All over the world, people have heard of the beautiful, historic city of York, travelling far and wide to experience its rich history. Living in Yorkshire, we are no different, York is one of our guilty pleasures and we need a fix at least twice a year, because an escape to York is really special.
Perfectly placed half-way between London and Edinburgh and with the glorious Yorkshire Dales, North York Moors and Wolds right on the doorstep, the city of York makes a great base to explore the surrounding areas too.
That is of course, once you have exhausted all that this amazing city has to offer – which is a lot!
On our most recent trip at the beginning of March, we stayed in three hotels, Moxy York, Principal York and Hotel Indigo York, each offering something very different and we guarantee that one of them will be perfect for you. But more on each of these later.
First of all let’s talk about York itself and what there is to discover. There are two brilliant fonts of knowledge where you can find out everything you need to know when planning your trip; www.visityork.org and www.getyourguide.com. We partnered with GetYourGuide and they were brilliant.
Having visited York a number of times, we wanted to visit attractions we didn’t have time for previously, these being The York Dungeon, York’s Chocolate Story and York Castle Museum.
In the past we have visited York Minster, Yorvik, taken the City Sightseeing Hop On Hop Off Tour, walked York City Walls, tracing over 2,000 years of urban history and experienced a Ghost Walk, so it was important for us to do different things this time.
Let’s not forget the superb shopping, fabulous dining options (more about where we ate will be revealed), and of course walking the Shambles, one of York’s most famous landmarks and one of the best-preserved medieval shopping streets in Europe.
With its cobbled streets and overhanging buildings, it is believed to have been the inspiration behind Diagon Alley from the movie adaptation of the Harry Potter series, and there are many Harry Potter shops and experiences to indulge in too.
Although none of the original shop-fronts have survived from medieval times, some properties still have exterior wooden shelves, reminders of when cuts of meat were served from the open windows. The street was made narrow by design to keep the meat out of direct sunlight, but you can readily imagine the Shambles packed with people and awash with offal and discarded bones.
Today, the beautiful old buildings have been restored and now house cheerful cafés, quirky boutiques and even a coin and stamp dealer and the smells are rather more pleasant with aromas from the chocolate, fudge and sweet shops, clothes and accessories and gift shops.
York is a city where ancient walls surround incredible local businesses, attractions, shops, accommodation and eateries, with exciting events every day and inspiring festivals every month of the year.
There is so much to tell you about this trip so we have broken it into dedicated sections, this is Part One which is an introduction to the city of York and an overview of what’s to come.
Watch this space!
Some images courtesy of unsplash.com and pexels.com. Other images courtesy of the attraction and H&N Magazine
