Dates: 20 – 22 November 2015
Modes of Travel: A Mini and a Qashqui
Cast of Characters: Dan, Bruce, Carol & Iain
Hotel: Travelodge
We planned this trip after our move to Scotland as one of our “We are still gonna see each other no matter how far apart we are” trips together.
As I was in London finishing up work for the third time I drove up with Iain and Carol and we met Bruce there.
It was an interesting car ride up for the three of us. First we left late because of me and hit all of the traffic you could possibly hit between London and Durham. The drive up was also filled with car trip fun like an exploding Lucozade up front, a services with very little open at 7pm, a pair of jeans and underwear ripping at the crotch as I got back into the car, road works causing a 1 hour diversion that was not signposted and when we arrived 3 hours later then we expected nothing was open for dinner so we called it a night.
Whilst we were enjoying our drive up, Bruce was chilling next door at Sambuca enjoying wine and food and texting us regular updates. Which was gaining him many points with all of us in the car.
We got up the next day to a very light covering of snow but a very nice temperature. We headed to town and our first stop, after breakfast from Cooplands bakery (where the boys had bacon rolls that had super crunchy bacon and even though she warned us it was crunchy none of us expected it to be that crunchy) , was Durham Cathedral.
The Cathedral was a really nice visit and if you are in the area you should pop in. It has some really nice stained glass (including one section that tells a story) and has areas that tell the story of Durham. There is a an open court yard area with some art work and a café and visitors centre with a replica of the cathedral being built in Lego.
After the Cathedral we decided to walk around town (the long way), which took us by the university area, through the woods and by a river. It was such a nice walk and we ended up back at the top side of the old town.
Now that we had “seen” the sites it was time for the obligatory pub crawl so we hit a few pubs and it was time for lunch.
After looking at Tripadvisor we settled on a a place called Lebaneat which had something all of us would eat. It was a nice place with good service and Lebanese wine that was enjoyed by all (I had some beer too).
After lunch we were back on it but as some different games were being televised we struggled to find places after the sun went down but did find several pubs we liked and got to see a little bit more of the city.
We weren’t really ready to call it a night, but as we were struggling to get in places we popped into Tesco for some room drinks and headed back to the hotel for a bit and enjoyed our drinks in Carol and Iains room whilst watching Carol’s favorite shows like Strictly and Xfactor.
We were all a little hungry and popped into Sambuca for some decent Italian food that was super cheap and plentiful. After dinner it was time for bed.
As we all had long drives ahead of us we decided to have lunch and head on out. We chose a pub just south of town called the Green Tree 1727 as they had Sunday Roast, which included veggie options we were not disappointed.
After lunch we headed our separate ways. We made it home pretty easy but poor Carol and Iain had some struggles and had a repeat of the trip to Durham with road works and traffic.
Two Guys From California 