We’re in York! We managed to get a 3 night booking in the much talked about Caravan Club site. It’s much talked about because it is perfectly situated for a 10 minute walk to the City, it is always fully booked and impossible to get into (so we are told) and it frequently floods.
Ian hadn’t heard about the troubles booking and promptly managed to book us 2 nights at the last moment, and I got us the 3rd when we arrived - no idea what all the fuss is about. The river was high, so we were praying for no rain and no flooding. Luckily the flooding held off - the rain did not!
Many of the attractions are still closed, or only open Wednesday to Sunday ( we arrived Sunday afternoon!) or pre-booking only with limited access, so we decided to walk the walls and see what else we could do outside. Great thought, and we did achieve some of this in that we managed to walk the walls, but we also got very wet!
We started walking the walls in the dry, getting a glimpse of the Minster peeking through the tree tops and into the gardens of the Dene. The walls that exist now are mainly Victorian, but they certainly are imposing and great to walk, even though some people really didn’t grasp the system of clockwise walking to ensure Covid distance. How hard can it be?
We also booked ourselves into a free walking tour. We love a walking tour and in our experience, the volunteers who guide the free ones are usually the best. They do it for the love of the subject, are passionate, and know so much more than those who are paid to follow a script and don’t really know anything. We were not disappointed. Our guide David was incredible. He was also a Minster guide and a City guide and his passion is history. Yes the history of York, but history in general, so he wove in tales about how York’s history connected with other stories and we were captivated. We were soaked, frozen and yet, we could have listened for hours, in fact we did. He asked what we wanted to see, what we wanted to know and shared so much with us. I was so enthralled I forgot to take photos, but here are some highlights….
We (possibly) saw the first church mice carved by Robert Thompson rhttps://www.robertthompsons.co.uk/visitor-centre/history/ in a door near the Minster, we heard about and saw the giraffe carved into the fresco above the door in the Noah’s ark scene. This is special because of course a medieval stonemason would have no idea what a giraffe looked like, how could they? So how did it get there? It seems it was a long and complex process with many officials of many organisations needing to agree for the giraffe to feature. David told us that the modern stone masons didn’t want anyone to think in a few hundred years that the carvings we see now were original, they wanted people to know it was part of the restoration. The best way to do that, was to carve something only a modern stonemason would know about. It took a long time and lots of discussions, but he is there, and beautiful. If you're in York, he is above the main door on the right as you look at it, about the 6th scene up. I wish I had taken a photo as he is beautiful, peering round Noah's head.
We also heard about Fidocus, the dog skeleton that was found in the Minster undercroft several years ago. Now Fidocus was named by our guide and a fellow Minster Guide as a way to engage kids on the history tour, he was fluffy and fun in their story. However, Fidocus has morphed into a fierce beast that bites necks and terrifies children. Apparently David and his friend couldn’t understand why the kids on the Minster tours were now screaming when they talked about Fidocus, hiding behind parents legs and running away. It turns out Fidocus has become a legend on the many city ghost tours, a terrifying animal that roams the city at night. Poor Fidocus, no more a fluffy fun friend to engage kids in Roman history. It’s impossible to tell you all about the facts we heard and the places we saw, but let's say we were the last ones standing and David was happy to keep sharing his knowledge until we needed to stop to meet Kate and David for dinner. He was amazing even taking us to the door of the craft beer bar we were meeting at - via a cashpoint as my purse hadn’t got enough cash to reward this incredible guide.
After a fabulous catch up and meal with Kate and David we headed back to Agy to rest up, clean up Agy, top up, and empty out the essentials ( the loo!), and headed into town for one more day with Kate.
We had grand plans to walk miles, investigate interesting places and educate ourselves. In fact we had a delicious lunch, went in search of Dick Turpin's grave (which I did remember to take a photo of) and then the heavens opened again, so we headed for the pub and stayed there!
Sorry about the lack of photos in this blog. I have scattered those I have about the text, but you know, sometimes the memory isn’t great and I get caught up in the stories and forget I am telling you one too.
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