York

30th, 31st July and 1st August

We arrived to York, with an uneventful train journey. We stepped out of the station and into a massive flood of rain. We knew that our hostel was going to be difficult to get to, we'd need to take a cab, or catch a bus, because the walk was going to be too far. The massive downpour helped to make our decision for us - Lets walk!!! We'd scoured all the bus stops and c0ouldn't find one that went near to where we were staying, so we thought we'd go for a hike. 45 minutes later we found our hostel, well guesthouse, on the outskirts of town. We offloaded bags and thought we'd set out to explore the city.

The rain had now finally stopped, but we decided to catch a very expensive bus into the town. We grabbed a quick lunch, and just strolled through York's quaint little cobblestoned streets. We tried to figure out what percentage of people walking through the streets were tourists. I think we came up with a number around 80%. Everyone had camera's out snapping shots of the lopsided tudor shops, and the cute little laneways. If it wasn't for the modern shop signs and the fact that theres a Subway and Boots on every cornere you could be mistaken for thinking that York's still stuck in the 20th century.

We checked ou the tourist centre and got all our maps and guides, and I got a little sleepy for an afternoon nap, so we headed back to the hotel for some afternoon Neighbours catch up, and to plan the next couple of days activities. On the way back though we did manage to stop in at a dodgy little pub to check out the cricket scores, and found that they hadn't even started play - delayed to a soaked ground (Well derr, it has been raining LOTS) - it was only 15 minutes after we arrived that they started playing though, albeit 4pm. We decided to invest in a "York Pass'. Basically it cost us £30 each, but provided free entry to most of the city's attractions. We did the math's and figured that everything we were definitely going to go and do was worth about £30 anyway, so this way we'd at least get to go see some other things that we wouldn't have done so otherwise. After our rest period we headed down the long road back towards town, to find a pub to have some dinner, nothing exciting, then it was back for some sleep.

Next morning our first stop was back at the tourist centre to pick up ouur York passes. We then proceeded into the labyrinth of city streets in an attempt to find some breakfast. I scored an egg and bacon roll while Dan hit up the bakery. We then went into the underground of a pub, to explore some recently discovered ruins of Roman Baths, taking full advantage of our pass. The remains were found in the early 1900's by the pub owners who, wanted to expand their cellar, but instead found the ruins. They never did get their bigger cellar. The guy down there was very knowledgeable, and very enthusiastic about having a chat, so we stuck around and listened for a few minutes. There wasn't really that much to see, but Dan was able to try on some Roman helmets.

Out of the Bath's and we headed to the building that dominates York; the Minster. It claims to be one of the largest gothic Cathedrals in Europe., but it still didn't seem to be as big as the one in Liverpool! That said, it was still a massive cathedral, and but more beautiful that the Liverpool one. Our pass allowed us into the Minster itself, and then down into the Undercroft, crypt and treasury. The poor old York minster has seen its fair share of troubles of the centuries, but the most devastating was about 20 years ago when it caught fire and was badly damaged. They had some pretty amazing pictures up of the damage that was done and how they went about fixing it. Another disappointment is that the entire East window was blocked off. They have removed all the glass to be restored and repaired. The window is the size of Wimbledon's centre court. It would've looked amazing had it not been all covered up. We then headed down underneath the church, where remains of both Roman buildings and an Anglo-Saxo church have been found. It was then into the treasury, which didn't interest me at all, just mainly a collection of the church's pewter and silver wear from over the ages. And then finally the crypt.;

After leaving the Minster we thought we'd take advantage of the fact that for once it wasn't actually raining, and we headed down to the River Ouse for a hourlong boat ride up the river. It may not have been raining, but it was bloody cold. The guy driving the boat was quite entertaining, not to mention damn good looking, and filled us in on many nice little stories about York, despite the fact that there was not that much to see from the river.

Once off the boat we thought we'd have a look at the York Dungeons. Having been to the London equivalent with Jo and Jordan, and really enjoying it, we thought it would be worth the harm. We were really disappointed though on walking out. The actors weren't enthusiastic, the stories a bit crappy, and the whole set up just really lacked something. What did make it funny however, were the two little boys in our group. Who continually interrupted the actors with questions or statements. At one point there was a ghoulish courtroom judge with long wig and red jacket. The boys kept asking him if he was Santa Claus. The actor responded by saying "No I'm not Santa Bloody Claus", to which one of the boys responded, "Why do you swear?" It was very cute.

