On our third day we headed into the city of York. Since we didn't have a functioning SatNav we had to navigate our own way into the city centre using tourist maps we found at our B&B. We found a car park just outside the inner city wall which was really convenient for parking and walking into town, but was uber expensive - 9 GBP for 5 hours of parking which we had just enough change for.Our first stop was just outside the York Minster. This amazing cathedral was built between the 1220's and 1470's and you can see that it is quite big and took a great deal of time to complete. We didn't go inside but we took a nice long walk around the outside.
Addison loved this window display with all the rubber duckies so she asked if I would take her picture with them.
I thought this was the cutest thing and I told Kevin I had to have one before I leave this country. How adorable is this with it's little baskets full of goodies. I cold have so much fun with this at little get togethers. I'll cross my fingers for Christmas.
We walked down a street called the Shambles which is really takes you back to medieval days with its leaning buildings and roof tops almost touching. This ancient street used to be home to butchers and takes it's name from "Shamel" meaning stalls or benches in which the butchers would hang their products. The raise pavements on either side of the road would create a channel that the butchers could wash away their waste and blood each week...gross but interesting. There are lots of cute little shops still on this street.
We also visit York Castle and the Clifford's Tower. We grabbed some Subway sandwiches and walked to the base of the tower for a little picnic on this beautiful sunny day. The tower is an English Heritage site but has a hellacious set of stairs to walk up so Harry and I hung out at the bottom of the hill while Kevin and Addison went up.
We made our way back down to more of the high street shops area and ran into a lot more people but Kevin thought this guy was pretty interesting. He was selling this enormous balloons 2 for 1 pound. Now we weren't sure if he would actually blow them up for you, but what kind of kid actually plays with a huge balloon like this and what parent is actually going to blow this thing up??? Really we just enjoyed listening to the guy say, "Two giant balloons for a pound" in is super low scratchy voice.
One last thing as we were walking on the wall that I had to have Kevin take a picture of is all the fans that you see in this office building. Kevin's office building just within the past three years have put air conditioning. I can't imagine being stuck in an office without AC in any heat of the summer but I bet there are a lot of paper weights on these peoples' desks to make sure the fans don't blow away all their work....
We headed down towards the shops and really enjoyed all the little speciality shops along with some of the normal high street stores. York is a beautiful medieval city full of interesting surprises. We also hit the streets early enough yet that it wasn't too busy so we could do lots of window shopping.
Addison loved this window display with all the rubber duckies so she asked if I would take her picture with them.
I thought this was the cutest thing and I told Kevin I had to have one before I leave this country. How adorable is this with it's little baskets full of goodies. I cold have so much fun with this at little get togethers. I'll cross my fingers for Christmas.
Addison was mesmerized by this bee and she insisted that she needed to hug it. She kept calling it a "pollen jock" since I used that term from "Bee Movie" so she wouldn't be so afraid of real bees.
It's kind of funny but we've seem more Native American performers in the UK than we've ever seen in the US. Lots of musicians selling CDs of wind pipe music. It's actually really relaxing. Addison likes to dance to it.
Need any British memorabilia????
We walked down a street called the Shambles which is really takes you back to medieval days with its leaning buildings and roof tops almost touching. This ancient street used to be home to butchers and takes it's name from "Shamel" meaning stalls or benches in which the butchers would hang their products. The raise pavements on either side of the road would create a channel that the butchers could wash away their waste and blood each week...gross but interesting. There are lots of cute little shops still on this street.
We also visit York Castle and the Clifford's Tower. We grabbed some Subway sandwiches and walked to the base of the tower for a little picnic on this beautiful sunny day. The tower is an English Heritage site but has a hellacious set of stairs to walk up so Harry and I hung out at the bottom of the hill while Kevin and Addison went up.
They had some dress up clothes for the little kids and Kevin got Addison all proper in form for a lady of the times. She looks so cute. They also got to see an amazing view of the city from way up there as well.
We made our way back down to more of the high street shops area and ran into a lot more people but Kevin thought this guy was pretty interesting. He was selling this enormous balloons 2 for 1 pound. Now we weren't sure if he would actually blow them up for you, but what kind of kid actually plays with a huge balloon like this and what parent is actually going to blow this thing up??? Really we just enjoyed listening to the guy say, "Two giant balloons for a pound" in is super low scratchy voice.
Our final adventure was a little walk along part of the York wall. It wasn't the easiest thing to bring the stroller on but we tackled what we could. We had a great view back at the York Minster and found where the Railway museum and Pizza Express were so we've got a plan to make our way back up this way when we have some guests to see everything we didn't get to see.
One last thing as we were walking on the wall that I had to have Kevin take a picture of is all the fans that you see in this office building. Kevin's office building just within the past three years have put air conditioning. I can't imagine being stuck in an office without AC in any heat of the summer but I bet there are a lot of paper weights on these peoples' desks to make sure the fans don't blow away all their work....
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