On Saturday Jen and I went to Durham. We were only intending to see the cathedral and take a look at the castle but we happened to visit during the town's Christmas Festival. There was a big tent put up on the grass in front of the cathedral and inside there were loads of local craftspeople selling their creations. There were fudge stalls, knitting stalls, glass jewellery stalls and celtic art stalls. I bought some fudge :-)

   Down in the main town there were

Durham Town Hall

more stalls and it had a real Christmas feeling to me. In what I think was the town hall they had put the more elaborate (and expensive) arts. Some really good paintings, a few fairy costumes and a number of glassware/pottery things. It was a pretty decent town hall as well, with olde Englishe writing around the walls commemorating the important locals. If I remember to do so I will look the place up in the Lonely Planet to make sure it gets a good mention.

   Someone here had hit upon the brilliant, but possibly dangerous, idea of serving hot chocolate in the streets, enriched with Baileys or brandy.

Durham Chocolate

We walked along the river there and past the university boat sheds. Despite it being a really cold day there was a team out rowing. I would guess they were tourists because they were doing pretty badly. We didn't actually go into the cathedral after all and I have since been told it is a well known gothic master piece. Maybe I will go back there some day and check it out.