Last photos of York (I promise)

Barley_Hall is a restored medieval town house.

A feasting in the Great Hall

Where the fire place was in the middle of the Great Hall

A plague doctor, nightmarish figure, part of the 'Plague, Poverty and Prayer' exhibition.

The Roman_Baths_Museum was tiny, but full of fascinating stuff, like this Roman equivalent of toilet paper.



This was a great little place - we had a wander round, looked at some of the art work and chatted with the very friendly proprietor. Would have been nice for A to do a bit of painting there, but she felt a bit conspicuous as no one else was painting when we went in.

Rowntree Park

This lovely park was just a couple of minutes walk from our guest house.

York again - lots more pics!

We visited the Minster , but only went up the tower as the rest was too expensive (we were running low on funds at this point!) Lots of steps, but great views.


Clifford's Tower - part of York_Castle , and site of a horrific anti-semitic massacre in 1190.

We went to the Castle museum too, the prison exhibition was really interesting.

Spotted these on the wall of an old church in the centre of York - gorgeous!

More York

We went on a guided walk one morning, which I had been really keen to do (A less so) but it was very much aimed at adults and A found it quite boring. Don't get me wrong - I hate it when children are acommodated by being patronised and treated like idiots - but I have to admit that this guy was very dry. He was factual and informative, clearly from an academic background and definitely knew his stuff, but it was a bit like a lecture really, and quite hard work. The worst bit was that he charged for A as a student rather than a child which would have been a lot cheaper, I didn't realise this until later on. I know she's getting tall, but surely he didn't think she was over 16?!

We also visited Yorkshire_Museum , which was pretty good, but lacked the more interactive elements A had enjoyed at some of the other places. I think its really difficult to get it right, because if there is too much of the hands on stuff, particularly computer based, then it actually detracts from the whole experience as that becomes the focus, but A certainly seems to engage more when there are relevant activities to get involved in. There's only so much 'looking' and 'reading' she can do before she wanders off to find something to draw!

A enjoyed making a mosaic

The gardens outside the museum were beautiful, and there were plenty of these fellows about to keep us entertained!

We did get to the theatre one evening, and saw a wonderful production by Puppet State: The_Man_Who_Planted_Trees . It was a brilliant show - really funny in a very gentle way. We both enjoyed it a lot, despite A's concerns beforehand that it would be for little kids.

After our theatre excursion we went in search of a vegan restaurant I had heard about - El_Piano - and we had the most delicious tapas meal. Their onion bhajis are the best I've ever tasted (and I've tasted many!). Best of all was the selection of desserts - a rare treat for me :0)

Needless to say, we went back several times during our holiday.

Pea and potato curry; Albondigas (soya mince 'meat' balls); onion bhajis; rice.

Sticky toffee pudding and chocolate brownie

York

Decided to get up early(ish) today and get blogging while A is still asleep. There is so much going on just now I've found it difficult to get round to doing this, and we have some nice photos to share.

One of the first places we visited was DIG , the archaeological museum. It seemed very geared towards groups (particluarly school groups), and we got our own guide who took us around. It felt a bit intense at times as all the questions were directed at A, whereas normally I suppose there would be a whole class to discuss and answer questions, but A said that overall she enjoyed it, despite visibly squirming when she didn't know the answers (I did help her out, but I didn't always know the answers either!) Our guide was very nice though, and we got to 'dig' for artefacts from 4 different time periods: Roman; Viking; Medieval; Victorian. There was lots of interesting information, definitely worth a visit.

A was very keen to visit this place...

and we spent a good couple of hours here. We loved it - they had some really good hands-on stuff available, such as objects and space to set up a still life composition, and a seated area with mirrors, paper and pencils for self portraits. A was in her element - she's happy to wander round art galleries anyway, but these activities complemented the experience perfectly for her.

We came back to the fountain outside the art gallery several times as it was a great place to sit and relax. A also did a lot of sketching here.

We had a couple of really warm days, and after trudging around York it was lovely to soak our feet.