York to Cambridge - Chocolate and English Tea

York Chocolate Story * English Tea * York Castle Museum * Clifford Tower

We actually spent most of our day in York.  This wasn't the original plan, we had intended to get to Cambridge early, but our plan changed when we were unable to get tickets to the Warner Brother Harry Potter studio tour on Tuesday (mea culpa).  We have them now for Wednesday which started a travel domino effect..... We changed the rental car return to later, thus adding a 1/2 day extra sight seeing in York, an extra night at the Youth Hostel in Cambridge and an extra 1/2 day there, as well as canceling a night in London (down from 6 to 5 nights) and losing a day of sight seeing in London. Aargh - one little mistake and all that headache.  But, I think we'll manage with 5 nights in London and having more time in York and Cambridge has worked out.

York is quaint and the old town area is fun to explore.  We did a very touristy thing this morning and took a "tour" of the York chocolate experience.  Apparently chocolate was a big industry in York in the late 1800s and in the early 1900s the Kit Kat was even invented in York.  For a long time Nestle had a factory here.  We enjoyed the history lesson on chocolate and the many samples that came with the tour.  We got sucked in and bought even more chocolate at the gift shop afterwards.  But, we all know there is no such thing as too much chocolate.

Our group split along the sexes for lunch and I took the girls to a beautiful English garden for a tradition English Tea (in our case lemonade) and Eric took the books for a sausage roll and pork pie.  We loved our English tea of dainty sandwiches with no crusts, biscuits with jam and clotted cream, and 4 kinds of tiny desserts; creme brûlée, cheese cake, chocolate brownie, and an almond raspberry cake.  It was great mother daughter time.  We met the boys at the York Castle Museum where we enjoyed many different exhibits -  a toy exhibit from the 1850s to present, dresses from the same time era, a re-created Victorian town where we could go visit the shops (we visited the medicine shop and saw real leeches in a jar that might have been for sale).  There was also a 1960s exhibit, a WWI and a dungeon exhibit (as the museum was housed in what was the former prison of York).  It was eclectic, but the exhibits were nice and enjoyable.

It took us about 3 hours to get to Cambridge.  We are staying in a Youth Hostel here, but there are plenty of families running around.  It's fun and funny to share living space with people from all over the world and whom you've never meet.  We have 1 family room for me and Maren on down.  Stewart and Eric are in the men's dormitories.  There is a commons room with tables and wifi, a communal kitchen with all the basic (we keep our groceries labeled on a shelf and in the fridge), and a laundry room to share.  Cambridge is bustling with people, most of them on bikes.

York - Church, Trains, & Medieval walks

York Cathedral * Railway Museum * York Abbey * The Shambles

Church this morning was in the most tradition looking LDS chapel we have seen yet.  We smiled when we pulled into the parking lot that looked like it could have been placed in Sandy, Utah.  There's something about hearing people bare testimony in an English accent.  It feels so eloquent and they have great word choice.  We felt very welcomed in this ward (as we have felt every Sunday).  Many of the members were away on vacation so the classes were all small, but great just the same.  In YW and RS there were even nice handouts, SLC style.

We did our best at fasting, but fasting and traveling are difficult to do together.  We had an early Sunday dinner and then decided to walk around York a bit and visit the free Railway Museum.  The railway museum was fun - it was in the old train station and had trains from the 1850s to the modern bullet train on display.  There were Royal train coaches, hospital coaches from WWI, coal cars, engines, passenger cars, mail cars,  and then all sorts of train and train station stuff.  This kids, especially Charlie, really liked it.  They commented that we have seen a car museum, a naval museum, and now a train museum (they left out all the art museums).  

York is quaint and the architecture is lovely.  We enjoyed the large cathedral from the outside because we weren't in the mood to sit through Evensong - it being Sunday - or "donate" to go in.  It's impressive, built in the 1200s it took 250 years to complete.  Instead, we visited a destroyed Abbey (the work of Henry the VIII again) and walked the medieval wall.  We wandered some of the pedestrian only streets and landed in an area known as the Shambles a street in town from the 1400s that still has large hooks in the eves where the butchers could hang their meat.

The evening was topped off with watching the Olympics - which is fun in another country as all the highlights are of British athletes.  We have no idea how the Americans are doing.  We were so disappointed to watch the 4 time Olympic English fencer loose in the semi finals to the Russians.  The English have not won a medal in fencing in 50 years!

York Cathedral

Railway Museum

York Abbey

Lara the tour guide

Edinburgh to York - Castle and Hadrian's Wall

Edinburgh to York * Alnswick Castle * Hadrian's Wall

Today was another long travel day - it's our own fault as we want to visit so many things along the way because it's all so awesome.  I'm constantly trying to find a balance between fun, cultural, physical, family, teenager, 9 year old boy, etc, etc, entertainment.  It's a tad tricky.  Today we stopped at a family friendly castle (Alnwick), think This is the Place Monument castle style with several things going at once.  This castle has been with the same family for generations.  In the winter they close the castle to tourists and live there - think Downton Abbey style living.  In fact, the Downton Abbey Christmas show from the last season was filmed inside the State Rooms of this castle and on the grounds.

We chose to do archery and with the exception of Stewart, none of the kids had done it before.  Charlie loved is so much he paid with his own money to do it a second time.  We watched a flaconary show and took broom flying lessons.  (Eric decided to nap on the lawn during our broom flying - he's spent a lot of the time behind the wheel on this trip and he's done driving, especially on the wrong side of the road).

Hadrian's Wall and Housesteads Roman Fort were the next stop.  This is the best preserved Roman Fort along Hadrian's wall and the only part of the wall you can actually walk on top of - the other parts of the wall you must walk next to it.  The kids are putting all this history together and one of the first things Charlie wanted to know was where would the temple have been in this Fort. (There wasn't a formal temple, but a place to worship their pagan Gods at the commander's office).  He also commented that Pompeii looked a lot better for being built around the same time (of course we explained to him why).  Once again we marveled at the Roman engineering, especially the latrines which are remarkably preserved at this site.  The kids enjoyed flying kites provided by the English Heritage.

We didn't pull into York until late - about 8:30, and we were tired.  Eric and I ran to the store so we could be prepared for Sunday while the kids played a game of Monopoly (based on the streets of York).  It's fun to see them really enjoying each other's company.

Alnwick Castle

Hadrian's Wall

typical weather every day - a little bit of everything

the only Haggis we ever ate