york...

My consulting team is lucky that our project sponsors don’t want to meet until next week, so we got a few much-needed days off after all of the work of the past few weeks. Matt and I decided to do a little exploring of the UK, since it is sad how long we’ve been here and how little we have seen of this country! We picked York as our two-day destination, and headed there for Tuesday-Thursday.

York is about 4 hours north of here on the train. We arrived late Tuesday afternoon and found our B&B just outside the city center. We then went for an initial walk around the city. Though most of the shops and attractions were closed, we were able to get a feel for the place and to eat a very yummy meal and catch a beautiful sunset!!

Wednesday we did the most touring. We started with a long walk down the river, past some lovely residential neighbourhoods and to the millennium bridge. We then made our way to the old part of the city, first taking in the castle remains. It was an interesting spot and afforded a lovely view of the city from the top! After the castle, we wandered over to the York Minster, one of the largest cathedrals in the UK. The minster was really beautiful inside, but the highlight of it was a visit below the surface. The cathedral was built on a site that was formerly occupied by a Norman cathedral and before that a Roman temple. There have been remains from both found underground, and it was really fascinating to see all of the different types of communities that have lived in this one place. After a few hours at the minster we decided to take a break before heading out to dinner, when we did, we ended up at a brand new restaurant (opened that day!) and had a wonderful meal.

Thursday we had to head back to Oxford, but in the morning we still managed to squeeze in a visit to an exhibit about Yorvik, the original Viking settlement of the city which was around before all of the other groups. The tour took us through actual Viking ruins which had been excavated. So much history in one city, it was definitely a good choice of cities to visit!