York is an ancient walled city on the River Ouse in Yorkshire, and was once considered the capital of England. Many of the English cities we've visited were at one time walled for defense purposes. In a few places - like Canterbury - the walls still exist, and in others - like Sandwich - there are paths to show you where the walls once were. York has probably the finest preserved walls of any medieval city and you can walk along the nearly 3 mile stretch if you like to do such things.
We arrived on Friday afternoon, tired from standing on the train (!) so took a taxi right to our hotel, the really beautiful Middlethorpe Hall, which is a National Trust property. This was a special stay as Middlethorpe Hall was built around the year 1700 as a beautiful country house for English "gentleman" Thomas Barlow. Over the centuries it's been used as a home, a girls' boarding school and a nightclub, and has now been beautifully and meticulously restored. The rooms are so beautifully decorated - we really felt transformed back to another era. And the service, across the board, was exemplary. This is not something easily found in England. We took a taxi back in to town Friday evening, first to "The Swan" for a pint, then to dinner. The Swan was quite a pub, a bit off of the beaten track (the hotel had recommended it as it was near our chosen restaurant) and obviously full of locals as opposed to tourists. There's a bit of a different accent up north and this was quite evident amongst the chatting regulars. Our dinner at another local establishment, Meltons, was really enjoyable, and Chris was able to have a good wine conversation with Lucy, one of the owners.
Saturday started with breakfast at the hotel, then a taxi into town. As usual, we started at the information center to get our map (well, my map) and advice on what to do in the time available. We started at the York Minster. A minster apparently is a title given to a certain type of church in England, having something to do with the charter and/or type of clergy; a bit confusing for me - basically it's a cathedral. And an impressive one at that; supposedly it's the largest gothic cathedral in Northern Europe built beginning in 1220. We started the tour by climbing the 275 very steep stone steps up to the top of the Minster Tower. Did I say that these steps were steep? Because they were. And it was a very narrow spiral stairway as well. And the steps were pretty steep, just in case I haven't told you that yet. It was the kind of deal where they let only 50 people at a time go up, then once you get to the top you need to wait until all 50 have come up before you can go down as there is only one staircase of pretty steep steps. Going down was really not that much easier than going up, due most likely to the steepness of the steps. But it was a nice view, which we were grateful for after the steep climb.
After touring the Minster we strolled the very busy streets - I didn't mention that we were dodging Vikings from the get-go (little did we know that it was the annual Viking Festival weekend which added some color to the atmosphere.) Festival aside, York is apparently quite a weekend destination and stays teeming with people all year round.
Another recommended place to see was the York Castle Museum. Dubbed "the best day out in history", how could we resist? In the end, we sort of wish we had. It did house a very interesting collection of items from daily life in York throughout the centuries, but was really oddly put together. You started out in "period rooms" from Victorian times, then suddenly you were in the year 1939, then being given an explanation of midwifery in the 17th century, then in a reconstructed indoor Victorian village, then the "Fab 60's" - Beatles music and all. And outside on the front lawn the Vikings were practicing their battle to the death for that evening's performance (the apparent grand finale of the day's festivities.) It all just felt weird. This was followed by a pub lunch which may just have qualified as our worst pub lunch since arriving on these shores. But the beer and atmosphere were just fine. We continued then to stroll the streets and shops. Much of the center of York is prohibited to car traffic which makes for great strolling, and the really old pedestrian alleyways are called "Snickleways" - how adorable is that? There is also a narrow street called "The Shambles" which is apparently one of the best-preserved medieval streets in all of Europe. We stopped for tea, as you do, and made our way back to the taxi rank to get a ride back to the hotel. By now, by the way, the weather had turned windy and bitterly cold, so we were glad that our dinner reservation for that night kept us cozily in the hotel.
We ended the afternoon with a swim in the hotel pool and a soak in the hot-tub which I was quite grateful for; we had had a good workout earlier in the day climbing up some very steep steps in the York Minster (not sure if I mentioned that.) Dinner at the hotel matched the wonderful service, and we ate & drank quite well. Sunday morning brought with it a magnificent blue sky but really cold temps. We packed & checked out of the hotel, took a taxi to the train station to store our bags (what a great idea it would be for all stations to have a place to store your luggage), then bundled up and headed out. As I bought a joint membership for Chris & I in the National Trust last year, I'm always happy to gain the free admission to its properties whenever I can; unfortunately many of these properties are winterized & closed ("put to bed" they say here) for the winter months. Luckily, the Treasurer's House in York, a NT property, is one of the few places that are piloting a plan to open earlier in the year, so we were able to visit. One of the reasons of course that these historic homes close is that there is no heat - not just for the visitors but also for the poor docents that have to sit in each room to keep their eye on things. So we had a chilly tour of a home that got its name not because it houses any treasures, but because it is built on the site where the treasurer of the Minster was once lived. An eccentric fellow named Frank Green bought the re-built structure in 1897 and decorated the rooms based on the furniture pieces in them. Hence there's the medieval Great Hall, Edwardian & Victorian period rooms, and the Queen's Room, where the future Edward VII's wife Alexandra once stayed - before she was even really a queen but who's to notice? Frank donated the house and all of its contents to the NT in 1930 with the express condition that nothing was to be changed - he even had pins put into the floor to ensure the furniture stayed in place. It all made for a nice tour.
Our next stop was "Betty's" - a landmark tea house & cafe in York (its flagship tearoom is in nearby Harrogate) that's been in business for 90+ years. We'd found the original ("Big Betty's") on Saturday but the queue was around the block and we couldn't imagine the tea being that much better than anywhere else so we moved on. On Sunday we decided to try it again, and just by sheer happenstance on the way came across what's known as "Little Betty's" which has the exact same menu and barely any line so we gave it a shot and were glad we did. A lovely lunch and delicious "Betty's Tea Room" blend of black tea. But our thirst was not quite so easily quenched - thirst of a different kind. On the way from the train station to the hotel on Friday afternoon, Chris had gotten into a conversation with the taxi driver about pubs and found out that one of his favorite British beers that he enjoyed in the US, Samuel Smith's, was not only available in some of the local pubs, but available on tap, not just in the bottle. (It apparently is brewed in Tadcaster, just down the road.) So all weekend, he popped into just about every pub we passed to see if Samuel Smith's was available. With barely an hour to spare on Sunday before our train, lo & behold there was the Hansom Cab pub with not just one but six types of SS's on tap! He settled for a half pint each of a stout and a bitter and considered it a successful weekend.
We had just enough time for a short walk along the York walls on the way back to the train station. After picking up our luggage and planning to wait 30 minutes for our train, along came an earlier train direct to King's Cross; looking inside we spied 2 unreserved seats so we shoved our way past the toddlers and old ladies and slipped into them just before the man with the crutches could get there. Hooray! Don't judge - you find you can become a different person when the alternative is standing for 2 hours while holding on for dear life. (And yes, I am just kidding about the kids, elderly and handicapped.)
*as opposed to "New York" the American colony named after York.
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