Adventures in York

This past Saturday a group of us decided to go to York for the day. You can see on the map, it's east and a little north of Preston- about a two and a half hour train ride. We had planned on going to the Lake District to hike, but looked at the weather and decided to wait for a time when we didn't have to bring an ice pick and cramp-ons, as the website suggested...

York is a historic city that has roots linked to Viking culture. On our walk from the train station, we stumbled across the ruins of a church from 1055. The ruins were on the grounds of a small park with a walled-in cemetery, the York museum, and lots of preteens smoking cigarettes. It's so different for me to see a park with such a piece of history on it be accessible to the locals for walking their dogs or taking a stroll with their kids. 

We then went to York Minster, a huge church that is one of the oldest in England that survived Henry VIII's rampage against the Catholic church. Beautiful architecture, both inside and out. 

Another highlight for tourists is The Shambles, a section of town that used to be the outdoor meat market. They've made it into a big shopping area now, but there is still an outdoor market full of knick knacks, produce, coffee stands, and even a few butchers. The narrow cobblestone streets and sagging buildings were charming- York does a good job of blending its history with modern interests. 

Out next and final stop was the York Brewery. Our high expectations for the tour and tasting were met with a shady back-door entrance, littered with cigarette butts and rickety stairs. Once we got accustomed to the smell of stale beer (think Brick Street during lunch hours), we grew to see the charm in the rustic attic pub and enjoyed a half-pint of the local brew (called Centurion's Ghost) before the tour. I really liked the tour, although it was basically just a look at the room next to the bar that had the huge copper vat and fermentation barrels. We learned about the ingredients that go into beer and how they can affect the taste based on temperature, amount, etc. When it started over fifteen years ago, York Brewery was the only one- out of the 16 that attempted- to survive its first year as a microbrewery. They ship out their beer all over the UK and even to a bar in Times Square. 

We headed back to the train station to check how much time we had for dinner before the last train left and were glad we did because we only had a half hour. So we grabbed some train station food and settled into a relaxing ride back to Preston...