Halloween in York

Anna found us an interesting Halloween weekend tour through York, and although the tour itself turned out to be pretty average, we did meet lots of nice girls (I was the only guy, other than the guide). There were about 16 of us in a little minivan, and we had a couple of hours in London traffic to introduce ourselves. We were about half-half Kiwis and Aussies, plus one German and a token English girl thrown in. (We also picked up a couple of Canadians in York.)

Day one, we did a little walking tour of York. First we navigated the slippery remains of the Roman Walls (substantially renovated in the Middle Ages), ambled alongside the River Ouse, admired the squirrels in the York Museum Gardens...

...walked among the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey...

... stopped outside the magnificent (but prohibitively expensive) York Minster cathedral...


...shambled through The Shambles (small cobbled street), and saw Clifford’s Tower (the site of a massacre of Jews in 1190). A lot of history in a small town!

At lunchtime, we drove out to Bolton Castle (part of Elizabeth was filmed here) for a dress-up medieval banquet. I wore some travesty of an outfit, with green leggings and a strategically placed fake boob for padding (a big hit with the ladies). Anna looked rather lovely in her medieval garb.

Our banquet was somewhat lacklustre – mostly coldcuts and foamy beer – but we had a good time afterwards, running around the castle in costume as part of a silly treasure hunt. All of us adults, too!

A few other nice locations from the afternoon were the Wensleydale cheese shop (Wallace and Gromit’s favourite!)...

...and Aysgarth and Haydraw waterfalls (both featured in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves).

Back in York, we went on a very crappy and tedious Ghost Hunt night-walk. Because of Halloween, there was a crowd of a hundred or so people, and it was all pretty slow and painful. Fortunately, beer makes anything fun.