Ah, the full English breakfast! Definitely a meal they do right. After our eggs, tomato, sausage, bacon (that has more meat on it than fat), toast, and grapefruit wedges, we set off for the short walk to the Tourist Information center in the old city of York. There we met up with a volunteer guide who gave us (and about 30 other people) a two hour walking tour of the city. Romans were here starting around 100-200 AD and built a city wall around York that still is intact today. After they left, the Brits added to the wall. There's only one short section that was pulled down in the 1800s because traffic got so bad and they needed more room for the road. Here is a picture of Bootham Bar. (Chant to yourself: a pub is a bar, a bar is a gate, a gate is a street--Did I get that right, Laura & Sarah?)
Inside the city walls are some very cute streets. Here is the Shambles where butchers used to have their meats on display for potential buyers. Notice how the top floors tip toward the center of the street. They were taxed on the square footage of the ground floor only, so they tried to maximize the upper floors!
We also visited this very cool ruin of St. Mary's Abbey. Henry the VIII pretty much outlawed Catholicism and the abbeys were either torn down or abandoned and people took the stones from them to build their houses.
About halfway through our tour it started to rain, er, pour, and we became drenched in very short order. We also visited York Minster, which is a HUGE cathedral. Apparently it was supposed to be taller, but it got so heavy it started sinking, so they had to stop. It took 200 years to complete. Can you imagine being a builder and working on something that your father and grandfather worked on, knowing that you wouldn't see it completed?
We returned to our B&B for some dry clothes and a chance to rest before heading out in the afternoon.
In the afternoon we walked through the city to the Castle Museum (it was just okay) and then I went to back to York Minster for Evensong while Mark went to the train station to pick up Morrie and Dawn (my brother and sister-in-law, for those of you who don't know my family.) Evensong was pretty cool, the (all men's) choir (maybe they are all priests?) with their robes and Plainsong reminded me of a concert we saw last December of a group called Chanticleer. Some of this choir's numbers were accompanied by an organ that had some really ornate pipes.
I'm not sure how many pictures I'll be able to post from now on... it's taking FOREVER to upload the pictures, which is too bad because the pictures are far more interesting than what I write! But our internet connections haven't been that great.
Inside the city walls are some very cute streets. Here is the Shambles where butchers used to have their meats on display for potential buyers. Notice how the top floors tip toward the center of the street. They were taxed on the square footage of the ground floor only, so they tried to maximize the upper floors!
We also visited this very cool ruin of St. Mary's Abbey. Henry the VIII pretty much outlawed Catholicism and the abbeys were either torn down or abandoned and people took the stones from them to build their houses.
About halfway through our tour it started to rain, er, pour, and we became drenched in very short order. We also visited York Minster, which is a HUGE cathedral. Apparently it was supposed to be taller, but it got so heavy it started sinking, so they had to stop. It took 200 years to complete. Can you imagine being a builder and working on something that your father and grandfather worked on, knowing that you wouldn't see it completed?
We returned to our B&B for some dry clothes and a chance to rest before heading out in the afternoon.
In the afternoon we walked through the city to the Castle Museum (it was just okay) and then I went to back to York Minster for Evensong while Mark went to the train station to pick up Morrie and Dawn (my brother and sister-in-law, for those of you who don't know my family.) Evensong was pretty cool, the (all men's) choir (maybe they are all priests?) with their robes and Plainsong reminded me of a concert we saw last December of a group called Chanticleer. Some of this choir's numbers were accompanied by an organ that had some really ornate pipes.
I'm not sure how many pictures I'll be able to post from now on... it's taking FOREVER to upload the pictures, which is too bad because the pictures are far more interesting than what I write! But our internet connections haven't been that great.
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