York

So we made it to another beautiful walled city that oozes history... Darn. The old part of york (the 2000 year old part) was once a walled fort city. About 75% of the walls remain (about three miles worth). You can actually walk on top of the walls and see not only the old town but the views that the Romans, Vikings, Anglo Saxons, and Normans had when they were defending york (it obviously had quite the tumultuous history changing hands so much). It was yet another wonderful experience.

a haunting staircase

Although it is 2000 years old york is a very modern city. A very liveable city but it has a very confusing layout.  The ancient core is surrounded by a thriving metropolis (maybe that is why it took us forever to get through traffic into the core today.

kev on the wall

After exploring the old town and walking the distance of the walls we had our pick of hundreds of pubs for dinner. We chose one recommended in one of our guide books that was renowned for its home cooking. Of course we had to try Yorkshire pudding in Yorkshire. It did not disappoint. We took in a couple more historic pubs with hundreds of years of character that you can easily identify looking around over a pint. While sampling some of the local brew we recognized just how much we reminisce about everyone back home. Although we are having an incredible time experiencing all of this, we do miss everyone at home. We just wanted to say that.   We miss you all very much!... But we don't want to come home just yet ;).

meg defends york!

The next morning we decided to take a free 2 hour tour out on by the local tourist board. We lasted about 30 minutes before we abandoned the group. The guide seemed to know her stuff but unless you were standing a foot in front of her you could not hear a word. We took in the local museum instead and we were very impressed. It details the history of york with its intense and violent past. Each stage is described in detail and they have artifacts from the respective periods along the way to help illustrate. Extremely well done and totally worth the £5.

We took it easy for the afternoon and called it an early night as we have a big drive tomorrow to Great Yarmouth. It is a town as far east as you can go in the UK. We plan on relaxing there for a couple of days before we return the car to London and fly to Dublin Ireland on Wednesday!

meg on the wall

meg takes york!

ordering local brew at our favourite pub

straight to the baked goods of course

straight to the toys of course

the old town

us at the pub

what meg saw after a few...