York

I had long looked forward to this particular date in my diary. A weekend with my best mate from university and his younger brother in York. In addition to seeing them both for the first time in years, I would also meet Richard's new partner for the first time. I like meeting new people.

Although here was a cloud hanging over the weekend in the form of a potential rail strike. Luckily, this cloud disappeared at the last moment, allowing me to embark with no concerns of being stranded in Yorkshire. So I got a 9am train from King's Cross on Friday with the aim of pottering around York on my own before meeting up with my hosts in the evening.

I do like the new Kings Cross. A very impressive structure now.

 So I got up for late morning, dumped my case at Richard's office and set out for some serious sightseeing in the City. Now I should say at the outset that the photos that follow are not a representative selection of the sights of our weekend. If they were they would be a large collection of the insides of bars and pubs. It was a very alcoholic weekend.

But to start just some random rambling around the city. It is a photogenic city, with a better collection of medieval architecture than most, including the walls and the gates. Plus a lot of churches. rather a surfeit indeed. Some have been turned into bars, some community centres. Its the trouble with churches - they must be preserved as clearly of great historic importance, but when not used for worship they are pretty useless for anything else. Not very adaptable.

Gates are similarly problematic, which is why London's for example exist only in place names. They don't adapt well to two-way motor traffic. But York's are well-preserved.

 The Minster, of course, has been converted from a place of worship to a tourist attraction. I didn't visit it this time. Just a bit too touristy for me.

 After a bit of random pottering I went into the Museum Gardens. These are very nice. Every public park worth its salt should incorporate the ruins of an abbey. It really sets off the planting, don't you think?

 

While I was there it so happened that there was a display of birds of prey. Rather impressive.

The Museum gardens do as the name suggests, have a museum attached. The Yorkshire Museum indeed. A very fine classical building.



And quite a decent classical collection - remnants from Roman York. Clearly displayed, a bit aimed at kids, but there are some nice objects with quite detailed descriptions if you want them.