York

                                                                                        York

From Manchester, we rented a little car (and I mean little) and drove to York. Helmut did a great job driving on the opposite side of the road.

We stopped in Leeds for a hot minute to see their football stadium but there wasn’t much going on.

About an hour and a half later, we arrived in York.

When you think of the quintessential Medieval English town, you’re thinking of York. 

Full of history dating back to 71AD, York has something for every history buff…Romans, Vikings, Normans, Anglo Saxons, castles, churches, and even chocolate! 

Fun fact: York is home to Rowntree, which is the candy company that invented Smarties, the Kit Kat and Rolos. They were bought out by Nestle in the 1980s (a hostile takeover), but they still make them here. Sadly they don’t give tours, but we are pretty sure that our AirBnB is in a building that used to be the old factory. It was right on the Foss river in a building called Cocoa Suites at Rountree Wharf!

We took a little free walking tour put on by the Association of Volunteer Guides to The City of York which was really good and truly free. They won’t even accept tips.

We learned about the castle walls, the York Minster, and got a quick history lesson about the area. Our guide Liz told us about the Bars, Gates, and Pubs and how the bars are part of the castle walls, the gates are actually streets and the pubs are bars (confusing, I know). 

She pointed out all kinds of things we would have otherwise never noticed. Like the cats that are affixed to the houses…

and the “tell tales”, which are pieces of glass attached to the buildings that are designed to let the owner know if the building is settling.

She also pointed out the smallest window in York (at Kings Manor)…

And the largest window in York (at the York Minster)…

While on the tour, we noticed this random window filled with creepy dolls. The building houses a thrift store that benefits mental health or something. We found that fitting.

We went to the National Railway Museum which was really interesting and was totally free. It was filled with lots of old and new train cars.

One of the most interesting things was a section of the Chunnel, the underwater tunnel for the train that connects England with the rest of Europe.

We also went to the York Castle Museum which was a great museum, but had a lot of exhibits unrelated to  the castle. 

They had a really neat recreation of the town of York that felt like stepping back in time.

The actual castle outside was a separate thing that we ended up not visiting. The high entry fee didn’t seem worth it.

York has an area called The Shambles that had a bunch of cute little shops, and many of them were capitalizing on the Harry Potter franchise. 

We wanted to have a proper British experience, so we had cream tea and scones

And ate Yorkshire pudding (nothing to write home about) and something called “Faggots and Pease Pudding” which wasn’t bad

We also visited a button store. We wondered how many buttons they needed to sell in order to stay in business…

We found a vintage clothing shop with some interesting signage

But the best part was finding this in the window!

After a long day wandering around, we stopped at a little Pub called The Red Lion to wet our whistle. 

It started out as a pretty standard pub experience, and then these 5 guys came and sat next to us. 

We struck up a conversation, and soon had 5 new friends: Chad, Bob, Bob, Frank, and Tom. They were  veterans who knew each other from the service and this was their quarterly pub crawl. 

There’s really no other way to explain this interaction but to say that it felt like we were suddenly in a Monty Python skit. These guys were hilarious! 

We both noted that the people of York were extremely friendly, and we loved the medieval feel of the town.

This is definitely a town we recommend everyone visit while in England. One of our favorites so far!