Wednesday -- York
Apr. 2nd, 2005 02:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
klwilliamsL discovered the hard way that not only do cell phones not work in Europe if you don't arrange in advance, but that cell phone company customer "service" is a vile, evil group of unhelpful morons. (My boss, after spending several hours on the phone with his cell phone company trying to arrange cell phone service in Italy for a trip he was going to make, told me that if our support department is ever compared to the cell phone company support department, I was fired, and so was he, since we would obviously be doing something horribly wrong.) While she went off to a cell phone store to deal with this, I took a walk along the city walls.
The York city walls vary from wide enough for two to walk abreast if they're short and friendly, to wide enough for four. The walls came to just above my head (I'm 5'9") and had battlements, so I could see through the lower sections. There were also arrow slits here and there, and in a couple of places a rounded open area that stuck out a little, on a platform a little bit higher up, with steps leading up to it. I walked along the section behind York Minster, so I got to see all the way around it, and it's just as impressive from all sides.
I met up with L at the Yorvik Viking Center. They have a Viking village set up, with shops and houses and so on, and you get on a little car like a ride at Disneyland, and it takes you through the village. There's an audio explanation that plays as you go. It's very well done. The car brings you close enough to the different sections so you can see clearly, but not close enough to touch. After the car, you get out in a mini-museum, aimed at kids but interesting for adults, that shows different Viking artifacts (including a skeleton with battle wounds), and also has areas that let you do little exploring projects. There was a school group there, so we didn't spend a lot of time there but went straight to the gift shop. I didn't buy much on this trip, but what I did get I got mostly here, including scratch 'n' sniff postcards (Yorvik Viking Center is very proud of the fact that their village includes authentic smells) and a Viking merchant piggy bank. This is the first time I've seen a Viking figure without weapons and a shield, so I figured he must be powerful enough to not need them, and so a good choice to guard my coins.
We had lunch at Betty's Tea Shop, which is both a restaurant and a bakery. Yummy. We also had dinner there, since it's one of the very few places open after five that serves food. They sell some of their baked goods at http://bettysbypost.com, but they don't appear to have what I wanted to order, which is simnel cake, a fruit cake with marzipan layers in it, which I wanted to get for my mother. Maybe next Easter.
After lunch we went to the Merchant Adventurer's Hall, which is a Medieval hall belonging to (yup) the Merchant Adventurer's Guild, which still exists and still uses it. The hall itself, and the building it's in, were impressive, and they had some exhibits of furniture and such. Afterwards, we went to Barley Hall, which is another restored Medieval house about halfway through being restored. We got the audio tour and wandered through there, too. They have it set up to be an actual house, with furniture and clothes and day to day things, and let you wander through the house (with an audio tour tape player) and sit on things and touch things and so on.
Afterwards we did a little tourist shopping and had dinner. The area around York Minster is full of twisting little streets lined with tiny shops, many of which still have ledges extending from their windows where the Medieval shopkeepers used to display their wares. The street names mostly end in -gate, so there is Stonegate, Petergate, Low Petergate, Coppergate, St. Saviorgate, etc. There's also The Shambles, which used to be the street of the butchers, and is rumored to be haunted. I'd believe it. In between the streets are tiny little alleys that cut through, one of which was named something like Mad Annie's, which I rechristend Mad Auntie Liz's.
Then back to the hotel. The hotel's interior was very modern, with modern Scandinavian furniture and plumbing. Unfortunately that meant that there was a very nice shower but no bathtub, so no soaking sore bodies tired from all those stairs and cobblestones. And so to bed.
The York city walls vary from wide enough for two to walk abreast if they're short and friendly, to wide enough for four. The walls came to just above my head (I'm 5'9") and had battlements, so I could see through the lower sections. There were also arrow slits here and there, and in a couple of places a rounded open area that stuck out a little, on a platform a little bit higher up, with steps leading up to it. I walked along the section behind York Minster, so I got to see all the way around it, and it's just as impressive from all sides.
I met up with L at the Yorvik Viking Center. They have a Viking village set up, with shops and houses and so on, and you get on a little car like a ride at Disneyland, and it takes you through the village. There's an audio explanation that plays as you go. It's very well done. The car brings you close enough to the different sections so you can see clearly, but not close enough to touch. After the car, you get out in a mini-museum, aimed at kids but interesting for adults, that shows different Viking artifacts (including a skeleton with battle wounds), and also has areas that let you do little exploring projects. There was a school group there, so we didn't spend a lot of time there but went straight to the gift shop. I didn't buy much on this trip, but what I did get I got mostly here, including scratch 'n' sniff postcards (Yorvik Viking Center is very proud of the fact that their village includes authentic smells) and a Viking merchant piggy bank. This is the first time I've seen a Viking figure without weapons and a shield, so I figured he must be powerful enough to not need them, and so a good choice to guard my coins.
We had lunch at Betty's Tea Shop, which is both a restaurant and a bakery. Yummy. We also had dinner there, since it's one of the very few places open after five that serves food. They sell some of their baked goods at http://bettysbypost.com, but they don't appear to have what I wanted to order, which is simnel cake, a fruit cake with marzipan layers in it, which I wanted to get for my mother. Maybe next Easter.
After lunch we went to the Merchant Adventurer's Hall, which is a Medieval hall belonging to (yup) the Merchant Adventurer's Guild, which still exists and still uses it. The hall itself, and the building it's in, were impressive, and they had some exhibits of furniture and such. Afterwards, we went to Barley Hall, which is another restored Medieval house about halfway through being restored. We got the audio tour and wandered through there, too. They have it set up to be an actual house, with furniture and clothes and day to day things, and let you wander through the house (with an audio tour tape player) and sit on things and touch things and so on.
Afterwards we did a little tourist shopping and had dinner. The area around York Minster is full of twisting little streets lined with tiny shops, many of which still have ledges extending from their windows where the Medieval shopkeepers used to display their wares. The street names mostly end in -gate, so there is Stonegate, Petergate, Low Petergate, Coppergate, St. Saviorgate, etc. There's also The Shambles, which used to be the street of the butchers, and is rumored to be haunted. I'd believe it. In between the streets are tiny little alleys that cut through, one of which was named something like Mad Annie's, which I rechristend Mad Auntie Liz's.
Then back to the hotel. The hotel's interior was very modern, with modern Scandinavian furniture and plumbing. Unfortunately that meant that there was a very nice shower but no bathtub, so no soaking sore bodies tired from all those stairs and cobblestones. And so to bed.
