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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