be our local guide around Durham, at the car park. We walk with her as she explains some of Durham's history. The city lies on the River Wear, to the west of Sunderland, south of Newcastle upon Tyne and to the north of Darlington. Founded over the final resting place of St Cuthbert, its Norman cathedral became a center of pilgrimage in medieval England. The cathedral and adjacent 11th-century castle were designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986. The castle has been the home of Durham University since 1832.

The statue of Charles William Vane watches over the square.

As we make our way up to the Durham Cathedral, we pass many funky shops.

The Durham Catherdal is also the shine to St. Cuthbert. The bell tower is under restoration.

The ancient cloisters doubled as a film location for Hogwarts in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone back in 2001. Against a snowy backdrop, the cloisters became the snow-covered quadrangle where Harry magically releases Hedwig the owl from his hands.

 After a yummy lunch of cheese and pickle sandwich and a pot of earl grey tea at the Cafe on The Green, we take a walk along the River Wear, killing some time until our Durham Castle Tour at 1:15 p.m.

Durham Castle is home to Durham University. We're on the 1:15 tour. The buildings are home to the students of Durham University so no photography is allowed inside.

I cannot even imagine going to school and being able to live is a place like this. How cool would that be? As we leave our castle tour, we walk back to the car park with Nick, our Go Ahead Tour Guide and talk music.

Moving on, we stop for afternoon tea-read beers! in South Kilvington.

We walk around a bit looking for a good pub, and finally end up at The Three Tuns.

And we're in luck, it's Real-Ale Festival 2017 so there are a huge variety of beers to sample. We test the Oatmeal Porter-delicious. We're back to the car park with time to spare so we stroll along the canal to visit with the ducks.

On the coach, we pull into York around 5 p.m.

We check into the Hotel 53 room 303, dump our luggage and head off to Brew York to sample their brews. The Viking DNA was superb!

I do believe I've found some farkeling sticks (I've have to confirm this with our Tour Guide Nick)

Brew York only has bar snacks so we hunt for some food and end up at The Red Lion on Merchant Gate. We both had the bacon and brie sandwich. I had a MacCallan and Jay had a Guinness. It was really good pub fare and not that expensive.

Back to the hotel and we run into a professor that Jay applied to do research with back in the late 80s-small world!

Not sure what's in store for us on Friday the 13th...but

Lots more photos: Durham

Grand Tour of Great Britain with Go Ahead Tours