Solo travels.: Whip-ma-whap-ma-Gate

On Friday we caught the east coast train down from Edinburgh to the walled city of York. York is a very picturesque little town. It reminded me a little of Edinburgh because they have lots of modern shops inside old, historic looking buildings. From the train station we got a cab to our hotel which was about a ten minute walk from the city walls. Our cab driver was a really adorable Yorkshireman with that stereotypical Yorkshire accent. He obviously really loved his home town and gave us his recommendations which was nice, I love talking to locals about the best things to do.

We walked into the city in the afternoon and went exploring. The main shopping district is called The Shambles. I think there's actually a street called that, but I always got so lost in there I don't actually know where it was. The streets are really little and there are so many shops and buildings all crammed in together. It's very cool.

The Shambles. All of the buildings lean towards each other 'cos they're so old and rickety.

Also in The Shambles I found a shop called 'Peter Rabbit and Friends' - it was the most adorable shop ever! Full of all things Peter Rabbit and Paddington Bear stuff and Miffy. AND I found out that there's a Peter Rabbit exhibition on at the moment at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, I'm so there!

We also visited York Minster. I was starting to develop an opinion that was basically 'seen one church, seen 'em all' - I think there are just so many beautiful churches all around Europe and the UK it becomes difficult to appreciate them. York Minster is gorgeous though. It's so impressive from the outside, we got there at sunset which really added to it.

It is a little bit of a shame that the town is built right up to the cathedral doors, so it's hard to get a really good look at it.

The inside is lovely as well. I was going to climb the tower, apparently the view of the surrounding countryside is really impressive, but it was closed due to adverse weather conditions.

In the evening I met up with my friend Victoria who I met on my Scotland tour. Vic's lived in York for about ten years now so she was a pretty great tour guide. She took me to a bunch of really cute little pubs (all selling local brews - yum!), the worlds shortest street with the longest name (Whip-ma-whap-ma-Gate) and to The Golden Fleece which is apparently the most haunted pub in Britain. It was really lovely to catch up with her, thanks for the tour Vic - see you next time!

We were staying at The Elmbank Hotel which seemed like a pretty nice place. It was very old and full of dark wood furniture and had a real fire place in the lounge The staff were thoroughly unhelpful at all times though...they weren't rude, they were just a bit useless. Anyway, on our second night there I woke up at about 3:30am with a terrible ringing in my ears. I just sat in bed frowning until Mum said 'That's a fire alarm, Courtney.' So out of bed I hopped and pulled on some warm clothes. Bleary eyed, I stumbled out of our room and headed to the reception area. A guy shoved past me when the chief warden appeared and started yelling "Turn off that fucking ringing! I'm trying to sleep!". The warden was a fifty-something year old man who simply responded "But...there might be a fire...". The way he said it was really quite funny, and then the angry guy abused him some more...not funny. At no point did any member of the hotel staff make an announcement to tell people what was going on, so we all just loitered in the lobby. Looking around it was quite amusing to see the different state of peoples dress...or undress. Some people, like us, had taken the time to get dressed properly. Others looked as though they hadn't actually made it to bed yet (there was a wedding reception on that night). Two old ladies appeared in matching fluffy dressing gowns (one blue and one pink), lots of people were in pyjamas with duvets wrapped around them. One poor guy, who we figure must have had previous experience with fire, was standing right by the door wearing just jocks and a tee shirt. He looked so cold, I felt sorry for him...I did openly giggle at him though. After a while it was clear that there definitely wasn't a fire, but as the staff didn't seem to think they should bother telling us that we all continued to just stand there. Eventually the warden said "It looks like there was someone smoking in their room." prompting the guy next to me to call out "Which room? Let's get 'em.". Teehee. Then I went back to sleep. And that's my story.

Some more photos...