York and Yorkminster

I know its been a while now since we were in Yorkshire, but I still want to document the rest of the holiday, so please bear with me. Thursday we set off for York. Now this really was doing a bit of distance as we had to get back onto the A1M and even getting to that, before the drop down the country to York, was a good 16 miles across country. We decided to use the park and ride, the bus dropping us virtually at the door of York Minster so that was our first port of call. The cathedral itself is really imposing and even to us hardened to the common daily sight of Canterbury Cathedral were impressed.


We were not as equally impressed with the charge to actually go in the place so we did a quick gander through the entrance, nabbed a photo and hotfooted it back outside. Dissappointed we wandered around the city. There is an excellent selection of shops, both modern highstreet chains and little independants. We particularly loved The Shambles, where tiny victorian shops nugded together with the street market in the narrow lanes.



Now remember back to my post about the jacket for the wedding. I decided that while we were standing outside I would abandon Martin to the street entertainment (some Indian dancing, pan pipes and a couple of singers) nip into M&S and chance my arm. It was a way bigger Marks than any of our local stores (I can get to three or four in a 30 mile radius from our house) and it was packed. There was a good selection of suitable jackets too which came as a surprise. As well as a white one that had Navy stitching which would meet the bill, there was an Olive green one with geogeous beaded stitching that I fell in love with. Ok it wouldnt go with the dress I already had, so a brilliant excuse to get another dress. A nearby manikin sported just the one that would work. Now this M&S had a very strange set up for trying clothes on. Armed with my dress and jacket, I had to join a (long) queue of other ladies who, once at the head of the line, handed their prospective purchases to a salesperson behind a large desk. She counted the number of items and gave back the appropriate numbered tag. She then handed your chosen clothes to another M&S employee who hung them on a rack. When a changing booth became available that same woman took the items off the rack and handed them back to you. Another Mark's worker showed you to the changing room and you finally got to try the items on. On the way out, you handed your numered tag and any unwanted or badly fitting bits and bobs to a fourth lady behind a different large desk on the other side. As you can imagine all this, as well as being heavy in manpower, took a very long time. I had to phone Martin who had now been watching the entertainment on the road for over half an hour just to tell him I was still alive and well.

Of course the dress didnt fit properly so the jacket was of little use, but I still got Martin in to confirm his opinion and finally I got a jacket for the wedding. Outfit now only needing a hat, shoes and a bag!

Having finally got that out the way we could continue our sight seeing, and having our English Heritage cards with us we climbed the steps to get a freebie view of the city from the CLiffard Tower.

And what a stunning view it was, and if only I had known we were so near to not one but two chocolate factories!!



Although there were lots of other places we could have visited we were now getting tired, and the weather was getting cooler and a bit windy, it was still a long way back to our little cottage, and it took as over an hour to find somewhere to have a scone and a coffee (we bought them in two seperate take away places and ate them in the square in the end, York has a good opening for some tea rooms) we decided to grab the park and ride back to our car and head back into the hills.