Tuesday -- York
Apr. 2nd, 2005 02:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
klwilliamsAfter a late start (see previous entry about the pub in Soho), ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
acanthusleaf and I got on a train to York. The ride was uneventful (we slept through a lot of it), and when we got to York I used the room booking service for the first time. They found us a three-star hotel right next to the heart of the town for the same price as a B&B farther out. It was also only a couple of blocks from the train station, but we still got lost walking there. But we found it, checked in, and hied on over to York Minster. (It's called a minster rather than a cathedral because it used to belong to a monastery ("monasterium"), which got shortened to "minster".)
York Minster is stunning, even more so when you consider that it had a serious fire in the nave twenty years ago which has since been restored so completely you can't tell. The quire and the stained glass windows were beautiful. I particularly liked the chapter house, connected to the minster. This is a large round room with a gorgeous ceiling, and many funny and interesting heads carved in the stone above the stalls set into the walls. (I sat in one of the stalls. What an inspiring place to hold meetings.) Another interesting thing in the minster was a pulley in the shape of a dragon's head up near the celing in the nave. The guidebook said they thought it was for lifting the baptismal font, but there wasn't a font anymore.
One thing that was notable about York Minster compared to Canterbury Cathedral and Westminster Abbey is that even though it, too, has all sorts of tombs and monuments set into its walls and floor, the monuments are mostly to local groups and people. There's a sense that this is an actual, working church for the community, not just a monument to the past.
Just as Evensong started, L and I went down into the undercroft, which had been excavated around 1970 while doing reconstruction. They had set it up to show the different levels and locations of the Roman, Viking, and Norman versions of the minster. There were displays of items found from the dig, again including a lot of Roman daily items. Very cool.
Afterwards, we found a place to eat which was the worst meal of our trip. Since I was in York, I ordered roast beef with Yorkshire pudding. The Yorkshire pudding was good, the beef was barely edible, and the peas and carrots had come from an old can and been barely warmed up. I had spotted dick for dessert, which is a cake with raisins in it, cooked in custard, with a custardy topping poured over it. It was pretty good.
It was dark by the time we finished, and we walked through the winding, Medieval streets, the shops empty and dark, and made our way home down the Shambles. And so to bed.
acanthusleaf and I got on a train to York. The ride was uneventful (we slept through a lot of it), and when we got to York I used the room booking service for the first time. They found us a three-star hotel right next to the heart of the town for the same price as a B&B farther out. It was also only a couple of blocks from the train station, but we still got lost walking there. But we found it, checked in, and hied on over to York Minster. (It's called a minster rather than a cathedral because it used to belong to a monastery ("monasterium"), which got shortened to "minster".) York Minster is stunning, even more so when you consider that it had a serious fire in the nave twenty years ago which has since been restored so completely you can't tell. The quire and the stained glass windows were beautiful. I particularly liked the chapter house, connected to the minster. This is a large round room with a gorgeous ceiling, and many funny and interesting heads carved in the stone above the stalls set into the walls. (I sat in one of the stalls. What an inspiring place to hold meetings.) Another interesting thing in the minster was a pulley in the shape of a dragon's head up near the celing in the nave. The guidebook said they thought it was for lifting the baptismal font, but there wasn't a font anymore.
One thing that was notable about York Minster compared to Canterbury Cathedral and Westminster Abbey is that even though it, too, has all sorts of tombs and monuments set into its walls and floor, the monuments are mostly to local groups and people. There's a sense that this is an actual, working church for the community, not just a monument to the past.
Just as Evensong started, L and I went down into the undercroft, which had been excavated around 1970 while doing reconstruction. They had set it up to show the different levels and locations of the Roman, Viking, and Norman versions of the minster. There were displays of items found from the dig, again including a lot of Roman daily items. Very cool.
Afterwards, we found a place to eat which was the worst meal of our trip. Since I was in York, I ordered roast beef with Yorkshire pudding. The Yorkshire pudding was good, the beef was barely edible, and the peas and carrots had come from an old can and been barely warmed up. I had spotted dick for dessert, which is a cake with raisins in it, cooked in custard, with a custardy topping poured over it. It was pretty good.
It was dark by the time we finished, and we walked through the winding, Medieval streets, the shops empty and dark, and made our way home down the Shambles. And so to bed.
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no subject
Date: 2005-04-03 01:37 am (UTC)This situation needs to be remedied.
The Yorkshire pudding was good, the beef was barely edible, and the peas and carrots had come from an old can and been barely warmed up.
Sounds like every joke I've ever heard about traditional English cooking.
no subject
Date: 2005-04-03 04:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-06 03:27 pm (UTC)There are carts with mirrors set in them so you can push them around and look down to see the ceiling. I love that place.