This weekend we headed up to York. It is only 2 hours on the train from London, which is a good amount of time to be stuck in a seat.
The first thing you see when you leave the train station is the city wall. The wall almost completely surrounds the city, apart from the entrances (bars), and where old castle used to be. Bootham Bar:
Another major feature is the York Minster, a very impressive Cathedral. It is a huge building which has been added to several times, making its construction last for over 200 years. What's even more amazing is the history of the previous buildings on the site. We went down into the undercroft and saw remains of Roman foundations, and later foundations of a Norman cathedral which are still holding up the current Cathedral today (although there has been some structural reinforcement in recent times.)
We also climbed up to the top of the Cathedral, up 275 very narrow spiral steps. The view from the top was great. You can see over York and beyond. Perfect weather too.
We had our essential cream tea in the afternoon (this has become a holiday habit ever since going to Devon and Cornwall). After walking around for a while we came across Shambles, an old street which was once lined with butchers. Now, all that remains are meat hooks outside the shops, but the street has a lot of character, particularly the irregular, overhanging buildings.
Another popular street is Whip Ma Whop Ma Gate (not literally a gate). It's claim to fame is that it's the shortest street with the longest name, since it is only 35m long. We had a nice dinner at a Thai restaurant. Here is the Bootham Bar at night:
On Sunday we went on the free walking tour run by local volunteer guides. These are some of the best tours you can do because the guides are so passionate about the city, and are obviously not in it for money! We saw parts of the old Roman and Medieval walls, the ruins of St Mary's Abbey, walked along the top of the city wall, saw some of the bars (that's gateways in the walls, not pubs) and saw the Shambles again.
After some nice freshly made crepes, we checked out Jorvik, the Viking exhibition. It prides itself on offering not only an audio-visual experience but a multi-sensory experience of Viking times. In particular the smell of someone sitting on the (outdoor) toilet was memorable.
To finish off our weekend we spent a few hours at the National Railway Museum, the world's largest railway museum. It is housed in old railway shed and is so large that we probably only saw half of it. There are trains ranging from the "Rocket" the first steam locomotive, to the Mallard, to the Bullet train and the Eurostar. Seeing the old locomotives lined up around the turntable sparks memories of Thomas the Tank Engine, you almost expect them to start talking! One of the staff was giving a talk about how steam engines work. One of the locomotives has been cut in section so that the details of the pipes and boilers can be seen. The warehouse next door is a cross between a museum and a warehouse where you can see all the items in storage, but they are not hidden away. The Flying Scotsman is being restored and we saw it totally stripped down in the workshop.
We ran out of time to see the rest of the museum, as it is so large, and we were back onto our modern train to London.
