York in a day

Sunday 25th July 2010

While I began the day in bed with a coffee and a good book, Ray began the day with an early morning walk. This is the River Ouse quite close to our accommodation. There were lots of boats moored. Many of them were the old-fashioned canal boats you see so many of here.

Once I got my act together we went for a walk on the town wall.

There were some nice views from on the wall - like this over some parkland, but it wasn't all quite so pleasant - some roads and traffic and some local authority housing as well in parts.

This tower is an original part of the town wall. Lots of people were climbing up to the top and I'm sure the views were fantastic, but even though I know I will, I really never want to see another staircase again!

We really enjoyed the York Castle Museum. It was very extensive. There was your usual museum exhibits - so much history here - and even a 1960's section - which was fun, but the part I enjoyed the most was in the prison cells underneath (still pretty much as they were). Again, the work that had gone into making things comer alive was fabulous. As you entered each cell a projection of an actor telling the story of someone who had been in the cell was triggered. Each story finished with words projected on the wall telling you what happened to the people. Hangings, transportation to Australia and America etc....

Of course we had to visit York Minster. Religion played such a significant role in the history of Britain.

If you can see the metal barriers on the road in this picture you might imagine some of the difficulty us tourists were having as there were bike races going around the city all day, so crossing the road took quite some time on occasion.

One of those little silly things that take my fancy was this street below......

We visited the National Rail Museum. It was huge. There were Royal trains and horse drawn trains and all manner of things, including a Japanese Bullet Train. This picture (below) is of the train that goes under the English Channel to France.

Although I took only one photo (of a guy playing a lute - not included here), one of the highlights of our day was a visit to Jorvic. This is a recreated Viking village, from the first settlement of York (then called Jorvic). The recreation was absolutely fabulous, but I was so busy looking and listening that I didn't take any photos.

Apart for the replica village, there was a museum display. Housed in this display was the oldest know surviving building timber. They soaked it in hot wax for a year to preserve it and be able to display it.

We ended the day in the Roman Bath pub - notable mainly because of the fish they served me for dinner!