Day Trip to York

I have to be honest, the only "historical" thing that I knew about York when I went on this trip was the New York was named after it. But literally, that's it. And while I still couldn't tell you a whole lot, it was kind of cool to see so much history in one place at one time.

England is just beautiful. These next couple pictures are from the ride to York. It snowed last week (everywhere throughout England, except for Preston. Literally, even in the South!) so it was even more of a gorgeous two-hour ride.

This is the beginning of York. To the left the little tower-thing is the wall that has been up since the Romans invaded the city.



Diagon Alley anyone???



Some sort of memorial to York Minster.





£8 to get in the door??? At a church? Seriously??

This is right in the middle as you walk in and is the pipes for the organ

It's hard to tell here, but the stained glass is in little squares that are all different bible stories and verses.
I thought that was pretty cool.

This is where I wish I knew more about English history. They had all kinds of "really important" people buried along the walls of the cathedrals, but I had never heard of any of them .. whoops!

It's a dresser. And it ws huuuge! You can kind of see in the background, but that was the crypt.

 I was kind of sad that you couldn't take pictures in the crypt, because that's where all of the cool stuff was. They had all kinds of chalices from like the 1600's and different rosaries used by different saints. Saints were buried down there. And I do have to admit, as creepy as it is, the coolest part was this thing called "Doomstone."  They found it in a park in York and it was originally from the 1100's and was said to be the mouth into hell. Creepy, but cool, right??

The next two pictures (including this one ^) are where all of the important (rich and clergy) people sit during mass

Reserved for Cleveland.
(Rose and Mike -- I'm pretty sure they didn't mean a priest or bishop, I'm positive they meant you guys..)

This is the view from the very back (and is where the public sits during mass, the seats aren't cushioned and you don't get missal books. Nice.) You can see the organ pipes in the middle and just beyond that is where the altar is.

 Next, we went to the Railway Museum where it was Wizardinng Week. So, basically every child under about 10 was dressed to the nines in Harry Potter apparel and was on a leash (literally).

This was adorable, Dumbledore and Lucius "levitated" this little guy for his picture

You know, just chillin' with Dumbledore..

And the Hogwarts Express..

Wannabees..

Off to the Town Centre

Lunch consisted of a Prawn (big shrimp) Cucumber, spinach and some sort of sauce-sandwich. And it was good too!

Random mini-castle in the middle of the city .. Apparently it had a really good view of the city, but was £4 to get in.. So we climbed all of those stairs (which made me feel like I was right back at home at Bellarmine) to look at the outside of the mini castle.

Vikings. In the middle of the city. Apparently they had something to do with the history here..

Just fighting with vikings..

The group we ran around with from the day. The two on the left are from Nigeria, three girls in the middle are from America (obviously), Chris is from Germany, Brianna is from New York, and the guy on the right is from Saudi Arabia

The York Dungeons

Basically this is where I learned most of the history of the city. It was kind of like a Haunted House where they took you around into different rooms and told stories about different kinds of torture and stuff (appealing, right?) But one of the rooms we were in, for whatever reason I was in the corner, next to a door that I didn't know was there .. and then when the next tour-guide guy threw it open, he basically scared the living daylights out of me and somehow I ended up on the floor while the rest of the group was laughing hysterically. It was awesome (Yes, sarcasm, it hasn't left, don't worry)

Then we finished the day at this Starbucks. Kind of a fancy little thing..

The day was a lot of fun. We were there for about 7 hours and despite knowing absolutely nothing about York, I think we did and saw a lot. Not a whole lot else to update you all on, but I'll keep you posted if I do think of anything!

Cheers,

      Katie