Jorvik, the Old York and its county

Hi visitor. I'm happy to tell you about my last trip. After the bank holiday we enjoyed at the beginning of May in England, we had another one at the end. This time, some of my friends/colleagues and me hired a car and went towards the north of the country. We spend 3 days in Yorkshire. Well, it is not New York, but "Old" York. But we got impressed the same and enjoyed the city and the rest of the county a lot. In addition, I could pay back briefly the visit that my friend Idoia did few months ago to me in Oxford. Well, I start from the beginning before I mess up everything.

We went on a 3days-2nights trip five persons. Apart from Luca and Juliette, who joined me also the last bank holiday across the south of England, Ben from Germany and his girlfriend Paulina from Poland joined us. Ben works in the company but not Paulina. However, she's archaeologist too so we were five persons all from different nationalities but all archaeologists. Funny and interesting situation, isn't it? The trip started on Saturday morning and we head first to Sheffield. This is not a city especially known for its beauty but we had three reasons to stop there:
1st) it is at a reasonable distance to make a break
2nd) I could visit Idoia
3rd) I could meet Loo again

Loo is a friend of Nico, one of my best friends here. He has lived in Sheffield for more than 20 years although he is from Malaysia and an amazing salsa dancer and teacher. Wise person this Loo. He came to Oxford few weeks ago and Nico couldn't go to take him to the station so it was me who took him and showed him the way to Nico's house. After that we went to eat some pub food and then to do some shopping. It was very nice and very funny but he stayed in Oxford few days during which I was, as always lately, very busy so I could hardly meet him again by chance the day he was leaving. Thus, I told him I would phone him if I went to Sheffield and that's what I did. He took us to a very nice Chinese restaurant he has known for years with a really excellent food he ordered for us. On top of that, he invited us for the whole lunch! Well, as you can see, he was extremely kind. Meeting Idoia was very good too. I am not used at all to see familiar faces in England or at least faces I know from Spain of course. So it is always strange to mix Idoia with my friends here, but very funny. As I always say, most of my friends are very interesting, sociable and easy going people so when I introduce them to the others they really enjoy and all they think I'm a cool guy for having such a cool friends. But actually they are the really cool people, not me: I just mix them, hehe.

After the short stop in Sheffield we headed to Kingston-Upon-Hull, mostly known as just Hull. We went there because we booked the accommodation late and couldn't find any cheap bedroom in York or Whitby, where we really would have liked to stay. We went for a walk around the city centre although we didn't really enjoy it. Hull has not a very good reputation in England. We found it strange, much different to what we are all used to in Oxford. We know that Oxford is a special city very conditioned by the University life so we thought what we saw in Hull's city centre was the typical city from the North of England. However, we could check later that there are other "more normal" parts in the city and that other cities and towns we visited weren't like Hull's centre.

On Sunday morning we went to York. Thanks to a colleague from my department who has been studying there, we could park next to the old town for free in a street she told us, hehe. York is very beautiful. The old part preserves quite well, with chaotic medieval urbanism and plenty of shops, cafes and restaurants not really expensive, specially compared to Oxford... It was a very important Viking town called Jorvik and the city is proud of it. We went to visit the Viking Centre and Museum which I found quite interesting despite of some really silly attractions which increased the price a lot and didn't contribute at all to improve the comprehension of the Viking History. Apart from that, the rest was ok and I could learn plenty of things, what I expect from a museum after all.

In the afternoon we went to visit the amazing Whitby Abbey. It is an impressive ruined medieval building which has been consolidated and opened to the public for tourist visits. There is no much to say about this place really. Just have a look at the pictures below because the words are not enough to describe the place. We were wandering around separately taking photos and just meeting occasionally to comment something or take some photos to each other. We were really lucky because the weather was lovely for that (a bit chilly wind in general but much better than the heavy rains they had in Oxford most of the time). This abbey inspired part of Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula". Actually, some parts of the most famous movie about this character were filmed here.

After Whitby Abbey we wanted to go to the Hadrian's Wall but the staff in the abbey told us that it was too far so we decided to go to the town of Scarborough and leave the Wall for the next time. Scarborough is a beautiful town on the seaside which was attacked by the German army during the I World War. We wanted to visit the old castle but it was closed by the time we arrived. After looking for a place where to park the car and make sure we paid it (we didn't want any other ticket like the one we got in Salisbury few weeks ago) we were walking upwards a steep hill till reach the enclosing wall. We walked along the walls and then went downwards to the port. We breathed the fresh maritime breeze in the lighthouse's cape, had some dinner there and came back to Hull.

On Monday morning we head again to York but stopped first in Beverly, a small town with a big Cathedral. It was beautiful but I didn't find it really impressive. The good thing is that it was free. The bad that they charged a ridiculous price of two pounds for the "photo permission". That kind of things really annoy me. Let's be clear: if you need the money to keep the cathedral clean, etc. I really don't mind to pay to go inside but don't tell me that it is free and then invent that silly permission of two pound for taking photos that are not harming anything at all. Well, apart from that, another amazing thing in this place was the gifts shop, where Juliette found a pin of a dinosaur with the phrase "God made me" (!?).

After coming back home we stopped again in York. We went this time to visit the Cathedral as the day before was busy due to celebration. This was more impressive than Beverly's and we spent a long time wandering around. It was possible to make some guided tours but we preferred to visit it on our own each, just taking photos, reading some infos spread across the temple and commenting some points. It was a nice and quiet visit. The most impressive for me it was the ceiling, with very beautiful vaults. After all the Cathedrals and massive churches I have visited in the UK (the Cathedrals of Oxford, Peterborough, Salisbury, York, Beverly, the Whitby Abbey and other smaller in Burford and Stratford-upon-Avon) I see that, as I studied in the university, most of the churches in England don't have semicircular apses, but rectangular. After the Cathedral we went for a walk across the old town and saw some typical narrow streets as well as very nice old timber-framed buildings which contributed with a touch of picturesqueness to that nice city. The next step was going to the car and back home.

The long weekend was really nice and I think we all got a great time all together. Well, the next bank holiday will be at the end of August and I am already thinking about new destinations. Unfortunately, some of my 'partners in crime' will have left by that time.