York 2

I got up the next day and headed out to get some hot drinks and pastry for breakfast. As I did the bells from the Minister Cathedral were ringing loudly and continuously. I decided to follow them and see how close the cathedral was. Turn out we were only about 5-6 blocks from it. I walked around and saw that they were going to be having a service at 10. I grabbed our breakfast and got back and told Becky and we decided to try and make the service.

The Minster’s Bells Ringing

The inside of the cathedral was again gorgeous as all of the different cathedrals we have seen are. We were ushered back to the choir area for a choir service. It was gorgeous of course. Not many people in attendance and many were in attendance to hear the choir. It was just a simple service of some scripture reading and many songs by the choir. We did not take many pictures as the asked us not to since it was a Sunday and day for worship.

We then headed out and went down some very old streets. The stores are mostly local merchants selling all sorts of jewelry, clothes, cafes, pubs, etc. We stopped and grabbed something to eat. We then worked our way over to the Clifford’s Tower. It is one of the only large remaining structures from the Roman era and has been through a great deal of neglect over the centuries. Just in the past 3 years has the city of York put £6 million pounds into cleaning it up and making it accessible. There were many stairs to get into it and then to the top and Becky could not do that, so I went up. It is the highest point in the city so you can see long way off. William the Conqueror was the one who really built the stone tower. Even this one is the second he built after a rebellion.

With Becky’s bum ankle she decided she could not make it up the stairs to the tower. I walked up and walked around inside and went to the roof. The view was stunning from up there. We decided to each take a picture of the other person from our perspective.

As we walked through some more streets and looked at different old buildings I saw a cinema. I asked Becky if she wanted to go see a movie and she did. We walked over and decided a good movie to see in the very historic city of York would be none other than see “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy”. It was great to grab some popcorn and settle in and just relax and enjoy us. It was a bit strange doing this in York, but hey why not. Neither of us had seen any of the Bridget Jones movies so we did a quick Wikipedia read up before we saw it, and we actually enjoyed it.

To end the day, we stopped in the pub across the street The Old White Swan. It was opened in the 1703 and has a long history in the area. One of its “claims to fame” is that it hosted an 8ft tall man. It also a major stagecoach stopping point. We found it convenient to get to and relaxing. We mostly sat and watched people and the soccer game that was on the TV. They were a bit low on food as it was Sunday night, and you could tell everyone who worked there had a long weekend.

The next day was another wonderful spring day to start with. During the day the weather changed a great deal as the wind came up and the temperature dropped. The first place we stopped at was St. Mary’s Abbey that was originally built in 1055 but became a very important location for much of history. It was even a place talked about in the stories of Robin Hood. Finally in the 1500’s with the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII the church was destroyed and now only ruins remain.

We walked across the river and picked up our walk along the wall. This side of the river also had many different time periods, but everything was wider and sections of it were much more modern, meaning 1800’s. Much of the day was just walking along the wall, we also did a bit of walking through the market area, but it was Monday and as true in many tourist locations, not much is open on Monday. We also had put in many steps over the past few days, and we were pretty tired as well.

We worked our way back to the flat and were going to get some food to bring in, but all the takeaway places were closed. We thus had to stumble down a half a block to the Italian restaurant to get something to eat. It was rough but we were able to manage it. Our rental was so wonderfully located. We were on an amazing street with coffee shops, restaurants, grocery stores, and just about anything else one needed within a 2-block radius. The flat even had a cane for Becky to use the first couple of days we were in York.

We are both so glad we came to York and spent the time we did here. It really is a great city with so much rich and deep history. There are of course shopping and eating establishments all around as well. It was clear so many people had come for a variety of reasons, but we really enjoyed spending our days there.