York - Day 1

I woke up early after a less than restful night, and took the dogs out for a long walk. Tony likes to sleep in, and after all the noise and light from the Bar down and across the alley, I thought he deserved it.











I picked up a Latte at Costa Coffee, and sat down on some Roman ruins while the dogs ran around and did their morning business.



It was a beautiful quiet morning. I love getting up before everyone else is crowding the streets, as it often gives me a chance to have the streets and sites all to myself.

Most English cities are very peaceful first thing in the morning. Even the castles look serene at this time.

I ran into Luis and Leeza who also like getting up early, and we walked around together before returning to the hotel.

We linked up with Tony and had a Full English Breakfast to prepare us for the busy day of exploring the city. Tony, however, was unwilling to try the Black Pudding, which was really quite good.






After breakfast, and fueled up by some very tasty espressos, we headed off to join the free York walking tour.

Our guide took us around parts of the original Roman walls where we could see some ancient roman cement coffins that had been uncovered.







We also saw as the 15th century walls that were built on top of them. At one point the city considered tearing down the walls as they were no longer needed. Thankfully, they have left them as it makes the city quite unique.









We got to walk on top of them, but unfortunately, the dogs had to take an alternate route as dogs are not allowed on the city walls. Bummer.









We also visited the site of an old abbey that fell into disrepair during the reign of Henry VIII. The ruins are quite beautiful in a sad yet poetic way.



Sadly, much of the stone has been hauled away from the ruins to build other buildings in the town. However, this does allow the abandoned abbey to live on.




One really interesting feature in the wall is the one Barbican entrance that has been preserved. The Barbican was an area at a city entrance that would contain 2 gates.





An enemy, if managing to penetrate the first gate, could be contained before the second gate, and then attacked from above with weapons, stones, or hot oil. I'd heard of this type of medieval fortification, but never actually seen one.

We wandered around the twisted medieval streets to York Minster Cathedral. Thankfully, it had been spared during the reformation as it was also the town center and not connected to a Catholic Abbey.

It is a stunning cathedral, and is the 3rd largest in the UK. Unfortunately, there was a choir practice underway, so we were only allowed into the side foyer. It was enough however to get an idea of the magnificent scale of it.









From there, the four of us continued wandering the picturesque streets doing a little shopping.

Tony and I would love to come back here around Christmas time as it would probably be very charming.