I am mixing up what happened when a bit. We got in a lot of walking and exploring. We wandered all over that town, down little alleys, hung out in a town square or two, admired the old buildings, and stopped for tea and pastries in little cafes. Our three days in York are a bit of a blur!
That is not warped because of lens distortion – that is how it looked!
Wherever you go, there’s the Minster!
The Shambles – look at those buildings leaning this way and that. The overhanging floors were on purpose to give maximum walking space below. This was a butcher’s row back in the day, and the windows on the street levels have wide sills for laying out meat on.
Pastries (yum)! I abandoned my low-carb diet for the duration of the trip. This stuff was too good to pass up on.
This is the street where our flat was, with a pub below and a lovely pastry shop across the street, and restaurants and shops all around.
Hmm, I didn’t read this bit in my Rick Steves book until one evening while laying in bed…
..in our flat on Grape Lane!! Ahhhh! We’re in the brothel district! Well that’s pretty memorable!
Also memorable – while trying to take a picture of our flat’s front door, I fumbled the phone and it fell flat on it’s screen..and shattered. First phone I’ve broken, and I literally bought it a week before the trip because it had a better camera than my old phone! Luckily it was a cheap one!
One day we hopped on a boat and took a little ride up and down the River Ouse. We saw more of these adorable canal boats, and got a lovely view of town and countryside. We saw more men with carp fishing setups just like we’d seen in Stratford.
We walked to the other end of the historic part of town to see York Castle, dramatically perched above a car park. The wiki says this stone castle was built in the 13th century to replace wood structures that had stood there since 1068!
We walked around the upper wall. Dave is not fond of heights, but I enjoyed the view.
Back into town, this part is new compared to the part we were staying in. Victorian, I’d guess from the looks of that building.
We walked our feet off in York! This was a nice bench with a view of the Minster where we enjoyed some take-away fish & chips for lunch one day.
On our final evening we went and saw a play at the York Theater Royal, which was a very nice theater, recently restored, but beautiful and classic inside. We saw a play called ‘They Don’t Pay, We Won’t Pay’, which was a comedy farce with five players, one of who plays multiple parts, and exposes all the problems of the world for blue collar workers set against a humorous looting of the local grocery store. It was very funny and well done, and showed us that although UK has some things figured out better than we in the US do, they still have a lot of the same problems and worries for folks at the bottom of the pile. The actors warmed up the audience before the show with some folk songs.The player who played multiple parts differentiated his parts by popping on a mustache and changing hats, and the other characters made fun of how similar the characters looked, it was VERY funny.
All good things must come to an end. We LOVED York! There was so much to see and do, and it was all in easy walking distance. I’d be game to come back to both Bath and York for a visit again.
It was finally time to jump on a train (after first visiting the train museum and looking over a collection of royal train coaches) in the neat Victorian-era train station, and head for our next stop..London.
The whole trip:
Steff Does Stuff! 