Monday, 8 December 2014

Durham Christmas Festival

I've always wanted to see Durham, and they happened to have a Christmas festival on the Saturday before my birthday this year, so we took a little birthday trip up north!
Durham is very old and beautiful, like York, but it's quite small


The birthday girl in front of a 12th century pub






Durham Castle, now the campus of Durham University


Durham Cathedral





Real live reindeer!












The cloisters were used for Hogwarts corridors in the Harry Potter movies







There was a local food market taking place in the cloisters, so it was really crowded





I always seem to visit these places when they have scaffolding up...maybe it's just that these old places are always being repaired!

The Cathedral is doing a fundraiser where you pay £1 to put a LEGO piece on a section of the huge model version of the Cathedral. They've raised over £114,000 so far! Richard chipped in and got to add a round piece to one of the columns.

For St. Nicholas' Day, they had a procession of kids with lanterns (with LED candles) going from the market square up to the cathedral, where they had a service with carols, the story of St. Nicholas, and chocolate coins for the kids.

It was really crowded and difficult to get pictures, but it was cute to see the little goomers with their little lanterns!


After the service, we checked out the gift shop & saw that Richard's LEGO section was up on the model now


The entrance to Durham Castle/University of Durham

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