Our Yorkshire Weekend, Day 1

Hope everyone had a good Memorial Day Weekend! Our three-day weekend in Yorkshire was such fun. As usual, we saw as much as we could, completely wore ourselves out walking all day long (that's me above, in York), and took a ridiculous amount of photos. It was a great time, and I've been enjoying it all over again sorting through the photos the last couple days!

Summary

Mode of transportation: Wilma
Time we got up Saturday morning: way-too-darn-early o'clock
Driving time, Oxford to York: 3.5 hours
Weather: Different every 10 minutes. Mostly bad.
Photos taken: >1000
Our B&B: Good
Abbey ruins: 4
Cathedrals: 1
Medieval churches: 5
Museums: 1
World Heritage Sites: 1
Sights related to Constantine: 2
Yorkshire puddings: 1 (giant)
Black puddings for breakfast: 0 (ew)
Fantastic Indian dinners: 1
High-calorie treats from street vendors: 5
Highlights: York Minster, Fountains Abbey, Indian dinner

Saturday, 27 May

David kicked me out of bed at about 6:40 AM. Horrifying, but of course it was good to arrive early. We left at about 7:30 and arrived in York shortly after 11. We stopped for sandwiches at a Marks & Spencer Moto along the highway - I can't get over how great those rest stops are. New, clean, and like an airport: several little convenience markets, a KFC, a Burger King, bathrooms, ATM, with tables set out in the center. Nice.

Everything went quite smooth until we arrived in York and promptly got very lost trying to find our bed and breakfast. After a few loops around the city, David found a very helpful passerby and we were on our way. We were lucky to find a vacancy inside the city limits for the weekend, as I only started calling around the previous Wednesday. Fortunately, the one we found was both reasonably priced and quite nice. Our room was really big and had a view of a brick Methodist church across the street. The bed was a bit soft and caved in towards the middle, but we were still happy to see it at the end of the day. Our hostess was helpful and welcoming, although not as warm as most B&B owners we've met. (In the pic below, our place is near the blue car.)



The walk into the city centre from the B&B seemed just fine the first time, but became very long after hours of sightseeing! After checking in and unloading our stuff, we headed into town. York has a definite medieval feel about it, though it lacks the quaint, atmospheric feel of say, Bath or Shrewsbury, because of so much modernization. One neat feature is that it still has almost all of its medieval stone wall surrounding the city, which you can walk along (and we did). York also has over a dozen medieval churches (it's hard to imagine why they would need so many, but I love 'em!) and several wobbly old medieval streets.

The first main sight we came upon was Clifford's Tower, which is a round castle tower perched atop a green hill at a major intersection. The mound was one of two hills made by William the Conquerer shortly after his conquest of York in the 11th century. It was originally a wooden tower, but that burned down in some pretty violent circumstances.



In the late 1100s, during the Crusades, there was an outbreak of violence against York's Jewish community. They fled to the tower for safety, chased by a mob. The townspeople prepared to storm the tower, offering the occupants a choice of baptism or death. They chose a third option: they all killed themselves and each other and burned down the tower.

The keep was rebuilt in stone in the late 13th century. The name comes from Roger de Clifford, who was hanged there in 1322 for opposing Edward II. There was an admission fee and a staircase between us and seeing the inside, so we didn't bother. (There's a little photo album here.)

Heading further into town from there, we walked along the most famous of the old streets in York, "The Shambles." It is aptly named given the lean of the medieval buildings, but the name is actually related to the fact that it used to be the main area for butchers and meat markets. Today, it is packed with tourists and cute little shops selling fudge, clothes, and knick-knacks.

We saw a sign for an old church pointing down an alleyway and decided to check it out, partly because we liked the sounds of getting away from the crowds for a bit. It was definitely worth the detour. It was called Holy Trinity Church and was built in the 13th and 14th centuries. What made it unique was that the foundations were very uneven - it could make you seasick looking at it inside! - and it had wooden "box pews" which were apparently quite popular after the Reformation. I'd never seen anything like it. See photo album here.

And then finally, we came to York Minster, the cathedral of York. (See our big York Minster photo album here; an article about its history and features is here.)



The word "minster" indicates a church that was part of a monastery or originally served by monks. However, this was true only briefly of York Minster if at all. In any case, it is also a cathedral - and an important one at that. You know how our friend the Archbishop of Canterbury is the leader of the whole English church? The Archbishop of York is second only to him in importance, and basically oversees the north of England whereas Rowan takes care of the south. His cathedra, or throne, is pretty impressive.

