Independence Day in York

Bill and I have been fairly busy, working and having fun. We have a bit of a backlog of photos, so we'll try to catch up with our blog over the next several days. Without further ado...

We took the train to York for the 4th of July! It was on a Thursday and obviously not a holiday for the Brits, so York wasn't too overrun with tourists on this particular day. We have been to York on earlier occasions and have already seen quite a number of the sites, so we didn't have any particular goal in mind. 

After arriving we walked over the river Ouse (pronounced ooze) and saw the little tiny sandwich shop that Rachael took us to for a bacon sandwich on our first visit to York, almost eight years ago. 

The River Ouse

We walked over the the York minster and were going to go inside, but a huge tourist group had just entered, so we opted to come back another time. I learned in my History of Yorkshire class that the York minster has over half of the remaining medieval stained glass in all of England. I'm sure we'll see the inside of the minster again when we take our family and friends to the minster when they visit :-)

York Minster

The treasurer's house, right next to the York minster is said to be one of the most haunted buildings in York, which is said to be one of the most haunted cities in England. For years (like a thousand), witnesses had reported seeing Roman troops walking through the field and later through the treasurer's house - and all the witnesses said they walked on their knees. During a recent expedition (I think within the last 100 years), an old Roman road was unearthed about knee-deep below the current surface. Spooky! The internet just told me the treasurer's house was featured on the first episode of Ghosthunters, so it MUST be haunted! :-) 

The treasurer's house is now a National Trust site and Bill and I were going to go in, but someone (I won't say who so as not to incriminate myself) forgot their National Trust card...

Treasurer's House

We did a bit of shopping as well. I picked up some yarn at the Ramshambles, the knit shop in the Shambles where Rachael used to work. The Shambles is one of the oldest undisturbed streets in York - notice the buildings leaning into the street on the upper levels. Most medieval streets were devoted to one craft or another and then named appropriately; the Shambles was the street butchers were located. You can see in the middle of the street, the channel (big enough for a horse cart to tread) is a bit deeper; this is so that all the butcher's blood can run down the street and there is still a place for pedestrians to walk. The next time you describe something as a shambles (oh, my room is a shambles!), you're basically saying it looks like a medieval butcher has been working in there. Yuck!

The Shambles

I hope you enjoyed your little history lesson for today!