We will never finish touring the places we want to see
We have a list, well kind of a list, of the places we would like to go and the things we want to see while we are living in London. The list includes places in the United Kingdom and places in Europe. Generally speaking, we are interested in history and art, science, technology, and industry. We like cityscapes and landscapes, waterways and forests. We think climbing Norman and Gothic towers to be great fun; enjoying the history, the climb and the view from the top.
Previously, I wrote about our trip to Bath, UK; blog 10. This blog entry is about York, UK. York has a history going back thousands of years; pre-Vikings, pre-Romans. It appears though that it is the Romans who first recorded the spot as a city, the city of Eboracum, in 71 AD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/York
I like to start our trip planning with the ‘top ten’ things to do that are provided by TripAdvisor and/or Google. With their help, I had a list of eleven top things to do for a weekend in York. It was possible that all items could be accomplished, but not probable. We always sign up for any live tours available. They take longer than skimming museum cards, but always add just a bit more information and minor points we would never find on our own. And, we go in every room, even the ones that are weakly suggested – we might miss something. This is why of our list of eleven things to do and see in York recently, what we actually saw and did was six of them.
You cannot miss York Minster, it is a must see on all lists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/York_Minster As one of the largest and oldest churches in Northern Europe, it is something to see. The stained-glass windows are worth seeing, with the church having the most medieval stained glass in the world. Our tour guide lamented this is a bittersweet claim to fame as he feels that they have a little over half of the surviving stained glass, which represents about 3% of all that was made. There is so much glass, 128 windows, that it is cleaned on a 150-year schedule. It takes a year to take down, properly clean and repair, and then re-install the large panes of glass.
TripAdvisor said to plan one to two hours for visiting the Minster. They didn’t know that our guided tour alone would take almost ninety minutes. And, they did not include the Undercroft. The Undercroft expands the story of the minster with access to excavations and artifacts below the church. https://yorkminster.org/discover/stories/story/creating-the-undercroft/ From here we saw the work done to stabilize the foundation of the church and some of the actual Roman fortress foundations the church was built on. The daily living artifacts of the Roman soldiers was interesting and the still-painted wall from a meeting room astonishing. We were there for hours.
After the minster it was time to hit another ‘must do’ from the list – Afternoon Tea at Bettys Tea Room. This was our first traditional Afternoon Tea. Yum. We shared a tea for one, plus an extra cup of tea. This gave us three of the crustless quarter sandwiches, a scone with jam and clotted cream, and three small sweets to share – more than enough to hold us over till dinner. https://www.bettys.co.uk/cafe-tea-rooms/our-locations/bettys-york
This left us with enough time and renewed energy to head back to the hotel to add a layer of clothes, as the ‘must do’ for the evening was a ghost tour. There are several companies offering ghost tours of York, as it is the most haunted city in the UK, we went with http://www.theoriginalghostwalkofyork.co.uk/ They were highly rated and we were not disappointed. We heard several stories which appeared to be based in facts, until you get to the ghost that remains part – which it is not up to me to determine. Holy cow, they did some awful stuff to people over the hundreds of years that they have been a city. The truth of the stories is enough, I did not need to believe in ghosts to have the tour be worthwhile. As this tour also ran long, we were lucky enough to find an Italian restaurant still open for a light dinner before bed.
Planning to complete at least three of our ‘must do’ items on Sunday, we started with the largest item, the National Railway Museum. TripAdvisor said we should plan to spend four hours – ha, ha. We did two ‘talks’ that themselves used two and half hours. We still had to see all the engines, compartments, and stores of artifacts. They have over 300 vehicles, 1,000’s of artifacts, and several cafes – it was so Benjamin Friendly it’s a wonder we are not still there. https://www.railwaymuseum.org.uk/
We walked quickly over a short section of their city walls, http://www.yorkwalls.org.uk/?page_id=3690, then across the Shambles, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shambles to see the street in the daylight of which it is said JK Rowling used as inspiration for Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter books. Picked up our suitcases and back on the train.
Of our eleven ‘must do’ items then, we completed six. We did not go to: The Castle, the Gardens, the Tower, the Abbey or the Art Museum. And, we removed the Viking Center from the list as being too realistic in the smell of it. We could easily come back for another weekend and fill it up with all new things to do, plus another trip to Betty’s.