Since Sandy studies Vikings, she has always wanted to see Jorvik, the main Viking settlement in England. So we headed there first on our swing through England, after two weeks in Scotland and Ireland.
The first thing we headed for was the Viking Jorvik exhibit. It is located underground, where a lot of the remains of the Viking settlement are located. It is set up as a time travel ride through the Viking village. Sandy enjoyed the animatronic folks gossiping to each other in Old Norse. The ride is pretty good, but more oriented to school groups than academics. My favorite part was the the educational re-enactors doing various tasks, like making coins from copies of original dies that were found. My second favorite part was the opportunity in the gift shop to buy a set of Viking god heads. After some deliberation, mixed with giggles, we decided to pass on that one.
I am also interested in York since it was a major site in the English Civil War. After a prolonged siege by the Parliamentary army and a major lost battle at nearby Marston Moor, the Royalists surrendered the town at this gate which is pretty much the first thing you see coming up from the train station.
York also has what may be the largest Gothic cathedral in northern Europe, the York Minster. It certainly is spectacular, as you can see in the photo below of the nave. We stayed to hear the Anglican Evensong service, with a choir that was amazing. In the long run, I prefer a more participatory church service, but it was fascinating to see one done, and done very well, as a performance by well trained people. It was also striking to sit in a choir area that went back to the middle ages and hear music that went back almost that far, too.
We stayed in a notably quaint hotel, Lady Anne Middleton's in the historic Skeldergate, which you can see in the next photo
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All things considered, York was a real highlight of our trip. I had heard about the Viking antiquities, but had not realized how much else there was in the town, including a an excellent city history museum that particularly covered the Victorian era, the English Civil War, and somewhat oddly, England of the swinging 60's.
We also really liked the city center with many medieval and renaissance buildings, some of which you can see in the last photo.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
York or Jorvik?
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2 comments:
We were in York in 1995. I'm not sure if your museum reference is the same one I remember, which was sort of an English appliances exhibit full of quaint washing machines that made the wringer washer my mother owned 50 years ago look modern. You didn't mention Clifford's Tower -- you must have seen it. We were there on Remembrance Day and the cathedral was not open. I did buy a pin -- a poppy, I think. The sun was unnaturally low in the sky at noon and set ridiculously early since it was the middle of November. This time of year, the sun probably set at 11 PM and rose at 4 AM. We walked the city wall and saw some sort of Richard III exhibit. We stood at the confluence of the two rivers, the Ouse and something or other. As an LA boy, I'm still amazed at rivers with water in them, much less two of them coming together. We went to and from York on the 125 MPH train from London.
It is the same museum, they still have the exhibit about wringer washing machines. And lots of other quaint aspects of English material life. I rather enjoyed seeing what a Yorkshire cottage of 1850 looked like.
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