York Getaway

Fellow Fulbrighter Niki and I took a quick trip to York this past weekend to check out this small but impressive city. And we certainly weren't disappointed. York is a gorgeous little town with an interesting history and lots to see and do. Vikings and Romans have occupied York, and it is now home to one of the largest Anglican churches in northern Europe. It is the birthplace of several famous chocolate and candy companies (including Kit Kat, Rowntree and Aero), and it's famous for it's "York Cats," cat statues placed throughout the town. York is also a fortified city, with medieval walls surrounding it and Roman ruins still standing. And as it is one of the oldest cities in England, it also is considered one of the most haunted places in the whole country. We wanted to get a little taste of everything York had to offer!

Our guest house wasn't much to look at from the outside,
but it was really nice inside! We had a nice big room
and were served a full breakfast each morning.

We started off our Saturday morning with a tour through the York Minster (the cathedral). Our tour guide was very informative, and she told a lot about the ins and outs and little secrets of this great cathedral. Niki shared with me her love of gargoyles, and I quickly found myself fascinated with the creepy little guys who were popping out all over the minster.

York Minster

York Minster

Lots of gargoyles keeping an eye on things

Niki and I

Funny gargoyles 

Our tour guide teaching us about the minster

The York Minster has the most impressive stained glass, and this was by far my favorite part of the tour. They are currently restoring the east window, which is 600 years old, and there is a fascinating exhibit on at the minster that explains the work they are doing. Basically, over the years the intricate stained glass windows have cracked and suffered other damages that have been repaired by inserting more lead into the window, which has distorted the original art work by creating more and more "lines" all over the window.  With this restoration project, pane by pane, artists are cleaning the windows, removing the extra lead that has been added over the years and replacing it with a newer resin material that makes the window more closely match is intended look. It's really incredible work!

Here's what the window looked like before it was restored.

Now here it is after they've done all the work on it. Notice how many of the lines of lead
 have been removed. Look at the sail for an example.

After the minster tour, we decided to take a nice walk around the city and check out the area. We found all sorts of fun little places and great shops, but my favorite was the Shambles, a really old street with crooked houses that have been built up in odd ways and then settled unevenly over time.

This hotel and restaurant is the house where Guy Fawkes was born. 

England meets Scotland!

Lots of street performers are entertaining on the corners, trying to make a little cash.

This is the Shambles. The bit poking out on the far right shows you how crooked buildings are.

The Shambles

The Shambles

With York's sweet history, we needed to stop in for some hot chocolate and truffles.
I tried the mint truffle and it was delish! 

York has great little streets full of shops, pubs and tea rooms.

Enjoying the day in York. 

Very crooked building at the bottom of the Shambles.

Then we spotted a hat shop, and since I need some kind of hat or fascinator for a hen party I'll be attending at Ascot in June, we decided to pop in. Of course, we both tried on quite a few hats, and I'm happy to say I found the perfect getup for the party! Can you guess what I picked?

She's so cute! And she can actually pull off any of these hats! Lucky girl!

Is it me?

After our hat shopping adventure, we decided to go walk along the medieval walls and enjoy the nice, bright day. We got some tips from the hat sales ladies as to where to find the best views and set out for our walk.

We were looking for the famous York cats all over town after fellow Fulbrighter Rebecca told us
about them, but sadly we only found two cats the whole time. Here's one of them!

On the way to the wall entrance, we stumbled upon this darling little garden.

You'll find bricked up windows all over England because there was a window tax from 1696 to 1851.
To avoid paying it, many people bricked over their windows.

Oh the contrast. This medieval wall and through the window you can see a convenience store. 

The wall was built up and around the old Roman walls that lined the city. Here's some of the remains.

One of several entrances to the walls. 

Love these creepy old doors.

There are some lovely garden areas you can look down upon from the walls. 

After our wall walk, we popped into a pub for a pint and really enjoyed this view of the minster.

That night, we wanted to check out the city's creepy, ghouly past, so we took a ghost walk. There are half a dozen or so different walks to choose from, and we didn't really know who to choose, so we went with this guy: 

Our ghost tour guide. He was pretty cheeky and cheesy, but we had fun. 

This was the creepiest stop, where he told a story about a little girl whose family locked her
in her room and abandoned her to die when she got the plague. She can be seen scraping
at her bedroom window, trying to get out. Eerie! 

One of the highlights for me was when he had us harass the people in this restaurant by waving
at them from across the street, then walking over to the window, pretending to listen to our guide,
and then making faces at them.  All in good fun!

The next day our trains didn't leave until after 3 p.m., so we decided to check out the Castle Museum, as it was very highly recommended by Rick Steves. Well, it turned out not to be about castles at all, which was fine. It was actually a really interesting museum, but probably the most random museum I've ever been to. The museum is a one-way walking tour that takes through many different eras and topics, and in the most random order ever! It started off with a big collection covering life in Yorkshire during the Victorian age. Then it jumped into a toy museum, then a 1950s house, then a series on kitchens through the ages. Next there's a whole Victorian village you can walk through and even a display about different rites of passage during Victorian times (ie: birth, marriage, death). Other museum highlights included the displays about life during WWII, the swimsuits through the ages display, the working mill, the trip through the 1960s and finally the prison tour (apparently this site was the location of a debtors prison back in the day). What an eclectic museum!

A birthday party scene in a 1950s living room.

Victorian alleyway with laundry drying.

A look down at the Victorian town.

The Victorian town. You could go in all the little shops, and they had some staff members
dressed up and in character to talk to you in some shops. 

Niki locked in the Victorian jail

School!

Some of the WWII displays

Swimsuits through the ages. 

She looks a little too happy in the stocks!

The working mill

Now onto the random 1960s street...

And the debtors prison. They had little projectors playing movies where the inmates
told their stories. That part was pretty neat.

This was a creepy room in the old jail. Recorded war poetry was playing in this room. 

Outside the museum there was a medieval demonstration being performed. That's Clifford's tower in the background.
These photos are super bright because I accidently put my camera on a weird setting...

Clifford's tower

View from the top of Clifford's Tower.

After our tour of the most random museum ever, we decided to head up to the Jorvik Viking Center to check it out. But once we got there, the line looked too long (and too full of little kids) so we decided to wander around instead and head up toward the market area. There was a viking festival happening that weekend, so we came across a couple neat attractions like this viking boat replica:

Add caption

These coffee beans smelled like home! 

Macaroons.

Funky blue-grassy band. Niki and I both picked up a CD.

Crepes! I decided to get one after having such a yummy Pancake Day pancake.
Well, unfortunately, I came home with a bad case of food poisoning, and I think this
might have been the cause...yuck!!! I might never eat another crepe again...

The minster in the blue sky--enhanced by strange function on my camera that I can't figure out.

Love this mix of old and and new. Old medieval wall, new York Wheel and double decker bus. 

After a very eventful and fun weekend in York, it was time for Niki and I to head home. Our trains left at just about the same time, but hers went north to Scotland and mine south to London. And even though I ended up getting struck down with terrible food poisoning Sunday night that would knock me out for the next few days, I still count this weekend as a huge success!