Durham has a ton of restaurants and fast-food type joints to cater to the student crowd. Prices are low (by UK standards) but so is the quality most of the time. Most places are clustered on the streets and bridges fanning out from the Market Place (Framwellgate Bridge, Elvet Bridge, Saddler Street and Silver Street) with a few more options up North Road and Claypath.

"Ethnic" food is a little thin on the ground - The Kapital, up Claypath, is the best curry house in town, and there's a double handful of Italian places, most of which do Happy Hour specials if you show up before 6:30pm. (Happy Hour pastas and pizzas usually run around 5 pounds. Quite a deal if you don't convert it to dollars in your head!) Try Emilio's on Elvet Bridge or La Spaghettata on Saddler Street. For cheap pub food, check out any of the big chain pubs - Yates's and Wetherspoons on North Road, or The Hog's Head and Varsity on Saddler Street - or try the Market Tavern in the Market Place (pricier, but an independent brew pub).

For after-bar food, options are limited to the two Subway locations (one on Elvet Bridge, one on North Road) and a couple of chip shops - Beni's, on North Road, is a popular option. For take-away breakfasts or lunches, Durham is well-stocked with small bakeries and sandwich shops: Gregg's, Baker's Oven, and Peter's Bakery, or try the take-away food aisles in Marks and Spencers (Silver Street) or Waitrose (Framwellgate Bridge and North Road). Boots pharmacy on North Road has a great meal deal - 3 pounds for a sandwich, drink, and a bag of chips.

With 10,000+ students nearly doubling the regular population of the town, and really nothing else going on at night, Durham's bar scene is always hopping - but if sophisticated club-hopping or martini-sipping is your thing, you're in the wrong town.

Durham's "nightclubs" (such as they are) are famous for playing all cheese, all the time - on an average night you're likely to hear Ice Ice Baby, Summer of 69, the Baywatch theme, Livin' on a Prayer, Billie Jean, and some old-school British boy bands like Take That or Wham, plus a mix of top 40 pop and dance music. The main strip is on North Road (Walkabout, Studio, and The Loft, when I left, but the names change all the time - follow the neon signs and the queues of half-naked girls) but the unquestioned King of Cheese is Klute, on Elvet Bridge, a nightclub so infamous that it has its own Facebook group (2300 members and counting). Cover charges run from 50 pence to 5 pounds at all these places - befriending a student or two is a good way to find out where the cheap nights are.

Durham also has a great pub scene (in a genuinely great way, rather than a hilarious, ironically great way like the clubs) but there's a bit of a divide here between student hang-outs and local spots. The relationship between the two groups is far from friendly (Durham's students are typically posh southerners, resented by local north easterners due to the area's longstanding economic troubles - and also, to be fair, due to the obnoxious classist attitudes a fair number of the students bring with them) and has sometimes spilled over into violence in the bars. As a result I've never actually been to any of the local joints listed below - if you choose to venture in, make it clear you're a tourist not a student, show a genuine friendly interest in the area, and you should be fine.

The best student-frequented pubs are The Swan and Three Cygnets (cheap and awesome), The City, and the Half Moon Inn, all around Elvet Bridge, or the Market Tavern (pricier) on the Market Place and the tiny, venerable The Shakespeare, on Saddler Street. Be-friending some students could also get you invited into one of the college pubs (each college has their own) which are the cheapest of all (just over 1 pound for a pint) - the Holy Grail here is to get an invite to the University College pub, The Undercroft, located in the belly of the 1000-year-old castle. For local-frequented places, try The Coach and Eight or The Fighting Cocks on North Road - though the Fighting Cocks does have a particularly nasty reputation even beyond the usual student-local paranoia and mutual distrust. Locals and students mingle at the chain pubs on North Road (Yates's, Wetherspoons) and Saddler Street (Varsity, The Hog's Head).

Try Chase or Jimmy Allen's, both on Elvet Bridge, for fancy mixed drinks and an attempt at a Sex and the City-type ambience.

Lastly, for a serious Durham piss-up, try "The Princey B" - The Prince Bishop river cruiser whose nightly booze cruises are the stuff of legend. The boat docks below Elvet Bridge, and Vodka Redbull is served by the pitcher.

There are no hostels in Durham, and most of the B and Bs are on the pricey side (70 pounds per night and up). A somewhat cheaper option is to book a room through one of the University's colleges - they're all open to guests in the summer, and most keep some rooms on hand for visitors during the school year, too. The "Bailey colleges" - the older buildings on North Bailey and South Bailey, the street that runs directly below the Cathedral in the oldest part of town - have far more atmosphere and are much closer to the action than the "Hill colleges" on the outskirts of town. The Bailey colleges are Hatfield, St. Chad's, St. John's, St. Cuthbert's, and University College itself, which is located inside the castle. Find contact info for all the colleges at www.dur.ac.uk/colleges - prices vary, and you'll want to call in advance.

The best budget option for Durham is to check out www.couchsurfing.com - I hosted a bunch of couchsurfers when I was there, and I think there are several other hosts based in Durham as well.

Durham is all about the Cathedral. Close to 1000 years old, it looms over the town from a cliff above the river, and its spare, grim Norman design makes a far more powerful statement (I think) than the products of the later Early English and Decorated periods. I've been to most of the classic English cathedrals - Canterbury, York, Salisbury, Lincoln, for a start - and Durham is the only one that impels every visitor into silence by the sheer force of its age and atmosphere.

This atmosphere is helped by the fact that Durham doesn't get all that many visitors - the Cathedral is one of the last in England that doesn't charge admission, there are no lines, and the few tourists that arrive on any given day are allowed to sit or wander around as they wish.

There are volunteers on hand if you do want a bit more information though - they can tell you the story of Saint Cuthbert, whose body Durham Cathedral was built specifically to house, and point out the spots where Cromwell's men have hacked bits and pieces of the statues and tombs scattered throughout the building. They can also show you The Cloisters, which you will probably recognize as the halls of Hogwarts in the first two Harry Potter movies.

Across the way from the Cathedral, on the opposite side of Palace Green, is the equally ancient Norman castle. It's not one of Britain's best, but it does look impressive from the bridges and riverbanks below. There are guided tours and they are the only way to see the interior - because it's currently in use as an undergraduate residence building!

Besides seeing the Cathedral and Castle up close, there's not much to do in Durham besides wander the narrow cobbled streets or the riverside walking paths in search of the perfect cathedral view. Below Elvet Bridge in the summer there are rowboats for rent if you want to get out on the River Wear - keep right and watch out for the university rowing team.

Durham is on the main East coast train line between London King's Cross and Edinburgh. The train station is on a hill above North Road, and the National Express bus station is on the street below. Everything in Durham is within walking distance, but there is a shuttle from the train station to the Cathedral, and taxi stands both at the station and at the end of North Road, where it meets Framwellgate Bridge.

If you have a rail pass and are headed north, it's easy to hop off just before lunch time (it's about three hours from London) and spend the day in town before carrying on to Scotland - there are plenty of trains daily, and the last pass through well into the evening. Durham's also an easy day trip from Newcastle (15 mins on the train, a couple dozen trains daily) but don't waste a day of your rail pass on this one. A "cheap-day return" ticket between Newcastle and Durham is only around 6 pounds, though you have to return the same day.