England - York

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We left beautiful Newstead Abbey Monday morning and headed north to Whitby, with a planned stop in York. I had visited both of these areas when I was younger visiting our family one summer. My sister wanted to see both places and my dad loves beach towns. So we were looking forward to our first tourist activity.

It was a cold and windy day, but at least the sun was out! The weather was slowly improving. We drove through some nice little villages until we wound up in a city parking lot on the south side of the city. Our first stop was Clifford's Tower, where we picked up our English Heritage passes. These were worth it, especially for me and my sister (my parents were not overly tourist site ambitious). It is a 9-day oversea visitor pass, when you basically recover your money after visiting two places. The tower itself was pretty small, but you could climb and walk around the top, with good views of the city. Our parents stayed down below, while we tried to not blow away up top.

We next walked into town and got tickets to the Jorvik Viking Centre, which is a ride through a "traditional" Viking Village. This includes the accompanying smells. It felt like my sister and I were with four children, as none of them could stop complaining about the smells. There were a few nasty bits, I confess, but if you ever get nostalgic about the 'good ole days' just be thankful for what you have.

We next had lunch at a nearby pub, The Three Tuns. Food was pretty good actually, and honestly this was among the best beers I had the whole trip. Dad was always complaining about the low alcohol content of beers; we were lucky if we got over 4%.

While I went back to update the parking meter, they remained and slowly made their way up The Shambles where I caught up with them. This is a narrow street with old buildings where residents could shake their hands across the street at the top of the timber framed buildings, and is one of the highlights of the city. The boys got to pose at the Harry Potter store as I guess filming of Diagon Alley took place within the Shambles. But the store was super expensive, with everything mass produced elsewhere; translation - just order it on Amazon for cheaper.

Our final stop in this city was York Minster. This giant cathedral was one of my favorite memories and it had actually just had a serious fire when my dad was last here, so he had only seen the smoldering building. I figured he would want to see what he missed. He didn't. Dana and I took the kids, but the cost of touring the church was pretty steep, so we got a glance in, some photos outside, and moved on. Completed in 1472, it has a long, complicated history, going back to the 8th century, conflicts with William the Conqueror, destruction by the Tudors, lots of fires, etc. It is a gorgeous structure, but the kids would have gotten easily bored. Parents too apparently. So we picked up the parents from Guy Fawkes Pub and went back to the car and headed towards Whitby.

Steps: 12,359; Distance: 5.13 miles

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Photos

The Shambles
Harry Potter

Clifford's Tower
It was very windy

View of York
You can see York Minster in the background

Frying Nemo
Seen during our drive to York

Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Beautiful architecture
Having lots of fun.