UMW Abroad

I was so excited to visit Durham, England this past weekend. Such a lovely city! It’s about a three-hour drive from Edinburgh, but totally worth it. (Probably shorter by train.)

The flecks in this picture – yeah, that’s snow!

I visited Durham Cathedral, which was absolutely amazing! As both a history nerd and a Harry Potter fan, I loved the place. The history buff in me geeked out over the fact that I was, you know, strolling through a gorgeous Norman cathedral built in 1093. Two major historical figures, which I studied last semester, were buried in the cathedral – St. Cuthbert and Bede – so it was pretty cool to see those!

The door to the cathedral.

Left: Shrine of St. Cuthbert/St. Cuthbert’s Grave, Right: The Venerable Bede’s Tomb

The Harry Potter fan in me nerded out over the cloisters. This served as the courtyard at Hogwarts in the first two Harry Potter films! So not only did I get to visit a cathedral, I also got to visit the wizarding school of my childhood dreams.

This screen cap and the one above it show scenes from Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone which were filmed at the Durham cloisters.

While we were able to see the castle from the outside, my friends and I were not able to get tickets to tour the inside. Instead we strolled through the streets and shops in the city. Could not get over how cute this city was!

So yes, I would definitely recommend making a trip to Durham, perhaps for more than one day as there is a bunch of awesome stuff outside the city which would be great to see. (Escomb Church – look it up!)

P.S. On a completely irrelevant note – the sun is the weirdest thing here. When I arrived in Edinburgh it was completely dark by about 4:30. I would leave my last class (which ends at 5) and it would be dark out. I leave class now and the sun is still shining. There’s become about an hour difference in sunset time in only about three weeks. It’s so disorienting, I thought I was losing my mind. Apparently, by the time I leave Scotland in late May, the sun won’t set until about ten o’clock at night! (Thought this was interesting enough to put on the blog, but not enough so to get it’s own post, so I’m tacking it on here.)