Happy Canada Day. The sky was looking cloudy as we headed off for our mornings activities, but the rain held off until later this afternoon.
We decided that, although our Airbnb had a very fancy combination washer/dryer, neither of us had the energy to try to figure it out and we decided instead today to drop off laundry and have somebody else wash, dry and fold it for us. You don’t even realize how much you know how your washer and dryer works until you look at some of these with strange symbols and things we don’t really understand. We dropped off the laundry and pleaded for it to be ready today, because tomorrow we have to head off to the next part of our journey. They agreed.
Then, we had about a half an hour time before we were going on a guided tour of the history of York. We were able to follow a narrow stairways, go up and walk about a third of the way around the ancient walled city on the actual wall.
It was a beautiful morning and it was so fun to sometimes seem like we’re walking through a wooded forest, and sometimes peeking over into peoples backyards or fancy restaurants. This wall dated way back to Roman times and even the time before the Romans, when other groups had walls here. The Vikings also use the area as a protective fortress after the Romans. Eventually, the town was almost ready to tear it down, but some people in the Victorian age pleaded to keep it and actually restore it, which happened in the late 1800s. So now it is in beautiful shape and you can walk much of the wall around the old city.
We arrived early for our tour starting outside the Minster church and found that it was just going to be the two of us, another American gentleman, and our guide, Nick. This is one of our most favorite things to get basically a private tour while still paying the normal public rate. This happens to us regularly and we are always grateful.
For the next two hours, our guide took us throughout the historic town. Some of the areas we had explored on our own or on the haunted tour, and some that we hadn’t seen yet. Nick was really knowledgeable and was particularly impressive how he could come up with exact dates that things had happened. We learned a lot more about the history of Christianity and the cathedral. And he brought us around so that we could see the workshop, where the stonemasons are working to repair parts of the cathedral. This was very impressive.
We also learned more about the Roman times and about the variety of different kings of England and Scotland, who had come through York. For a long time, York was considered the number two city in England. And it was also the farthest most north Roman outpost and capital of the province. Actually, York was for a few years of capital of England. So lots of famous people and lots of famous things happened here.
It was fascinating to fill in some of the information that we had gained an earlier parts of our trip. The houses traditionally had slate roofs with the slate coming from northern Wales. We’ve saw that in Wales. We also heard more about the Romans, as well as the fact that York was the target of bombing by the Germans and World War II. And it was picked as a target here out of the same German guidebook that talked about cities that people should visit in Europe. It had the same status as Bath as being an ancient city with lots of important historical sites. Thankfully, the cathedral was not damaged during that time and has actually the largest collection of intact medieval stain glass windows in the world.
We also had a chance to learn more about the trade guild systems that were very strong here with shoemakers, exporters, tailors and weavers among many other trades. There were 56 different guild houses in this small area. And a lot of wealth.
The tour was excellent and we were really appreciative of all the more information that we have about the town of York. We had another good healthy lunch and then back to the Airbnb to work on photos and have a rest.
In the late afternoon, it was time to go and pick up our newly washed and dried laundry. And it was raining steadily. This was the first real rain that we had to walk through in over two weeks of being in the UK. Luckily, we had dragged along our raincoats and we slogged down the street, stopping to pick up some things for dinner at the grocery store, got our laundry and headed back. We fixed early dinner and had a little time before we were headed off on one more adventure for the day.
This was a one-hour boat cruise on the River Ouse (they told us we would cruise the Ouse, which rhymes). A lot of the reason that this town was here was because it was the confluence of two rivers. So we felt like we wanted to get a chance to see it from the river. The rain had stopped, but it wasn’t exactly the beautiful romantic evening as the online promotional information promised. It wasn’t that long of a walk to get to the point where we hopped on the boat. We were grateful that it had a covered area in case the rain had continued, but it was warm enough that we could join the brave people up on top. Everyone was offered either a glass of wine or a cup of hot chocolate, and we picked hot chocolate for a damp evening. Then for the next hour, we went up and down the river. We thought we would get some commentary of the historic sites. Instead there was oldie music playing and we had to try to guess what we were seeing. It was a fairly lame , but fun way to cap off our time in York.
Then, back to our place for a good night sleep because tomorrow we had to go to Coventry.
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