I spent a day in the city, since I was nearbyish (Huddersfield), and trying to avoid a horror (three trains and a bus) journey back to London on Saturday night. So instead I got the horror Sunday night train trip of (two trainloads crammed into one) journey instead – cattle truck hardly did it justice.
Still I got to see Clifford’s Tower, with its sad history…
York Minster…
And was reminded that this was where Constantine was crowned emperor…
Possibly under this very column…
I found it a curious city – one of those where the modern and the ancient are mixed in sometimes frustrating ways – here’s the wonderful ancient Shambles, there’s M&S; here’s a wonderful medieval hall, there’s a shabby bus stop.
Which kind of made Jorvik Viking site somehow right – they’ve obviously done an enormously good job on the archaeology, and really ineteresting reconstruction, but then they’ve kind of turned it into a half-hearted theme park, so you ride around the reconstruction and don’t get the chance to stop and look at things nearly as closely as I’d have liked.
Possibly the best bit in the entrance, where you walk down (more than two normal flights) through the layers…
And I wouldn’t recommend arriving on a Saturday night and wandering around town, as I did – it is hen and stag night city, which isn’t an attractive scene…
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I also “did” York this year, back in January. Coming from Edinburgh, I’m used to seeing a mixture of old and new crammed into a tiny area. I have mixed views on it. Part of me thinks that it’s a shame that the same old chain stores are allowed to proliferate no matter what the previous character of the place is. The other part of me thinks that without them, some high streets would just be a collection of boarded up windows with no life in them.
In saying that, I found the best streets in the Shambles were the ones with the small, independent stores.
They had at least kept Starbucks et al out of the Shambles, but I still found the shops disappointing. The odd artist and sweet shops were fine, but lots of places were just selling absolute tat – in France a place like that would be full of craftspeople, which would be great at recreating the medieval atmosphere.