Bloggo Trentesimo: York, la prima parte: Friday

York is a city in the north of England awash in history and fascinating sights. I traveled there twice in fall 2005, when I was teaching at ICLC for the first time. I so enjoyed the visit I made to York in September of that year that I invited my guests Steve and Becky TenEyck to join me there for Thanksgiving. It was frigid -- I remember Becky not being able to get warm -- but I think they enjoyed themselves anyway. I spent a few days in York again in summer 2006 to see the medieval mystery plays that the town produces every four years. That was an even better visit than the first two. So Dottore Gianni decided to return to York in 2011! And I'm delighted that I'm able to share the visit via a blog, as it may entice some of you to the north of England on a future trip.

I left King's Cross Station at about 9 am on Friday morning. The ride was pleasant, if the seats were a little less comfortable than I'd remembered on earlier trips. It takes anywhere from 2 to 2 1/2 hours to get from London to York, and by the second hour my fanny was falling asleep -- if such a thing is possible. But the trip was made pleasant thanks to music by Haydn, then Mozart, courtesy my Ipod Nano.

The day was dark with clouds when I arrived at York, but it was good to see the city again. Almost immediately out of the train station the medieval town walls were visible, and then of course the great York Minster!  

The York Minster

I was pleased that I remembered my way around easily, even took a shortcut through the gardens of the Yorkshire Museum and St Mary's Abbey to my hotel, the Coach House on Marygate, only a block or two from the city walls. 

My hotel

I knew the Coach House from earlier visits, as I ate there once on each visit. I thought I'd try it as hotel as well this time around. On arrival at about noon I found that my room was already set for me to occupy – good! I quickly got myself settled, then went downstairs, found out the code for the wi-fi: "courage" – an apt one, as it turned out (foreshadowing) – and hit the town.

For the next two hours I strolled, first the through city center, including the large farm and other sundries daily market, where I had venison sausages with onion – yum! I had to pass up other foodstuffs as I'd no way to keep them cold, alas, but I nearly bought a tweed cap at one of the stalls. 

From there I headed to the great cathedral in York, known as the York Minster. Cathedral? Minster? Cathedral comes from the word cathedra, or seat, and refers to a church which contains the seat of a bishop, meaning that a bishop presides at it. The Archbishop of York is the second most important man of the church in England. Only the Archbishop of Canterbury holds a higher rank. Minster is a variation on monastery and used to refer to any church that housed a brotherhood of monks. More recently it has become another word for cathedral. 

Enough of the fine points! One can trace a good bit of the history of York by visiting this cathedral/minster ("you say Cathedral, but I call it Minster..." at least that's what I'll do from here on) in this post. 

Roman comic mask in the crypt of York Minster

York was called Eboracum when England was a colony of ancient Rome, and it is easy to see traces of its Roman past by going down into the crypt . As is often the case, a Christian church was built atop a shrine to the Roman gods. An event in 306 A.D. makes Eboracum more important than many other cities in Roman Britain, because in that year the Roman Emperor Constantius died while in Eboracum/York, and his son Constantine was crowned emperor on or close to the site of the York Minster. An statue of the seated Constantine can be seen outside the Minster.

Statue of Constantine
York Minster

While the first recorded church on the site was built in 627, and while several other versions came and went, sometimes destroyed by Vikings and other invaders, but the Minster in its present form was begun in the early 13th century, and completed and consecrated in 1472. It is the second largest cathedral built in the Gothic style in all of Europe, really quite amazing to behold, and well worth the admission fee. I went there not so much to tour it again, but to check out the time of choral evensong, sung by a first class choir of boys and men. Attending evensong, or any other service in the Minster (or at any other great English cathedral) is a way to get in free. You won't be able to have a long wander through the entire church, but you can get a good sense of the whole while sitting in one of the most beautiful parts of the building, the quire (choir), the service is short, and a free concert is thrown in! I wasn't quite sure yet whether or not I'd attend, but I wanted to get the time right, because if I could find the time (in my life, not of the service), I didn't want to miss it.


