York; Saturday, 08 June, 2019

I was booked on an early train from Manchester Airport so I had to skip breakfast in the hotel and get an early shuttle bus round to the station. Thankfully there was just enough time to get a cup of coffee and two not particularly pleasant croissants from the station café before it was time to board the train and head across the country.

It was a relatively uneventful journey, except for the 10 minute wait just outside Leeds as a truck had crashed into a railway bridge ahead of us and they needed to make sure it hadn’t caused any damage before they let us proceed across the bridge.

I eventually arrived into York in yet another downpour and got a taxi from the station to the hotel to checkin. I’d booked an early checkin at the hotel, so at a little after 10:30 I was in my second hotel room of the day and drying back off again.

After about 30 minutes the rain did ease off to a light drizzle so I took that as an opportunity to head out of the hotel and catch the bus out to the City Centre and to the Cold War Bunker, located in a residential area. The bunker is actually mostly above ground and was never secret due to it being in a residential area, and staffed by volunteers. It was designed to act as part of the control network running the country in the event of a Nuclear war and the 60 minute tour of the site helped to paint a picture of how unpleasant that would have been.

From the bunker I caught the bus back into town and headed over to the Jorvik Viking Centre. I’d visited when I first came to York many years ago, but several major floods of the Ouse and subsequent renovations means that the museum is now substantially different to how it used to look and it appeared with a lot more artefacts on display.

I had a quick pit stop for a late lunch before heading over to York Minster to have a look around the spectacular church and grounds before wandering back through the city centre to Cliffords Tower, the only substantial remaining part of the medieval castle of the city. As there was only about 30 minutes until the tower closed for the evening I didn’t bother looking round it, but instead I took advantage of the clearing skies to pick up the open-top tour bus and take in the sights of the city.

The tour bus stopped right by the hotel so after completing a circuit back to Cliffords Towers I took it another couple of stops on round to the hotel and headed back to my room to freshen up.

Refreshed I headed back out of the hotel and headed down to the riverside path running behind the hotel. The path runs alongside the River Foss, the other river that runs through the centre of York, and I followed the path a short distance down to where the Foss meets the River Ouse with a pretty little iron bridge crossing the Foss at this point. I headed over the bridge and walked back up the Ouse path in towards the city centre to grab a quick dinner.

After dinner I headed back down to the river and was just in time to catch an evening boat cruise down the Ouse, passing through the city centre as the floodlights started to come on over the historical buildings. The tour lasted about 70 minutes, though in reality there were probably only about 20 minutes of that where we were actually sailing through the centre of York – as much of the historic city is well away from the river, probably for the best given how often it floods.

Back at the landing stage I disembarked and wandered back towards the hotel and my bed.