Day 22 Monday, July 12 - Off to York

Day 22 Monday, July 12 - Off to York

Another nice day and we are off as usual at 8am with a stop at the Duke and Duchess of Roxburghe’s Floors (flowers) Castle. It is a working estate of over 50,000 acres with most of the land rented our for tenant farming. We arrive early and are the only tourists during our visit. It is not unusual to see members of the family who live in the estate and apparently we just missed the Duchess. The Castle is the one used in the film Greystone where “Tarzan” stayed in the movie. The Castle is very impressive with art and furnishings from very centuries. As is often the case with Dukes and others of ‘blue blood‘ who marry into non-titled wealth, the 8th Duke married an American heiress, May Goelet, who brought an impressive collection of floor to ceiling (these are castle ceilings) tapestries that cover entire rooms. Most impressive Castle so far.

An interesting area passed along the way is Keilder Forest which is home to over 50 different species of lady bugs, the most in all of Europe. It is a mystery as to why the bugs call it home since the forest itself was only planted in the 1920’s.

We pass into England at 11:20 am and it immediately starts to rain, much to the amusement of our English guide and driver. We stop to see a portion of Hadrian’s wall that was built by the Romans to keep the barbarians (read Scots) out of England. The wall covered 84 miles across all of England from Carlisle to New Castle. The Roman soldiers were used to build it and it took 4 years to complete the 22 foot high, 8 foot wide structure. It was discovered recently (no idea what recently means in this country) that the wall was painted white to frighten the ‘scots’. This was the furthest northern limit of the roman empire during the greatest days of the empire.
We pass Newcastle on the river Tyme and the largest shopping centre in Europe (nothing compared to the monster malls in North America..nothing to brag about) which attracts shoppers from Norway and Sweden, two countries that apparently are as expensive, if not more so, than Britain and Ireland.

We stop in York, the most complete medieval city in England. We were too late to get into York Minster, the gothic cathedral, second only to Canterbury, but it commands impressive views from many sites in the city. The city is on the river Ouse which runs through the city and is a major waterway for the canal barge boats used for touring.

450 years after the Romans left, the Vikings arrived from Ireland and called the place Jorvik, now York. York’s street names almost all originated with the Vikings. The ‘Shambles’ proves to be the highlight, a twisting lane where the house seem to lean in with the top stories almost touching. The word ‘shambles’ is derived from an early word for slaughterhouse which is what the street once housed. There are hooks along the walls of the shops which once held pieces of meat and the cobbled streets lead downward with wide runnels to allow the blood to flow.
A very pretty city and lots to see. We stop for the night at the Ramada York, another internet-unfriendly hotel.