12/11/18 York

A day in York.

After dropping off the car to have a new tyre fitted (tyre replacement place , car hire office, different  tyre replacement place) we walked the short distance into York city in ideal sunny weather with clear blue skies and climbed the stairs onto the city walls when we came to the gate. There are city walls remaining around a good portion of the city and we walked about a quarter of them today.  It would have been more if it hadn't started raining.

Disregard the bus stops.  You can see the castle wall segments well on this map. We entered at the Micklegate Bar, had a short break in the gardens near the museum seeing ancient Roman ruins and lots of squirrels and then climbed back up at Bootham Bar and around to Monk bar after checking out the Dean's gardens from the wall. 

We wandered along the walls for a while and then came down in time to admire York Minster and then be inside for the 1230 communion service held at the very front (Eastern) end of the Minster.

Micklegate Bar

you can do a rubbing of part of the map as you walk the walls- we didn't come prepared for this.

St Mary's Abbey

Old Roman ruins.

This area showed 4 different levels of ground bank from 4 different times in York's history.  Old cities tend to be built on top of earlier ones.  The levels were Roman a the lowest (1st to 4th century), Dark Ages (5th to 10th Century), Norman (10th to 14th) and Mediaeval (13th to 18th?)

pretty wall 

The Dean's Garden on a beautiful day

In the floor of the wall walkway

York Minster

The chairs all locked together into the rows!

Remembrance day memorial

Looking up in the Chapter House

Floor tile in the Minster

The Minster was overwhelming, and we accidentally found ourselves in the crypt which led into a really interesting display of the archaeology of the area and the process of repairing and preserving the Minster plus many amazing historical items (thousands of years old) .

We wound our way through some of the narrow streets and then found an amazing spot (Kennedy's) where they were offering half price food on Mondays for most of their menu and ate and drank happily.  (first fish and chips Trev and I had had since arriving in the UK).  Thom had haloumi and cous cous salad with cooked haloumi, grilled zucchini, tomatoes and lime. Must try this. When we finally came out it was raining (what happened to our lovely day???)

We continued on anyway as we had to find the Shambles (a very old, very narrow street which used to have many butcher shops many centuries ago. )  We found it, along with the tiny Snickelways (narrow lanes) which lead off from it. This was one of our major goals for the day achieved.
We also found the "fudge kitchen" and tried dark choc and sea salt and lemon meringue flavours.  both worked. the sea salt chunks in the dark choc were good and the lemon zest in the meringue made it slightly grainy and delightfully zesty.
We also enjoyed some hot doughnuts from a guy on his first full day of doughnut making who has moved to York to be with his girlfriend.

Then a map was picked up outside one of the shops which showed "the fabulous York cat trail" - A trail to follow around the centre of York where you can try to spot cats hidden somewhere as you walk around.  We followed this for a while, finding a few of the cats, but it was raining again, so we called a stop to this activity.  Maybe we can do more next time.

A link to the cat trail is found here
This is what it looks like

Apparently statues of cats have been placed on buildings in York for at least two centuries, although some of the statues which have have rotted or been removed are thought to have been from medieval times. Originally they were placed to frighten off the rats and mice which carried plague. They were also thought to bestow good luck and good health. York glass produce a lot of tiny glass cats and sell them for good luck to tourists. (hence the cat promotion trail) .  We didn't buy any glass cats, but we did enjoy our short time on the trail.

Basically by this time we were getting very wet, as the lovely day had turned to a terrible one, and we hot footed it home pretty much as fast as we could.  The rest of the wonderful things to do in York will need to wait until our next visit.

Played "Patchwork" (where you build a quilt from testris like shapes and score with buttons)  and Paperback (where you make words with letter cards and wild cards and score stars)  with Thom, Laura and Trevor.