Holiday Photos #30 - York

Today I'm finishing up the last of York with a hodge podge of pictures both here and on Laume's Studio. I left off promising to meet back up in front of the York Minster for a ghost tour. I thought I had a lot of photos from the tour but apparently I just have very vivid memories of the tour and not actual photos. I did snap a few though.


This was our tour guide. He did a beautiful job of looking the part and had a wonderful spooky voice as well.

This was an alley next to a museum that wasn't open again while we were there but apparently where William is standing is where an old Roman road cuts across and through the basement of the museum. Many people have reported seeing Roman soldiers marching through both the alley and the basement. Not entire soldiers however. Just the top halves, as the original road was much lower than the present day surface.

The other thing I liked about this photo is how it shows all the different varieties of brick and stone you see so abundantly.

Technically, this is a lousy photo, I know, but I had to share it with you in the spirit of "how NOT to take a photograph". I was trying to take a photo of that tree, because I loved how the trunk and branches were all lumpy and crooked. But as you can see, a certain William decided to run across the screen of vision and if that wasn't enough, I also caught the lamppost in the foreground - a fun technique when done on purpose but in this case it wasn't - and the end result was my poor camera had no idea what I was aiming at and managed to get all three layers of the photograph out of focus. Still, for some reason I like the photo - it makes one ask questions, like "Why is that boy running?"

A quilting friend (like, I've actually quilted in anyone's recent memory!), Anna, lives not far from York and she informed me that these ruins that I already shared a photo of previously, are the remains of St. Mary's.... oh dang, now I've forgotten - chapel? cathedral? Abbey! Yes, that's it. Wouldn't it be lovely to have ruins like this in your backyard? Uhm. Perhaps on a slightly smaller scale. Unless you had a really big yard.

William made a friend. This little pigeon followed him around the park for quite some time. Perhaps he looked like the kind of person a bird could depend on to toss him a few crumbs.


Just outside the walls of the park/ruins, was a pretty little street. I particularly liked this home with the beautiful climbing roses. I could live here.


We went into a number of museums in York. This shot of William dressed as an ancient Viking warrior was taken inside a museum called Yorvik, or something like that.


Inside a museum in the park they had a traveling exhibit of ancient Roman artifacts. I already shared the photo of me in Roman garb, here's William in the male version. I'm sure the sweatshirt arms and tennis shoes add to the authenticity of the look.


We went to a very large museum displaying exhibits of more current English history - current meaning in the last couple of hundred years. I took this picture because it showed how they measured market foods, specifically a bushel and a peck. I can't remember which ones are a bushel and a peck, I'm thinking the two largest. I got a kick out of it because I'm always singing an old song to my kids that includes the line "I love you a bushel and a peck, a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck." Sometimes I get silly and change it to "and a hug around the nose/elbow/knee/etc.". Now I know what how much a bushel and a peck really are. Of course I love my kids way more than that - billions and trillions of bushels full.


In this same museum, old school desks. The irony of course is that when I took this picture, William had never sat in a school desk before. Of course now he sits in one five days a week and I bet he assumes this position on a regular basis.


There was a castle - well, really just a turret, or a very, very small castle - on a hill - well, really just a mound, or a very, very small hill. We climbed to the top and snapped a few photos from the parapet. I love the chimney pots, the bright red of the ferry on the river in the middle of all the faded red of the brick buildings.

Another pretty view. I liked the black clock tower and the red doors of the fire station.



And one more - the simple facade of the building in the foreground, the fussier front of the building just behind it, the old church spire poking out, the Minster in the background.



As we were climbing back down the mound I caught this sight. Here's an adult, presumably a teacher or parent chaperone, taking care of his young charges while, strolling behind him are some adult geese taking care of their own brood.



And as the sun sets, reflecting in the windows of this pretty old church, we say goodbye to York. Next post, we're headed to the big city - London!

