Durham; Sunday, 30 May, 2021

I had a decent nights sleep after all that exertion the previous day, but I think the bath must have helped as I didn’t feel to stiff when I woke up. I still used the excuse of all the previous day’s exercise as justification for catching the bus up out the back of town to the University’s Botanic Garden.

The garden is laid out over a couple of rolling hills to the South of the city centre, located between several of the colleges of the university. Inside there are specimens from across the globe laid out into themed gardens, including a bamboo garden and a large summer flowering meadow.

From the Botanic Gardens it was a short walk over to the university’s oriental museum located on the opposite side of the main road from the gardens.

The Oriental museum houses a large number of exhibits from the universities collections, primarily from China, but also from Japan, Korea and other South East Asian nations. There are also two rooms dedicated Egyptology including a couple of mummies.

At the time of visiting the museum was setting up a new exhibit on the silk road that was helping to bring their different collections together to show the flow of trade from China across the far and near east to Europe.

Having looked round the museum I caught the bus back into town and stopped for a quick lunch near the river before heading back up into the oldest part of town to visit the Durham Museum and Heritage Centre.

The museum is housed in the former St Mary-le-Bow church and tells the history of the city from it’s initial founding through until the modern day.

After taking in the museum I went for a bit of a wander through the old town, just taking in the sites, stopping for a late afternoon coffee before heading back to the hotel.

Unlike the previous evening I couldn’t really justify getting room service, so I headed out a bit later back up the hill into the old city centre and grabbed dinner in a restaurant halfway up to the cathedral before walking back down hill to the hotel in the dusk.