York, United Kingdom

I had the best sleep in our super king bed last night. Having more space to sleep in and stretch out is lovely, and I am pleased we have three nights total here. I also enjoyed the deep standing bath with its high back last night and am sure that added to a restful sleep. We are in a quiet neighbourhood and can sleep with the window part open which is nice. Anne did warn us that Pickles – her ginger cat may visit if we left it too far open though. Breakfast was served in the antique and curio bedecked morning room with every spread you can think of available (if you made it to toast) including vegemite and marmite! We had a lovely English breakfast cooked to order with local butcher sausages and black pudding AND Fried bread! Oh yeah – its a while since I had that oily crisp delicacy.

Fortified and quizzed by Anne what we were doing, with added helpful hints we set off on foot a short distance to the outside of the walls to meet a free guided city walking tour. Thats where it got a bit weird as the guide bore an uncanny resemblance to my dad. I am glad (for a number of reasons) that my dad is still alive, because if he had passed on it would have been very uncomfortable. Colin looked enough like him to be a brother or cousin, sounded and dressed the same and was of similar build and age. It was such a strong likeness that it was quite frankly distracting for me listening to him because I became more and more convinced I had come across a relative – a strong feeling or sense. When I get home I am going to pluck up the courage and email him and ask him about his genealogy (whakapapa). Anyway back to the tour; it was two hours long and very good. Colin runs/owns these tours and is an ex lawyer and an archaeologist so the quality of information was first class and brought a lot of life to the old walls, houses and streets.

We learnt about the Romans, the Vikings, and the medieval times. How the victorians rebuilt parts to look pretty without a lot of thought about authenticity, and accordinly one tower on the wall was actually restored back to front! We heard a bit about Roman soldier ghosts that were seen by a couple of young plumbers doing work downstairs at the Treasurers old residence. They never took royalties for their story, one gave up the job and never went back to the place and maintained his story to his death recently! Colin himself has not seen any ghosts in this most haunted city of England but apparently lots have! I wanted to go on a ghost tour which run at 7:30pm but it doesn’t get dark till 10 here, and in the day light I don’t think I would get the same opportunities? The Shambles street was where the butchers killed and dressed their animals and the little ledges on the edges of the shops is where they displayed the product.

The picture of the little chapel for a lady called Mary is on the Shambles and the story behind that was rather sad and touching. She was a butchers wife and a catholic which was not approved of at the time so essentially they charged her with crime of holding a service and harbouring priests and condemned her to death by way of stripping her naked, lying on the ground, placing a heavy door from her house on her and paying beggars (who would do anything for money) to load stones and rocks on it one by one till she expired. Normally death would take 6hrs this way, but a ‘kind’ beggar put a stone under her neck or back with a sharp point so it only took 15 minutes. Apparently she could have been spared if she coughed up the names of the others involved in the meetings but her children were underground Catholic too, so she chose silence and death over implicating her children or the priests. After her death a Catholic priest dug her up, chopped her up for relics around the place (as they do). The church – or shrine is a tiny room they made for her honour and memory.

We also saw things like the first brick house in England, and noted the place where town announcements were made like hangings, raising of taxes etc. on one of the wall towers. Note the tiny doors and how much smaller people were then.

All this worked up an appetite and we couldn’t see anything more attractive than the cafe we went to the night before, so we have a very French lunch of mixed platter or meats, cheeses and olives, followed by a trio dessert shared platter. After lunch we made our way home via the park outside the walls where we had seen a mobile ‘owl experience’ where they had the ugliest baby who was just sitting in a basket. Then it was past big juicy peonies the size of large saucers and home to pick up some laundry to drop off (with more advice from Anne who sees every coming and going from the room beyond the stairs/foyer).

The sun had finally appeared after a bit of a grey and cold morning and the 10 minute walk to the suburbs, which ended up to be more like 15-20 minutes broke out a little glow! The people around the suburban streets were quite, how can I put it – lower socio economic group and a little scary …. so we quickly dropped the laundry and guessed our way back to town and took time to revisit some places of interest that we had seen on the morning’s tour.

As we were not going to take a ghost tour after all we made the point to go into the most haunted hotel in England, as featured in Britain’s most haunted. Its called the Golden Fleece and from the moment you step inside the 1503 building with no foundations you can feel the creepiness of the place. These very old buildings are tiny, and its hard to imagine them full of people, as we think of places today. The bar area would only be 20 ft. wide and 30 patrons would fill it, there was a restaurant area further back, and lodgings up stairs – if you can brave staying there as many guests check in, but flee in the middle of the night in fear! It is narrow, dark, and the floors and walls very uneven. I couldn’t bring myself to go upstairs to the first landing to go toilet by myself, but Vern was brave enough to go downstairs and said he was alone! Just two buildings down on the street was a little alley (pictured) and I felt the creeps there too.

We finished our self tour with a bit of a wall walk before having dinner. An interesting fact we learnt on our tour is that these walls originally had very narrow ledges that the soldiers stood on, and more died from falling off the wall than being hit from the other side. It was the Victorians who were romantic that made the bulk of the ledges into wider walkways that they enjoyed – and we do today.

In our wanderings we found a Tapa’s restaurant which was not cheap, but it was nice. We had tortilla, croquettes – spinach and cheese – yum, beef cheeks slow cooked in sweet wine served on frittes, pork spare ribs, and slow cooked octopus and potatoes. For dessert we shared white chocolate and raspberry cheesecake with churros and chocolate dipping sauce. They made a really good sangria too.

In all it was an interesting day made even better by the appearance of the sun for most of the afternoon – gave me great light for pictures of the Minster in the golden evening light.