York, England, Wed 3 - Sat 6 Sept 08

I was sent up to York for three days to run a training course with work which was a great opportunity to see the city. Luckily my train ticket was an open return too so I stayed on an extra day so I could see York Minster which was only open during the day.

Weather over the first few days was interesting... freezing cold, then sunny, then pouring with rain! Guess that's England weather for you, and they reckon NZ has four seasons in one day!

I was staying in a beautiful old hotel while I was working, next to the railway and gorgeous old stairwells and chandeliers inside. On the last night I switched to a YHA hostel which was a good 20 min walk from town along the river.. which wasn't too bad unless it poured with rain.. or the river flooded! (More about that later).

I spent my nights during the week walking through the town and over some of the city wall. York is a walled city and you can walk along a lot of the wall which is a great way to see the city. There were cool little pubs and churches everywhere, York was a really awesome English town. I also managed to try out some of the pubs for dinner which made for some good local food.

On the Saturday after a nice sleep in (well as much as a sleep in you can have in a hostel dorm room) I headed down to the communal dinning room for breakfast. And what a feast awaited me there! Bacon, eggs, sausages, hashbrowns, baked beans, croissants, pain au chocolates.. we're talking the meanest breakfast ever, and it was included in the price of the hostel! I was blown away. I think this could have been one of the best hostels I've stayed in so far.

I headed into town and joined a free walking tour of the city. It lasted about 2 1/2 hours and the tour guide was really knowledgeable about the local history. York is fascinating, it's history spans all the way back to the Romans so there was a lot to learn. I learnt about the old Roman wall and fortresses and then about the ruined Abbey that was destroyed during King Henry VIII's reign. The city wall is also made up of parts from different era's which I found really interesting.

We had a walk through the park with the abbey ruins, along the city wall and down an old street with slanty tiny houses, passed some Morris dancers (crazy looking getups and they wack sticks together) to our last stop at the Shambles, I think it was one of the oldest streets in York and it used to be the old meat/butchery lane. I found a jewelery shop that sold the most beautiful Whitby Jet pieces (a black stone) and I just couldn't resist getting one.

After my morning walk and a tasty lunch of a Cornish Pasty I headed to the York Minster. I ended up spending a lot more time here then I'd expected, there was a lot to see and again so much history! I went down to the crypt where you get to see the foundations of the old Roman buildings and other churches that have been on the same ground and see scale models and excavated artifacts of them.

Back up in the Minster I joined a guided tour which was fascinating. Our guide was hilarious and gave some great anecdotes about the stained glass windows, previous fires and statues. The choir started practicing for Evensong which was also beautiful to hear.

The last section I explored was the tower. 200+ steps in a skinny spiral journey straight up! Not for the faint hearted. It was tough work, very dizzying and a bit claustrophobic, but the view from the top was good. There's barely enough room on the stairs for one person so they only let a group up every half an hour so you go up and then come back down and there's no chance of having to try and pass someone on the stairs.. cause I'm telling you that would not be an easy task!

It was starting to get late and I needed to catch a train home so I headed back to the hostel to grab my gear. The attempt to walk back along the river to make the 5:30 train proved treacherous when I found the river path gone! The river had flooded the banks due to all the rain over the last couple of days. I had to take the long way around! If you check out the photo on the right you'll notice the archway, that's where the footpath is.. or at least used to be!

I wasn't going to make the train so I stopped off for some food before heading in for the 6:30 train. Turned out to be a lucky thing because flooding on the train tracks north of York had caused chaos at the train station and the 4:30 hadn't even arrived yet! A train bound for London finally showed up at 6:45 so I was one of the lucky ones who didn't have to wait very long, unlike some who had been at the station for over two hours! Needless to say the train was pretty packed for the trip home.