Friday, July 19, 2013 @ 10:23 PM in 2013 Europe
Day 23
We took our time getting ready this morning since our only plans for the day were to walk around and explore the city of York. The weather is still on the hot side with a high today of 92 degrees. The first place we visited was the York Minster. There has been a church on that site since 627AD and the current structure was started in the 12th century.
One of the things I've been struggling with during this trip is trying to decide what to spend money on visiting and what to pass on. Pretty much all of these old churches, museums and castles have admission fees ranging from 5 to 20 dollars. There's no way I can justify paying these fees every time just to take a few photos inside an old building. Since I didn't want to pay the 10 pound (15 dollar) fee to enter the York Minster, we just walked around and took some photos outside.
After the York Minster we made our way down to The Shambles. It's a street here in York that has a bunch of really old buildings that are all uneven and leaning into the street. It gives you a bit of a feeling of Diagon Alley from Harry Potter. Next to the Shambles was a big market that had all kinds of stuff ranging from fresh fish to leather goods. If we had a fridge or a kitchen I would have bought some fresh food for the next few days.
York is a very old city and has a lot of fortifications and towers throughout the old city. One of those is the York Castle (Clifford's Tower). That was next on our list of sights to see so we made our way there. As we were walking there we passed by a pub that was advertising a Festival of Cider with ciders as cheap as 2.09 pounds (about half what other places typically charge). We went in and had a pint before heading to the tower.
The problem of paying money to take a few photos struck again when they wanted 6 dollars to get the privilege to climb up the tower. We just took some photos around the outside then walked over to the old city walls that still stands around most of the city. They turned it into a big walking path that's filled with nice views of the city. Fortunately they didn't charge to walk on it so we spend a little time walking around the city.
Both of us were getting a little hungry so we stopped into a pub and had some more ciders with lunch. I had a ham and pea soup with a side of fries. The British like their peas which is fine by me! After lunch we walked around the city a little more then ended up finding a Whisky shop. We bought a couple of the tiny bottles and enjoyed them by the River Ouse.
We'd been drinking for the majority of the day so we came back to the hotel to relax for a bit. I started researching what my plans would be after leaving York and tried to purchase some bus tickets. For some reason the National Express website kept saying my credit card transaction was declined even though there are pending transactions that appear on my credit card website. I'll have to make sure those don't actually clear or get charged for them.
I went down to the bus station to ask about buying a ticket but they had already left for the day. I'll go over there tomorrow to check on it since that'll determine what my plans will be. My plans are to head over to Llandudno, Wales and spend a few days there. It's got some nice hiking areas and it's also by the beach which works great for this heat wave that's been going through the country.
For dinner we went back to the place where we had our first cider today since they were advertising fish n chips plus peas and a beer for 5.99 pounds. The food was pretty good and the place was crowded. I think drinking all day had got to both of us though because after the first drink we decided we were done for the night.
I was doing a little research and found out that there's a bar pretty close to the hotel we're staying at that serves Samuel Smiths (one of my favorite breweries that brews their beer a few miles from here). I'm going to swing by tomorrow and have a pint or two.
Teaser photos:
Tags: daily journal, england, york
Posted from: England