And York Minster itself is really huge - it claims to be the largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe. That must mean it's bigger than Cologne Cathedral even! York's wasn't as tall and impressive from the outside as Cologne's, but I guess I can see how it has more space inside. York Minster also is known for its huge collection of original medieval stained glass windows, one of which is as big as a tennis court. The oldest one has original glass from 1250, and the one in the west end had pretty stone tracery shaped like a heart. Those windows really were pretty impressive.

Besides the size and the windows, other highlights for us were the very pretty chapter house (octagonal room where the governing body meets), and a bunch of sculptures of English kings with very expressive faces (see the suprised king and the grumpy king).

There is also a very extensive crypt, which you can peek into from the cathedral above. They recently had to do a major restoration of the foundations, and while the engineers worked, archaeologists dug! They found lots of great stuff underneath the cathedral, including artifacts from a Roman military headquarters and a Norman church. All the finds are nicely displayed down there, and there is also a treasury and the usual crypt. (Photos start here in the main album.) The highlight for me was an etched chi-rho that dates before Constantine's conversion (i.e. probably 200s AD).

York and that Roman military headquarters actually have a major connection with Constantine himself. It was in York, probably right where the Minster stands today, that he was proclaimed emperor by the Roman army after his father died in 306 AD. Six years later, near Rome, he went to battle with another guy who considered himself emperor of the west, Maxentius. It was just before that battle that he saw the famous vision of the cross in the sky and the words, "By this, conquer." He put the cross on his shields and won the battle - thereby securing the western empire for himself - he converted to Christianity. Before long, Constantine marched to the east and beat the eastern emperor, too, to become the sole ruler of the entire Roman Empire. That was in 324. He founded Constantinople (now Istanbul) that same year and called the Council of Nicea in 325. I digress - but all of this started in York, England! Neat. There is a statue in front of York Minster to commemorate this connection.

Also near the Minster is the starting point of several walking tours of York, most of which are ghost-themed. York is supposed to be one of the most haunted cities in England. All the signs for ghost tours reminded me of Edinburgh, which had many such tours that I never went on! There was one that ran in the vaults underneath the Royal Mile, where a bunch of plague victims were locked in and left to die. Scary. Here David checks out the Grim Reaper advertising a tour.

After wandering around the cathedral for quite a while, we got mighty hungry and headed out to find a late lunch. We chose a place called Michael's not far from the Minster, where we could have some Yorkshire pudding. We've had it before, but not in Yorkshire! It was a great place and our lunch was delicious. David had a steak and Guiness pie, and I had a steak and ale giant Yorkshire pudding!

Yorkshire puddings can be filled with just about anything, and they are usually much smaller and eaten as a starter. I read somewhere during the trip that in the Middle Ages they were eaten with gravy before meals, to fill up the tummy and help people to cope with how little meat they had for their main course. We both like Yorkshire puddings very much. They are quite like a German pancake: chewy in a good way. When filled with steak and gravy, it's mighty substantial too - even I couldn't finish this one!

After lunch we returned to the cathedral to see the crypt and undercroft, which I mentioned above. Then we walked around the outside of it, checking out the west front (the two tall towers in the photo album) and the nice yard in the back. It is possible to climb the central tower (seen in the photo below) for an extra charge, but we passed this time.


From there we headed back to the B&B for a bit, rested awhile, then decided to head back into town to walk by the river, have an evening stroll of the city, and have dinner. It was a good chance to people watch, and check out everyone heading out to the clubs and pubs for Saturday night. We were amazed at how consistently tacky most of the women were dressed, and how little they wore (no matter their size) despite the chilly night!

Below is the river, which is quite nice, and a group of people already fall-down drunk by about 8pm:



Other interesting sights included an old church turned into a nightclub called "The Parish" and a city bus made to look like a tram:



We also came across a bit more history, passing the Micklegate (one of the gates in the city wall) and the home of a baby Guy Fawkes:



For dinner, we had firm plans. We had spotted a Mexican restaurant earlier, and were very excited! They are few and far between in the UK, and we haven't had any Mexican since we've been here. (Moment of silence for Chipotle. Sigh.)

To our great disappointment, however, it was absolutely packed with people with a line out the door. We decided it wasn't worth it, and planned to come back another day. So we headed home, keeping an eye out for another good place to eat along the way. Finding nothing that had available seats or wasn't a crowded pub, we ended up at the Sainsbury's grocery store! We were just so hungry and tired by that point that it didn't much matter as long as we got fed.

In the end, we did end up having Mexican - we had a picnic in our B&B of Doritos and salsa, with a refrigerated profiterole each for dessert, around 9:30pm. Dinner of champions! Less than an hour later, we were fast asleep.

In the next post: Fountains Abbey, Rievaulx Abbey, and a really good Indian dinner.