First the factual stuff. Durham is situated in the north east of England and contrary to popular opinion outside of the region those born there are not Geordies. The city is wonderfully placed to get to most of the region. Weardale, Teesdale and Tynedale are all easily accessible and the scenary is stunning. Not a crumbing, run down factory or slag heap to be seen. For the more lively visitor Newcastle is merely a twenty minute train ride away although in truly inexplicable British transport infrastructure style there is no train service between the two on a Saturday night after 8pm.
The first thing that most people seem to notice about Durham when they arrive is the Cathederal. This is probably because it completely dominates the skyline of the City and it is impossible to arrive in the town centre without being distracted by its stunning beauty. In the late 80's it was named as the World's Most Beautiful Building ahead of such luminaries as the Taj Mahal. No one in Durham disagreed.
All this of course gives many of the other buildings in Durham an inferiority complex as many of them are architecturally wonderful themselves but lose out completely in the comparison stakes. Except the National Savings Building which is quite clearly the winner of the ugliest building in Durham competition every year. In the 60's someone decided that a concrete monstrosity was exactly what Durham needed to ensure it would not feel left out of kind of developments the major towns and cities in the UK. Apparently from above you can see it was designed in the shape of a key. Unfortunately, the architect responsible for the building obviously never realised that the vast majority of the city's population would never see it from a vantage point other than ground level. In more recent times a new shopping centre has been constructed in the town centre that in no way resembled the original drawings displayed to ensure it would fit in with the towns charcter. The gaping cavern of an entrance to the car park underneath is hideous in its own right and the plants cascading down the exterior walls never came to fruition.
By the way, the Castle and the surrounding streets and walk around the river banks are also well worth a look. (This is pretty much your standard guide to Durham schpeel about the Castle, surrounding streets and river banks. One day someone will write a guide purely about these things and not mention the Cathederal once.)
After this Durham used to be best well know for a Bishop who didn't seem to believe in most of the Bible. Also for an ice hockey team that was (virtually) invincible but was then moved to Newcastle on the basis there would be more supporters there (or some such rubbish), was promptly renamed and so all the Durham supporters promptly stopped supporting them and the team quickly disappeared of the face off the earth. Durham's ice rink went on to become a bowling alley.
Anyway, the City itself. Durham is small. You can pretty much "do" the city centre in about 10 minutes. As in most UK towns and cities all the major chains stores fill most of the shops but Durham is fairly unique in that in the Market Place there is a sports shop that actually sells sporting equipment for most sports. Not just trainers, football kit and a huge range of gaudy, rainbow coloured t-shirts. There are however other sports shops present to fulfil this roll should any visitor urgently require to dress in a pair of orange tracksuit bottoms and a purple t-shirt.
From a nightlife point of view there are some very good pubs in Durham. Some very, very good pubs. Not wishing to stretch the point too much but I feel I must point out that some of the pubs in Durham really are rather good. Many of them are also very small. In particular The Dunn Cow and Shakespeare, the latter also combining alcohol drinking with maze technology in finding your way to the back of the pub. All well and good in theory but a little puzzling come closing time. Durham also has a pub called the Fighting Cocks and never has a pub been so appropriately named.
Club wise Durham is very uninteresting and extaordinarily uninspiring. The University is college based they regularly hold events on a weekend. Subsequently the nightclubs in Durham tend not to be hugely in demand. They more closely resemble your average front room with flashing lights than any kind of nightclub most people are familiar with. Their size combined with the relatively small numbers attending them does however mean that they're like playing sardines on a weekend. It looks busy but there are probably much less than 200 people in the building. By Bhudda does Durham need a good nightclub.
All in all a very nice city indeed and very possibly the best town/city in the north east. (That should spark endless bickering and debate.)
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