I then made my way to the medieval town walls, some parts of which still yield traces of the ancient Roman walls. 

A good-sized section of the city walls,
man and dog thrown in for dog lovers
among my readers

I ascended and walked in one direction from Monk Bar (which holds a tacky but fun museum devoted to one of York's most famous bad boys, Richard III) all the way until that part of the wall ended, then walked back, climbed up the stairs on the other side of Monk Bar and walked to Bootham bar, after which the wall stops. It's good exercise and a great way to see the city from all sorts of angles. This light workout took me to approximately 3 pm, when I entered to my favorite pub in York, the Three-Legged Mare.


Odd title, yes? The first thing you probably think of is, "Oh, the poor horse!" but belay that thought - a three-legged mare is a device invented to hang up to three people at once.
Have a close look at the sign:

where I had a pint of one of several ales created at the York Brewery. This excellent place does not look like much at first glance, but it's for that reason I love it -- no arcade style machines, just a very nice spot to sit, have an ale, nod at or even strike up a conversation with others -- a public house in the best sense of the word.

The bar at the Three-Legged Mare

I then searched out restaurants, and during this trek I searched for the great shop that when I visited in 2005 was having a wonderful sale at which I bought two indispensable items of clothing that I have used ever since, but alas and alack, I could not find it again. 

Then I strolled back to the hotel – where the wi-fi apparently does not work for US laptops – do not ask. That's what they told me. All the laptops in the world work, just not those from the U.S. Now, I have had some troubles with wi-fi in British B&Bs, but after a brief  period of adjustment it works for me. Not so here. I had come to get out of London for a bit, to visit a favorite city, and to work. I could do almost no work at all, and I'll confess it, I became furious – so much so that I realized that I MUST to go to evensong at the Minster – to calm down if nothing else. I did, and of course it was gorgeous. I was so glad I attended as "music hath charms to sooth the savage breast.." and mine was certainly in need of soothing. By the way, English Restoration playwright William Congreve wrote that, and it IS "breast" not "beast" as is often written wrongly.


After the lovely evensong I returned to the hotel and did what work I could, downloaded photos and fixing them a bit with photoshop elements. I then watched the BBC news, and walked calmly to dinner at the hotel. That too was soothing and tasty! A really fine piece of salmon, in a sort of Mediterranean sauce, with veggies and roast potatoes, washed down by a large glass of not very good sauvignon blanc – I’ve made a reservation for Sunday dinner as well - going to have a roast

Crazy trip, thus far, pleasant, very glad to be back in York, but the hotel, of which I had great expectations, was not what I had expected or hoped – lack of wi-fi certainly disappointed, the service (friendly but sometimes inept) did as well, and the room was just not roomy, in fact is one of the very tiniest I have ever stayed in. 

My quite modest bedroom

But at lest the toilet does not flush well! I refuse to go into details on that aspect, but I will say that when I went downstairs the next morning needing a plumber the landlady kept insisting "You have to jiggle it..." I wanted to jiggle her, as she attempted to put the blame for faulty plumbing on me! But I calmed myself...after all, nothing’s perfect is it? And tomorrow I venture to Durham, so looking very much forward to that!

And I slept well -- the hotel's located in a very quiet spot -- till nearly 7 am (late for me!), after tuning off the lights at 10 pm.

The hotel became even more satisfying when I had a very good breakfast, every bit the match of dinner the night before. I was the first one down to eat (I nearly always am), I had muesli for the first time in a long time – very good – then I discovered that they had porridge as well – the food was served buffet style. I chose fine sausage and bacon with very little fat, scrambled eggs, excellent half tomato and brown toast. Very satisfying! Now it’s about 8:40 am – I’ll leave in a half our for the train station and on to Durham!

More of that in the next post!