11th June 2006
A couple of days after our Castle Rising outing, we decided to go on an overnight trip to York, a place that on a previous trip I had absolutely hated. It had been crowded and I had found the people very rude, I hoped it wouldn’t be like that this time. We got up very early and left for York, we stopped at Little Chef for breakfast and for some reason I felt a little ill and didn’t eat, although I managed to grab some Cadbury Cream Eggs on the way out, I’m not passing up those I thought. We eventually got to York after a very long drive and took the “Park & Ride” into the town, which is really the only way to get into the main English towns these days. There is hardly anywhere to park and those parking spots that are there cost an absolute premium to park in. York is the only inhabited walled city in England and has great potential for a good day out if you can manage to avoid the crowds.
Lucky for us, we had picked a good day and York was not crowded at all, much to my relief. There were markets on, and I noticed a very interesting alternative clothing stall, where I bought a few things for myself as well as presents for people back home. We walked around the markets for a while before going to “The Shambles” which is a street where the buildings are so close to each other that you can shake hands across the street from upstairs. All the buildings in York are very old and some of them lean to one side, I had my photo taken in front of the golden fleece, which is supposed to be haunted, leaning to one side in a vain attempt to make the building look straight.
We went in a few more shops and the doorways were so low that my father’s head touched the top of them, my father is not the tallest of men either. The streets are winding and are made of old cobblestones, there seems to be no plan to the city and getting lost is somewhat easy, as we found out a couple of times whilst attempting to get to York Minster. We arrived at the Minster and saw a statue of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great outside the church as well as the last standing Roman Column in the city. We attempted to go into York Minster but were disgusted to find that you had to pay to go in. I found it disgusting that people were being charged to go into a church, after all we hadn’t even been charged to go into San Marco in Venice or St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
We had lunch at the Star Inn, and I had Steak and Ale Pie while Mum and Dad had traditional Yorkshire pudding. The Star Inn was a lovely pub, very warm and cosy, it was so nice I didn’t want to leave. There was a weapons dealer outside and I had to stop myself from buying any, swords and daggers absolutely fascinate me. I rationalised I wouldn’t be able to get them back through customs.
After lunch we walked around looking at some more attractions, including the Viking Archaeological dig and the Dungeon, but both were ridiculously expensive to get into, so we left York and carried on to Scarborough.