I am back and I thought I would give you a resume of my trip. I left sunday night 22 Oct, and landed in London Monday morning. I was able to get a bus right from Heathrow. It was a 7 1/2 hour trip, but some how it didn't feel that long. We drove through a lot of country I had never seen before, so I tried to stay awake and enjoy the scenery. One reason it took so long was because they made a lot of stops. When we were almost in York I had to change to a local bus. My B&B was only a 10 min taxi ride away from the station. It was very nice and I quickly changed clothes and went out to get acquainted with the city. Coming in I had noticed people on the city walls so I decided that would be a good idea. so I walke a good distance on top of the midieval walls that surround the whole older part of the city of York.
You probably wonder why I picked The city of York to visit. Well I read a book that was set in York once and I thought it sounded like an interesting place to visit. It was. The city goes all the way back to Roman times, in fact there are ruins of the Roman city under the city. On top of the ruinsof the roman city are remnants of a viking city. York happened to be the center for the viking operaqtion in England. They have a big viking dig they are excavating. York is the only city with a complete mideival wall going around the old city. There are gates through the wall toget into the city and they call them bars. Today those gates are too narrow and low for anything but foot traffic. In many places you can still see the Roman foundations of the wall.
the inner city is very old and is full of midieval buildings bordering narrow cobble stoned streets. When walking down those streets you almost expect to have the contents of a chamber pot dumped on you. but fortunately they no longer do that.
The next day after a harty English breakfast I went up to the cathedral, the largest gothic cathedral in Europe. I went on the tour, and we had a very good guide who took over 1 1/2 hour to guide us through the edifice. We learned a lot about the magnificent midieval staineed glass windows, and how they had taken them down during the war and stored them in various places. We also learned the the york cathedral has the only carving showing the baby Jesus being bottle fed. Restorations were done during the Victorian times and they could not show the natural way of feeding a baby. Also they have Roaman soldiers sporting full beards and large mustaches, Roman soldiers were clean shaven. They had a large font for Holy Water and it was guarded by a dragon ( the symbol of the Devil) I though that was rather interesting. they talked a lot about the damage done when England converted to protestantism. They sent these crews around that plundered the Catholic properties and destroyed faces and effigies of saints and anything they thought Catholic. Because of this you see many statues with out heads. In Lincoln cathedral some one tried to remidy this by putting faces back on the statues. they were all male faces, But it so happened they were saints he was improving and some of them were women.
I climbed all the way up in the tower to see the view. 275 steps on a circular staircase. But the view was great. I then took a tour of the city, and he showed us a lot of things that we would not have seen on our own so it was definitely worth while. There were a lot of tourists in the town because it was a school holiday (potato harvest holiday We used to have that in Denmark too and I actually helped pick potatoes).
I found a very nice bakery /pastry shop, where they had wonderful pastries. They had pastries shaped a ghosts black and white, pumpkins and apples.
In the evening I went on a Ghost tour. The following is not rated PG.
I will only tell you the worst of these stories. There is a road leading from the cathedral toward the city. Under this road is an old roman road. The road is up against a large building. One day a young man was asked to dig a hole in a storage room that is under the road. All of a sudden the young man shot out of the room all white in the face and shaking. The man tha was there said: So you saw the ghosts? What he later told was that he saw a roman soldier on a horse and he was followed by several soldiers all marching a long. He could only see them from the waste up except for when they moved through the hole he had dug, then he could see the whole body.
Next story. When they excavated for a large taxbuilding they found all these skeletons. the peculiar thing was that they ere all missing their rib cages. Noone could understand the mystery till an expert in viking history came forward and told them. It seems the vikings had a punishment where they would attach a small hook to the bottom of the ribcage and with a set of pulleys they would move the ribcage back and forth till it came loose. the lungs would wxplode and the ribcage would pop out. Grusome. But lest you think the Christians were any nicer here is a story about what they did to vikings that would not embrace their religion. the viking was invited into the church and then he was hung upside down by the feet. They would than take knives and skin the person. He was alive when this process started. When they had all the skin removed, they would sew it together and hang it up as a warning to others.
I think that is enough.
My last day in York i spent visiting various sites. I went to a museum where they had created a timetunnel you went through to see life at various periods of time. I went up in an old tower from viking times. At roman and viking times you could sail up to York. i also saw the Fairfax house. another branch of the Family thatn the onces settling Virginia. It was a beautiful Georgian house, and furnishings. I also saw the Adventures guildhouse, a very old building still in use for ceremonial functions. Of course I spent a good deal of time roaming through the old streets and by the end of 3 days I felt like I knew my way around the old city. It was a welcome relief to come back to my hotel the third evening and find that my new room had a large bathtub. My feet were just killing me as were my knees. York is the second largest city after London. Also the archbishop is only second to the one in Canterbury.
I watches a couple of interesting shows. Of course they had a debate about how much free speach was enough specially in regards to the Muslim community, which is very large in Great Britain. They had a show featureing the actress playing Lydia in Pride and Preduduce. She was trying to find her gemealogy. It turns out she comes of Hugenot stock from France on her mothers side and from Jordan n her fathers. It was very interesting to watch.
Next morning I took the train to Lincoln. again I had to change trains to a small local line to get to my destination.
Lincoln is divided into two parts: the upper and lower part. the land around Lincoln is almost as flat as a pancake, and then you have this large elevation popping up.
The Lincoln cathedral sit on top of this hill. The reason I wanted to see Lincoln is becauser of a book I read ages ago. Katherine by Anya Seton. Kathrine was a real person, the mistress and later wife of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, and she is buried in the cathedral.
It was very hilly, just walking from my B&B which was also on the hill up to the town. Again this is a midieval town sitting atop roman and viking ruins. I again took a tour of the cathedral. They have built a much larger church around an already excisting church. it was interesting to see how they had joined the two together. The chapterhouse was used in the movie The Da Vincy Code. I later found out that the pictures I ahd seen in the Chapter house and found out of place since there were no other paintings in the church, were made by Hollywood artists for the movie. when you look at the Cathedral from the outside you can see the towers are leaning slightly. I also saw the old bishops castle, which was in ruin. I found the house where Kathrine had lived. Lincoln has the oldest roman arch still in use. They have special markings in the pavement where they found the entrance to a roman Forum.
The second day I was the Castle where they house one of the only 3 copies of The Magna Carta. One of the signers of the chartes was names, Saen De Quincy.
I walked down to the lower part of town on a street called Steep Street and that was an understatement. It was steeper than any street I have encountered in San Francisco. There are still traces of the vikings too, as in Dane gate Etc. It got quite cold when I got to Lincoln, and the second day it rained in the afternoon, so I took a boat trip which turned out not to be that interesting. I am glad I made the trip to both York and Lincoln. I found it even morre interesting than London, except the shopping was not much.
Saturday i got up early and took the train back to Kings Cross, from where I took the tube over to Heathrow. I was the only standby for my flight and got the last seat in First. As I was waiting to get on board who should show up but David and Irene smith and their son austin, who was returning from his misson to Estonia. Small world. I am glad I got first, we had strong headwinds 127 miles so the trip took over 8 hours.

Next morning I took the train