Jane's Trip of a Lifetime: York

Note: This post has been updated on June 11, 2011 to finally include photos!

These hostel computers seem to lack USB connections! Once again, no photos can be uploaded :( This hostel (Lake District Backpackers) also lacks wi-fi, hence my lack of Internet & skype calls with home!

Final Day in Nantwich
May 15th was our final day in Nantwich. I spent the morning walking around the town once again and then Matt and I grabbed lunch at the Shakespeare pub - 2 can dine for £10! After our lunch, we went back to the house to pick up Tawny and Chelsea as the plan was to head to the local college, ReaseHealth, for their annual family day event. We met up with Lorraine who works there and then began to check out the many activities and things to see around the campus including the Farmer's Market, visiting with cows, monkeys, horses, reptiles, meerkats and other animals. We spent a few hours at the college and then headed home where we ate bangers and mash for dinner - yummy!

After dinner, I packed up all my stuff and then chatted with Tawny and Chelsea for about an hour - I am going to miss these gals! We bonded really well and I had such a great time with their family :) We'll definitely have to meet up again when they move back to Calgary - or maybe they should come visit me in Vancouver?

York
On May 16th, we arrived in York at about 11am. We walked 20 minutes from the train station to our Bed & Breakfast called Queen Anne's Guest Home. For 2 nights, we paid £54 each, which included a full English breakfast, but also our own room with decent beds. After being in Nantwich and sleeping well, I was happy that the good sleeping routine would be guaranteed to continue for at least another 2 nights.

After we checked in and dropped off our bags, we headed for the City Centre. Our plan was to just get acquainted with the city and do most of our touring the following day, but as the city is rather small, we hit most of the sites up that afternoon just by aimlessly wandering around.

We went to York Minster - the 2nd biggest gothic cathedral and contains over 800 years worth of stained glass, Clifford Tower (built by William the Conquer to suppress Northern rebels, paid the £3.70 admission to enter the tower and the views were beautiful), wandered through the shops in The Shambles (Europe's most visited street, plus its over 900 years old) and saw the other major sites. York is also walled with medieval stone and we walked along half of the medieval stone that surrounds the city. It was really cool! The city walls were built for protection over 2,000 years ago and are a 2.5 mile circuit which encloses 263 acres of land.

I really enjoyed walking through the Shambles, especially after reading about its history. Aside from being over 900 years old, Shambles means open-air slaughter house or basically, a meat market. Back in the day, butchers would display their meats on hooks out in the open air . The pavement in the Shambles is raised on both sides which creates a channel through the centre - why? Well, because this served as a sewer for butchers who would pour their waste into it several times a week. This sewer basically became a river for blood, guts & offal - EWW!

The following day we continued wandering around the city and also went to the National Railway Museum to see trains - choo choo! We saw the only Japanese bullet train outside of Japan, Royal trains, Steam trains, and other choo choo trains!

As we were leaving York on the 18th of May and waiting at the York Railway Station, we had the privilege of watching a steam train enter and depart the train station - it was really cool. I didn't think that I would be impressed by a train, but it was actually really neat to see. Matt has it on video and hopefully I can upload it soon!

Pics from York - better late than never!