The next stop on our family tour of the UK was Durham, where my brother is working on his PhD. He recently bought a house, so we were excited to see him and to check out his new place. He gave us a wonderful tour of castle and abbey ruins and I had a blast taking tons of photos.

We started out with a bit of a walking tour of the town, cathedral, and the castle which is part of the university.

It was a beautiful walk along the river. The cathedral is in the background.

Walking along the river into town

We had a tasty dinner in a pub before spending a bit of time at the debating society. And on the walk home we got some incredibly views! It was a sunny evening and there were rainbows out. The light was also wonderful on the old buildings of the town.

Durham Cathedral in the evening sun

The next day Thomas very kindly took us to a nearby town so that we could pick up a package that we had sent to ourselves. We didn’t realize that we would have to pay VAT on it, which was not a pleasant realization. We had listed the value of the package as what it would cost us to replace the clothes in it, and ended up having to pay almost $50 to get the package!

Once that was taken care of we did a whirlwind tour of some ruins. This was AWESOME! The first place we went was Richmond Castle.

Thomas and Justin in front of Richmond Castle

We had a picnic and climbed around the ruins taking photos.

Justin and Thomas “feasting” in the great hall

Castle walls from the top of the tower

Crumbling walls

Tower and Picnic Area

Our next stop was Easby Abbey. Thomas hadn’t been here before and we were all completely impressed with these ruins. The site was huge, with a church still standing and in use and the ruins of many other buildings.

Church

And Ruins...

More Ruins...

Chapel

We also stopped at Egglestone Abbey for another dose of ruins. I was fascinated with the windows.

Cool old windows

That night we went out to Shaheen’s (it doesn’t look like they have a website) for totally amazing Indian food. We haven’t had much good, spicy Indian food on our trip, and this place is so, so good. They even have a kind of rose flavored ice cream for dessert which is perfect after a spicy curry!

We had two good beers in Durham, but unfortunately can’t remember what they are called, so Thomas, if you’re reading this, give us a comment because we really liked them!

We were tired after our long day of ruins-gazing, so got a fairly early night since we had to leave early the next morning for an 8ish hour bus ride to Oxford. Thank you Thomas and Durham for an awesome visit!!!