Oh, but I forgot, don't say goodbye just yet - click on over to Laume's Studio and take another long scroll through some more picturesque images of York. I put the detail and more "artsy" ones there. (And if you missed the travelogue sans photos I posted while we were traveling, you can read them by typing "York" into the Blogger's Search this Blog box. Or choose May 2006 from the archives.)

Holiday Photos #29

I accidentally pushed "Publish Post" before I had anything but photos up, so I'm going to add a quick commentary to this and fix it before too many people show up and wonder what's up with the silent photos.

My favorite part of York was an area called the Shambles. Technically I believe only one street in this little maze of streets is called the Shambles, but I think a lot of people think of the whole area this way. It's an extremely well perserved collection of medieval buildings and it's like stepping through the brick wall and finding oneself in Diagon Alley. It's one of the few times in the entire trip that the focus was on shopping, mostly window shopping, and William didn't roll his eyes too badly as there was so much fun to see.

I couldn't decide which photos to share, so I'm just sharing most of them. A lot of these photos were taken after shop hours, which is why there are so few people. During the day the streets were pretty packed.

See how the buildings go up and over the tops of the street?

If you're from the UK, you're probably going "ho hum", but to us Yanks, these old buildings are like stepping into a movie setting. We don't have so much "old" over here. Unless you want to visit the Grand Canyon or walk in a Redwood forest, then we've probably got you beat.

Love this old black and white building that's sagging in the middle with age. And right to the left you see a gold ram hanging up there - that's The Golden Fleece, a pub and inn that's reputedly the most haunted in all England. William and I had lunch there, a very fine lunch indeed but alas, we didn't see any spirits except for the ones they served at the bar.

William was, for the most part, a delightful travel companion. He did have his moments however and I got a kick out of catching him having a bit of sulk with accompanying mood label on the bus behind him.


Is this a cool name or what? It was a pub below and an internet lounge above. It was really neat because along with tables and chairs, they also had cubbies full of cushions, beds really, where you could all pile in and have a drink and chat in a crowd.

Here's a fuzzy larger photo of the shop front.

On the recommendation of a friend, we went to an apparently well known tea house called Betty's Tea Room. We found out later that we didn't go to the main tea room but rather a smaller one they had near the Shambles. Look at those lovely sugar cubes - they look like tiny snowballs.

I ordered one of these rather frightening looking fellows. In the end though, my teeth were bigger than his. He was tasty.

Just another view of the wonderful streets. Is that a Starbucks sign there on the right? They're everywhere!

There's a name for this inset beam and brick building style. If I wasn't in a hurry, I'd look it up for you. Maybe later. But isn't it pretty? About the only time you see something like this in the U.S., it's fake, wood added after the fact for decorative purposes.

We found a wonderful little plaza full of outdoor vendors. I wanted to buy hubby a hat but didn't want to carry it around so we left and came back, alas, they'd closed up for the day. so hubby didn't get his hat. I did buy myself a couple packs of socks though, at another stall, which was a good memento because I wear them all the time and I remember this lovely trip every time I pick a pair out my dresser drawer. I can't look at this photo without wanting to go read one of my favorite children's book - Caps for Sale.

One more, with a peek of the Minster in the background. Next round of photos, we'll meet back up in front of it for a Ghost Tour.

Holiday Photos #28

We left Edinburgh on the train, next stop, York. York was one of the places we hadn't known we were going to visit when we made our travel itinerary. We'd intentionally only made a general plan and direction, with lots of open time so we could stay longer or add stops if we wanted. At that time we didn't have an inkling of an interest in or know we wanted to go to York.

When we were trudging up a hill with our luggage in Conwy, Wales, hoping we were going in the right direction to find our B & B, a man in a truck pulled over to see if we needed any help. He was able to assure us we were "almost there" and then, apropros of nothing except that we were travelers, he asked if we were going to visit York. No, we hadn't thought to do that. Well, we HAD to go to York, says he. We had originally planned to stop someplace between Edinburgh and London where we could visit Hadrian's Wall. That ended up being somewhat tricky to do by train, so we decided to give York a try instead.