We grabbed a quick bite after the dungeons before heading back to the hotel to get jumpers and pants on for the evenings events. (Hey Hannah, as I'm writing this we've just stopped at Durham Station - The church looks cool! We've also stopped at lots of other stations you're going too!!!!). Anyway, once back in town later on, we found a nice little pub for dinner where Dan had a traditional Yorkshire Pudding - what else was he going to have whilst we were in York. His was much nicer than my s***ty Caesar salad, I wish I had have had one too. From dinner we headed down to find the start of the Ghost walk we'd decided to take. This was the only event that we had to pay for whilst in York, but I claimed student and we had £2 off voucher, so it didn't end up costing much anyway. The guy who led it was really quite bizarre. He'd start stories, forget to end them, or just not even tell ghost stories. It was a little bit disappointing considering that York is supposedly the most haunted place in England. After our walk ended we trudged back up the long road to our hotel, and slept like babies for the night.

We had a list a mile long of things we wanted to do on our last day in York, but again it appeared we were going to be hindered by the rain that was belting down. We set off with our looking worse for wear Poundland umbrellas. Mine had not lost 3 arms with the fabric coming unstuck on another 2. A slight breeze also turned it inside out. Dan's wasn't faring much better. Our first stop when we got into town, wet, was at a sports store to try and find some cheap waterproof jackets. Unfortunately, there was none that were in our budget, so we headed off. First tourist attraction of the day was the Jorvik Viking Centre. We lined up in the rain for about 15 minutes, before we headed into our 'journey back in time' . This was one of the best museums I've been in. You get put into a 'ride' capsule and it moves you through the whole Viking village which has been set up. At the end it takes you over some real artifacts that they're in the process of digging up. The little museum part at the end, but crowds of kids made it impossible to get close to anything. We left pretty quickly.

It was then off to Clifford's Tower, on top of a hill. A big hill. In the rain. Lots of rain. Heavy rain. Clifford's tower is just the shell of an old castle, similar to what we saw at Cardiff Castle. We climbed up the slippery staircase, and had a great view over York, even though because of the rain you couldn't see any further than 2 meters in front of you! We didn't stick around here long, as my umbrella had definitely found it's way to god. We ducked across the road to the Castle museum and looked through that for a few hours while we dried off. It was a rather eclectic museum, with lots of rooms set up in different eras. It was good, but this time it was the oldies hogging the exhibits that we couldn't get close to. There was a whole exhibition on cleaning your house. Weird. They also had a olden days street set up inside, as well at more bloody war stuff. I don't know how Dan can still look at it, I just put my head down and keep walking now. There was also an exhibition on the 60's, which was pretty poorly put together, as well as prison life, which was really just a series of projections on the walls. A little disappointing. We grabbed some lunch and did some more walking through the lovely streets of York. We also did a stop into Boots to see if a pharmacist could diagnose what is wrong with me. Over the last couple of days I have broken out in massive red welts all over my back and arms and legs. I think its chicken pox, but Dan thinks that its bed bug bites. Google has been unable to successfully diagnose me, so we thought we'd better see a professional. Unfortunately, all the pharmacists were busy, so I'm just suffering with the itch and hoping that it goes away. It is more than likely bed bug bites, considering some of the dodgy places we have stayed over the past 2 weeks.

We ended up having a beer in another little pub, to try and find out the cricket scores, but we're told that there was no play today due to rain. Again, no surprises. So we just sat and enjoyed the Woman's British Open Golf. Riveting. It was sunny wherever that was being played.

We headed two doors down to the York Brewery and signed up for th 5pm tour. It was just us and another guy on this tour which involved walking into the room next door to the bar. The kid that did the tour didn't even look old enough to be drinking beer, let alone running a tour of a brewery. This tour was much better than the one we did in Liverpool. This kid knew what was going on and explained it quite well. 25 minutes later and we were back in the bar. I didn't try any of the beers, because none of them are the 'cold' beers (or lagers) that I like. I'm not a fan of the warm beers of ales. Dan got 4 tasting 1/3 pints of the different beers. He didn't really enjoy any of them I don't think, which is weird for Dan, because I think I've only ever heard him say that he doesn't like a particular beer, twice.

From the brewery we headed up to have an early dinner. We'd decided to splash out a little for dinner, and go to Strada; A chain restaurant that serve yummy Italian food, plus we had a 15% off coupon with our York Pass. The meal was made mumch more entertaining by an older woman telling the woman sitting on the table next to her to stop making weird noises. The younger woman responding with that she has nodules on her throat and cant help making the noice 'you insensitive woman'. This then continued and they husband of the older woman jumped in, then became rather nasty and noisy. It gave me something to watch while I ate which was nice.

Back to the hotel and I had to crank up the rooms little hairdryer in an attempt to dry some clothes that I had washed 2 days earlier. I went until the hairdryer started to smell a bit funny, and the clothes were no closer to being dry. With that we packed up the bags, for an early departure the next morning. And that brings me here, sitting on the train to Edinburgh, with lovely blue skies out my window and the sun beaming down. We're off on our 5 day highlands tour tomorrow, so lets hope the weather holds out!!!