Duke of York

Cindy is attempting to rid her brain of this demon earworm by imparting it to everyone reading today's blog:

Oh, the grand old Duke of York, he had ten thousand men.

He marched them up to the top of the hill, and he marched them down again.

And when they were up they were up

And when they were down they were down.

And when they were only halfway up they were neither up nor down.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

York. That's where we were yesterday in a whirlwind visit. We arrived at 9am, immediately hustled to our new lodging (another pub called Masons Arms). Fortunately, they let us drop our bags there so we could waste no time before exploring.

Let me back up just a bit. This was the first day of using our Eurail passes! After a couple of hitches because I really had no idea how to use them, it worked! And the train was quiet, smooth, and fast. We made the trip from London to York in just under two hours. This was a trip that took four days by stagecoach.

Kings Cross Station, London

York Station

Oh, and here's the good/bad news bulletin. The good news is that I don't have Covid. The bad news is that I have a crappy cold, the first in probably five years. 🤧 It's definitely cramping my style and sapping my energy. 😵‍💫 But I must press on.

Cindy and I wandered into downtown York and finally found a set of stairs that gave us access to the city wall, which was originally built by the Romans. Then someone else came along and raised the wall even higher, so today what's left of the wall--and it's a few miles--is quite high and impressive. According to Rick Steves, "you can count the ages of York by the different bricks in the city wall: Roman on the bottom, then Danish, Norman, and the 'new' addition from the 14th century."

NOTE: I had to stop there because I was too tired and miserable to go on. But I'm baa-aa-aak now, and I think I can get York behind us--and then get on to Edinburgh. To top things off, our internet connection here in Edinburgh is spotty at best.

Back to York. We took a great walk along the wall, with one of the best encounters being (I think) Alice in Wonderland:

Someone else on the wall agreed with my guess: it's Alice. Back there behind her was perhaps Mr. Toad, but I just couldn't tell...

We descended from the wall to have a bite to eat at the Old White Swan pub

before heading to York Minster for a tour, which was led by a charming storyteller whose stories were sadly lacking in really solid information about the minster itself. But he did dig into details about the carvings of the fantastic faces we could see all around the Chapter House, which served as the location for the Parkiament of King Edward I. These carvings were made by a local stoneworker, and he used the faces of his fellow locals. He had a good imagination and a great sense of humor. Here are a (very) few of those faces:

York Minster was the northern headquarters of Henry VIII's new Anglican Church, and today its archbishop is one of only two in England (the other is Canterbury).

Anyway, not to get too deeply into this church stuff. I'm most interested in the music and the architecture. So I'll leave you with this photo; the archbishop's throne is pretty awe-inspiring:

We also spent an inordinate time in the Minster's Undercroft--deep in the bowels under the church where they have been working for years to reinforce the foundations. The explanations were all sort of engineer- and architect-language, but the gist of it is that this massive cathedral was built on the foundations of smaller churches and Roman ruins, etc., and not surprisingly it was beginning to show a real need for new support. Not only has that work been done, but it also allowed lots of space for a museum about the architectural, geological, and human history of the place.

Cindy and I went from York Minster to the Shambles area. I neglected to mention that this Monday was a bank holiday, so the Shambles area and its Snickelways* were PACKED in the early afternoon. We made our way through the crowds, which were especially thick on the street that served, I think, as the location for Harry Potter's forays into the town where he could buy his wands and other magical things. In our desire to escape the throngs, we did manage to find one of the Snickelway markers:

We finally made our way to the York Castle Museum, which was not exactly as we had expected, but it was an interesting look at the history of York. This is a huge building, built by A local physician, Dr. Kirk, to house the extensive collection he had amassed through his work and years of travel and wanted to turn over to the city. As a museum person, I recognize it as the kind of local historical museum that can thrive within its region, focusing on a look at the broader history of the world through the lens of the local populace. This was an exhaustive and exhausting museum. I think the best section might have been on WWI, but the jail area was presented well.

We did have some fun there.

And we ran into our little friend there:

After a little R&R in our room at the pub,

we headed out to find dinner. We discovered that all the day trippers had departed, and we had the Shambles all to ourselves. So a quiet dinner and back to the pub for a half pint and off to bed. As bad as I was feeling, I managed to get that night's report (on the day before) finished and published so I could get to sleep only to wake up early to head to the train station.

A few final images on our way out of town:

So that was York. We passed on the planned ghost walking tour because a crowd of about 50 people had queued up for it, and we just didn't feel up to fighting to stay in the front of the pack so we could actually hear what the guide was saying. We'll have to wait for our next visit to see more of this interesting city.