This building is NOT in York. In fact, now that I think of it, I think we saw it on an earlier train trip, maybe between Wales and Blackpool, or somewhere before Edinburgh. I could be wrong. It might be somewhere between Edinburgh and York. Does anyone know WHERE it is and WHAT it is? And why it's never appeared in a Doctor Who episode because doesn't it look like it should? Actually, it might have and I just haven't seen that episode yet. Anyway, I'm curious about it.

Back to this leg of the trip, we arrived in York. We'd decided not to plan a place to stay ahead of time because we'd bumped into some friends in Edinburgh who'd just come from York and raved about a B & B that was a bit pricier than what we'd used so far. I thought we'd check it out and if it wasn't worth the extra money, we could find something cheaper. Up to this point, still pre-tourist season, we'd had plenty of choices so I wasn't worried about finding accomodations. What we didn't know was that we'd arrived in York on the weekend of THE RACES. Horse races. Apparently a HUGE thing. To quote a famous line - There was no room at the inn. Any inn. We ended up walking for what seemed like miles, dragging our suitcases behind us as they somehow got heavier and heavier with each step. Eventually a very nice lady at a very nice (and fancy) hotel took pity on us and we ended up with a discounted room we could afford. It was still the most we'd paid so far. But by that time we were just grateful to have some place to sleep.

As soon as we got our bags to our room we took off to see what there was too see. Not far from our hotel we found this very big church.

York Minster

Check out the awesome Gargoyles. Or are they called Grotesques. Can't remember which is which.


I was with William so guess what we did....huff, puff, gasp, gasp.... we climbed up to the very top of course.


My absolute dream job would allow me to travel all around the world photographing things. I can't say I loved photographing architecture more than I did the people and scenery, but I loved it just as much. Anyone want to hire me to go take more photos? I'll buy a fancier camera and take fantastic shots! Anyone?......... Well, while I'm waiting for an offer, let's continue on, shall we?

These support arches are mostly invisible from the ground but we saw them from above on a number of old buildings. I'm sure they have a name but I'm too lazy to research for it.

This photo screams for playing with - photoshop. Or using as the basis for an abstract quilt design. Hmmmm.

York is a city of layers. Now British, it was Roman before that and on the same site long before the Romans lay the ruins of a large Viking settlement. Just around the corner from the front of the cathedral is this sculpture of Constantine. I'm not sure if it's intentional but I can't help but think he looks like a haughty SOB, doesn't he?

Nearby, a roman column. Can't remember now whether it was originally on this site or moved here for display. It would be so cool if we had something like this in Susanville. What's that? Oh, that's just our roman column. Sigh. We do have some ancient petroglyphs nearby apparently, but they're on private ranch property and I haven't found anyone willing to show me where they are yet.

If you've been a long time reader you know the rule - William (or any one of my children who are handy at the moment) gets his picture taken with all his plastic or stone friends.

This means turn around is fair play....

We discovered a large history museum. It was the type of place that was probably a favorite with school groups as it gave an overview of English history all the way up to the present. It was probably nothing new to the average Brit but since it was all new to us, we loved it all. I wish I could remember the name of it. It was either The Yorkshire Museum or The Castle Museum. I Googled it and descriptions and photos of each look like where we were... anyway, there was a re-creation of an old jail cell. William locked me in.

I had to make a pathetic, sad face before he'd let me out. Eventually. After he'd stopped laughing.


You could dress in common Roman attire. We both robed up. Can't find his photo though, just mine.

Along the river (what river? Uhm, ..... a wet one?) there was a park with meandering walkways, gardens, shady copses, a museum, park benches, old walls, and these beautiful old ruins which I'm showing you with true Vanna-esque style.

I don't know why I didn't think of this before now, I should have been linking these photo posts to my orginal travel posts all along. Oh well, better late than never. You can go here and here if you'd like to read the York posts from when we were actually on the road.

We enjoyed everything we did and saw in York but my absolutely favorite part of York, hands down, is the Shambles. It was like turning a corner and finding yourself in Diagon Alley.

More York photos to come.....