Durham is an amazing county with a historic city at its heart, breathtaking dales to the west, a dramatic coastline to the east, and a vale packed with amazing experiences. Durham City itself is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site – popular with visitors from all over the world with its stunning Cathedral and Norman Castle.
Explore the timeless quality of this quintessential old English university city, perhaps taking some time out to enjoy a relaxing riverside walk or river cruise, or to soak up the atmosphere in its superb cafés, artisan workshops, boutiques, galleries and museums. For evening entertainment, you can find everything from spellbinding theatre to side-splitting comedy, intimate restaurants to chic café-bars, and blockbuster films to art house cinema at the Gala Theatre.
The North Pennines are a short drive away and here you can journey under towering trees to the spectacular High Force Waterfall, one of County Durham’s most impressive natural landmarks and one of the biggest waterfalls in England. Beginning its journey on the fells of the North Pennines AONB, the River Tees swells before plunging 21 metres into a gorge below. The North Pennines National Landscape is also designated as a UNESCO Global Geopark and is one of England’s most special places: a stunning landscape of open heather moors and peatlands, tumbling upland rivers, and intriguing imprints of a mining and industrial past.
The unspoiled beauty of the Durham Dales, the rugged Northumberland coastline with its beautiful white sandy beaches, quaint villages, Hadrian’s Wall, and even the Lake District National Park – also a World Heritage Site – are all within easy reach and can all be enjoyed during your holiday visit to Durham and its surroundings.