We left Alnwick Castle after a delicious and relaxing lunch and headed to York, the last city on our United Kingdom itinerary.  We arrived there in the late afternoon and headed to the apartment we had booked for four nights.  It was a lovely little apartment on Priory street in an old building with lots of character, not far from the main part of downtown.  Everyone we know that has been to York said they loved it and we soon saw why.  It is a fantastic city situated on a river, steeped in history and full of beautiful and interesting architecture.  We spent our first evening there getting settled, making dinner, and enjoying being in a home after staying in hotel rooms for four nights.

The next day was Sunday.  We had a slow start then we went to mass and confession at York Oratory.  After mass, we walked around the downtown area near the abbey and looked for lunch.  The streets were teeming with people.  We’d seen “Sunday Roast Dinner” advertised on many restaurant signs since being in England, but had never eaten one and I really wanted to try one before leaving the UK – this was our last chance.  We looked for recommendations and checked several places, but the restaurants were booked up.  We finally found and settled on a counter service restaurant called York Roast.  Our food was delicious!  It also looked, smelled and tasted like comfort food from home, just served in a box.  By the end of lunch, it was raining off and on, so we walked around a bit and saw the area called the Shambles, popped in and out of a market and a chocolate store and then headed back for a nice, Sunday afternoon rest.  

The kids all read for a while, but Scott and I ended up talking for about an hour to the rental manager who came by to handle an issue with the TV.  Our conversation started with us asking about the people in town that weekend.  We’d noticed that there were a lot of teenagers, possibly hundreds, walking around that were all similarly styled and dressed.  We learned that they are a part of the “traveling community” and were in town for big horse races that week and weekend.  “Traveling community” must be the current name for the community people used to call “gypsies” and this was the first time I had ever seen them.  We also talked to her about other aspects of English culture that we’d noticed or had questions about after spending a month there.  

That lazy afternoon turned into evening because it started raining again and continued raining into the night.  We’d talked about taking a York ghost tour, but no one wanted to walk around in the rain for two hours.  We settled on watching the first Harry Potter movie so we could rewatch all the scenes that were set at Alnwick Castle where we’d just been.  The TV wasn’t working, so we all circled around Scott’s chromebook.  

Our second full day in York we took the train out to Thirsk to visit the World of James Herriot.  I’ll write about that in a separate post.  Our third and last day we had to narrow down our list of things we wanted to do in York to our “musts.”  We decided to take the walking tour the city tourism office offers and visit the National Railway Museum.  The volunteer guide started with a well-versed summary of York’s 1900 year history and then led us around the central core of York, taking us to key places in the city, starting with those that date back to the Roman era and working forward in time.  Like the tour in Bath, it was fantastic.  We saw a place where archaeologists have unearthed layers of the city down to Roman roads and foundations, exposing all the layers of civilization until the present.  We visited the ruins of St. Mary’s Abbey, built in the 1200’s, a complex for the monarch built in the 1500s, and walked on the city wall while we looked down upon various landmarks and she pointed out signature Victorian era restorations.  Our tour group was made up of people from several different countries, including two ladies from California and a couple who’d recently moved to England from South Africa; the man from South Africa was eager to talk to Scott about American politics.  

We all enjoyed the first hour/hour and a half, but the kids were ready to go after that.  We stayed with it until the scheduled end of the tour and then said goodbye when the group continued on for extra sites and headed to the National Railway Museum.  John loved toy trains when he was little and that love evolved over the years into an enthusiasm for how real trains are built, work and perform.  Over the years he’s developed an impressive bank of knowledge about rail engines, cars, and systems around the world.  Our trip to the National Railway Museum was especially for him and I was also eager to see what has captured his interest.  

The museum is housed in a round-house and has a wide collection of vehicles spanning from the earliest wagonway vehicles to a EuroStar tunnel boring machine and engine.  Our only disappointment was not being able to find much gluten free food at the cafe so we ate a funny combination of the snacks we had in our bags to tide us over.  

After our time at the Railway Museum, it was time to think about packing so John and Abe headed back to the apartment while Scott, Arlie and I went to a tea room for one last tea time.  I had wanted to go and have a full formal tea service, but the wait was long at the prominent tea room in town, so we decided on a less busy place.  We enjoyed a simple tea service and sampled a couple of different types of cake.  There was a sweet retired couple sitting beside us that asked us where we were from and we ended up having a long conversation about education.  They were the fourth older couple who had initiated friendly conversations with us since we arrived in this part of the country.  These conversations were rich parts of our visit there and caused us to name this “the friendliest part of England.”

The next day, August 30th, it was time to move on to continental Europe.  I am thankful our time in the United Kingdom ended on a positive note.  

Wins from York:  Rest and relaxation, the World of James Herriot, we really grasped York’s span of history

Learns from York:  Three days in York was not enough, especially since one of them we needed to spend resting and resetting

p.s. – The rental agency was wonderful: https://www.wheelwrightsyork.com/