Oh my god! What have I gotten myself
into?!!! The Ace hostel, a hotel/hostel with stunning interior, comfortable
beds, clean sheets, ‘free’ wifi (that doesn’t work) and it is built right
beside a bar that parties till 3am with a deep base speaker system that quite
literally shakes the windows and walls of the rooms.
My first day in York was great. I drove
down from Consett. It only took 2 hours thanks to the beauty of the M1 south. I
jumped on and I was away. I am glad, however, that I have had practice driving
around first or I imagine it would have been a hell of a lot more daunting. Anyway,
I arrived into York at noon, parked the car behind the train station and headed
off into the walled city.
There is something very special about York.
It reminds me quite strongly of Harry Potter’s Diagon Alley (especially the
Shambles), and the place feels like the history that it is so proud of. The buildings are not particulary tall and
most of them do not even follow a straight line, so really, what is not to love
about the place.
My first stop was to figure out where the
hostel was, and once that had been accomplished, it was time to investigate. I
started walking and quickly found myself smiling, staring at the wonky
buildings (you know the ones where the second floor is actually bowed in the
middle and sort of hangs out slightly over the pavement below), before
stumbling across York Minster. Now, I went to York when I was 15 but I do not
remember York Minster. It is awe-inspiring. It reaches up to the skies, grand
and powerful, demanding everyone to pay attention to it. It was a shame that it
cost 9 pounds to go inside, but I parted with the cash and was glad I did. It
is valid for 1 year. Woohoo! Looks like I will have to pop down to York again.
I stepped inside, and as I say everytime I
enter one of these grand old buildings, I looked up, and up, and up and up and
up. It is... without words. I joined a tour guide who took us around,
explaining the churches history and some of the glass windows. It says something
when the only take the windows down once every 100 years or so for a good
cleaning. The guide said that the central tower weighs the same as 5 jumbojets,
and was so heavy that they had to reinforce the foundations. Still, it’s pretty
impressive that it had only in the last 30 years begun to move slightly and it
has been standing since the 13th century.
I was a bit bummed out
when they told me that under the floors is the original Roman foundations of
the Roman palace. They were only discovered when they pulled up the floors
around 30 years ago. Obviously they have been recovered. Sigh. I would have
loved to see them. The only thing that is see-able is a Roman column outside
and a statue of the Roman emperor Constantine. Anyway, enough lamenting. I
spent a few hours in the Minster before heading back to the car to collect my
bags and check into the hostel. By that time, what had been a beautiful day,
turned and it started raining. This didn’t really deter me because if it did,
then I would spend most of my time indoors. I won’t melt. I have a waterproof
jacket so into the rain I went!
My next destination was the museum gardens.
In retrospect, it might not have been the smartest move because in the process
of taking photos of the ruins a stray drop got in the lense of the camera. I
panicked and tried to blow it off and managed to create a layer of condensation
inside the lense. Stupid, I know. I
put the camera away then and made my way back to the hostel again to dry out
the lense.
The weather cleared up again, so me and
another girl who was staying in the hostel decided to go on the ghost tour. It
was great fun. The guide was a proper story teller who did all the voices and
actions. He told some gruesome tales. Apparently York is the most haunted city
in the world. One story was of when York Minster was being built. The head
stone mason at the time had a dog called Jacob. The younger stone masons didn’t
like the head mason so the kidnapped his dog and walled it up alive in one of
the columns. The head mason was distraught that his dog was missing and offered
a reward for the return of his dog but it was too late. The story goes that
inside York Minster near the west entrance you can hear a dog barking softly
every now and then as it waits for its master to come back. How horrible is
that! Another story was about how during the plague, a woman and her child were
locked inside the house when the mother got sick. The mother died but the
little girl survived but was locked in the house. No one would go near the
house of a plague victim so she starved to death. People have apparently seen
her sitting on the edge of the bed in one of the rooms of the house, bent over
crying, and at other times, looking out the window as she would have done at
the time, begging, hoping that someone would help her. So sad.
The tour finished at around 9pm and we
headed back. I did a bit of sketching, a bit of reading and fell asleep....
only to wake to boom boom boom boom – over and over. It was loud and constant
until 3am or so.
Day two in York: I was up at 7am, showered,
dressed, fed and out the door by 8.30am. Nothing was open, but it gave me a
chance to go back to the museum gardens and get a few more shots of the ruins
of St Mary’s abbey and the hospitum. I walked around the shambles then went
back in the York Minster for round two. I saw all of those things that I missed
the day before, including the Orb. The Orb is a big bubble dome in the back of
the minster. At the moment they are cleaning one of the main windows and as
they clean parts of it, they place certain frames at ground level for people to
see up close.
The detail in the glass is amazing. It is hard to imagine how
they do it, not to mention that they were created hundreds of years ago. They
were very talented artists and I feel very lucky to have been able to see some
of the panes up close, because like I said, they only take them down every 100
years or so.
I made a brief trip back to the car to a)
check it was still there and b)put more money in the meter, then it was back into
the heart of the old city to Jorvik.
I have been looking forward to Jorvik for a
while now. I love anything to do with Vikings. It is just like I remembered,
only now, there is more technology and interaction with the information. Had to
crack up over the fossilised poo. Some
poor Viking has been immortalised through his or her bowl movement. It is not
the way I want to be remembered 1000 years from now – immortal poo! Hahahaha.
Although the price of entry was pricey at 10 pounds, it is another one that is
for a years entrance. It is a bit of money making exercise, charging a year’s
membership for people who are only there for a day. It’s a bit cheeky.
By the time I had seen all I could in
Jorvik, I found a carvary for a hot roast sandwich and a seat. I had been
walking around and standing for about 5 hours and my feet were killing me. A
brief rest and then I sojourned back towards York Minster. On the way I finally
found the entrance to the Holy Trinity Church – a medieval church tucked away
down a narrow corridor.
I went inside, stunned at the simplicity of
it and asked if I could take some photos so that I could sketch it up later.
They were more than happy for me to take photos and one of the guides went one
step further. You know in the middle of the churches the podium that the priest
stands on and looks down from (not sure what it is called) – he let me climb up
into it and take some photos from up high. I felt really privileged. Everyone
else in the church was looking up at me and I could only smile. The entire length of the floors are covered
with seating with high sides. Apparently the booths had high sides to help stop
some of the draft as they sat in the church listening to the sermons. The
booths are the same ones that were there in the 1400s. I couldn’t/still can’t
get my head around that. And it was right there for people to touch. And there
I was standing up on the lecturn(?).
Back at York Minster I sat inside and did a
bit of sketching before I felt over the day. It was time to call it a day.
So here, I am, writing my blog, trying to
figure out how to load it on to the internet... hmmmm...
