York

My next stop took me to my first English city: York.  I was pleased to find that the good weather I’d enjoyed in Edinburgh would continue as I moved further south. 

After a walk to my hostel to check in, I ventured out to see the sights.  York is one of England’s most historic towns, known for both the vintage structures and spectacular (read: horrible) events that transpired in the area.  To begin, I walked to one of the nearby bars (a name for a town gate), which is the arched causeway thing you’ll see in the photos below.  There I enjoyed a small exhibition on Henry VI, one of the English kings most connected with the city.  I attempted to absorb the confusing history of the English civil war that he was a character in, but found myself mostly lost.  I did get the opportunity to try on some chainmail, which was quite heavy.  After the museum, I walked along one of the remaining sections of the city’s defensive walls and stopped for a pasta lunch.

After lunch, I walked to the Jorvic museum.  This museum came about as a result of an architectural dig done in central York that revealed the city’s viking past.  The first part of the museum was a rollercoaster style car moving slowly through various animatronic scenes of viking life.  These did a nice job of showing how normal these peoples lives were in many ways.  However, animatronic robots thoroughly creep me out, so I was excited to get off.  The latter half of the exhibit was filled with artifacts from the dig, including multiple skeletons of local viking people.  The vikings were particularly fond of bone combs, and it is thought that long, beautiful hair was a sign of virility.

That night I took advantage of the TV at the hostel to watch Croatia knock out England in the World Cup.  We had only one English person around the TV, and they were unexpectedly disappointed in the outcome.

The next day, I walked from my hostel to the railway museum.  This museum has a tremendous collection of various railcars and locomotives, with the highlight being the steam locomotive that was cut open as a cross section and explained with a live guide.  It really was a tremendous piece of machinery, with each of the parts enabling the others to make the best use of all generated heat.

After more walking and a quick lunch, I headed for the northern Europe’s largest church: York Minster.  The current minster was built in 1250 AD, but a previous church was actually constructed in 627 AD.  The impressive structure is so large that I couldn’t seem to take a proper picture of it and would only capture sections in my photos.  I’ve included photos of the inside as well, though they seemed to run into the same problem.  The construction and decoration of the place is truly majestic, but it was a bit too full of loud children to really get the full effect.

After the Minster, I went to sit and read in the gardens of a nearby museum.  These gardens are home to the ruins of St. Mary’s Abbey, one of the monasteries that was destroyed when England switched from Catholicism to Protestantism.  The ruins and the park were quite beautiful.

After a quiet afternoon, I went out for a night on the town with some of the hostel’s staff.  They were quite fun to spend time with, and we stayed out until daylight was breaking across the sky.

The next, I began with a walk along the city wall and a stop at Clifford’s tower.  The tower was part of a larger fortress that was meant to be York’s main stronghold.  The tour is quite nice for a distant photo, but didn’t have much to offer inside.  It also happened to have been the last stand for the city’s Jewish population in 1190 AD, when they were attacked by the rest of the population of York.  These Jews ended up committing suicide by setting the fort ablaze.

For the rest of the day, I took time to read, relax, and finish my blog post for Edinburgh.  This blog does take time to write!  Here are a couple more photos from my walk home.

For my final day in York, I walked another section of the city wall on my way to the Richard III museum.  The section of wall I traversed was quite beautiful and shady, with considerable tree cover.  It included views of a number of particularly opulent estates on the northern end of town.

Once I arrived at the museum, I moved through the various exhibit that explained Richard’s life and the important part he played in the English Civil War.  Again, I found that what I thought I understood, I quickly forgot. I did learn that there was an vicious battle between the two sides near York.  During 12 hours of combat, over 12k men died.  I took the opportunity to try on all the helmets, which was definitely the highlight.

In the evening, I met up with a friend from my hostel.  We made up our own pub crawl, stopping at bars along the path home.  The lighting and scenic mall made for some nice photos.

We finished the evening with pasta and some drinking at the hostel bar with a variety of staff and guests.

Next stop, Oxford.