100 - tue 08 aug - york

day 100 overseas, but definitely the first real day of this particular part of our trip. we made it to york.

it took some driving around in circles - and nearly everything does involve some driving around in circles, we have found - but eventually we sought out a camping ground only to find that it was full, which came as a bit of a surprise. undeterred, we were directed to a campsite further out of town where we found a place to set up our tent.

the tent was much smaller than we expected. in fact, our air mattress - double size - only just squeezed into the tent. no room for anything else, and no room for my feet which hang over the air mattress. we had bought this tent from the store without seeing it set up; we later found out that the size of the tent we had bought had been misprinted in the store's catalogue. so that sucked.

we drove to the bus stop and took the bus into town. york is a lovely town, very much wearing its medievalness on its sleeve. can you even say that? does it make sense? well i said it. we found a really cute old pub on the riverside to have some beers and lunch. suz had yorkshire pudding and sausage - it looked like a large hollowed out tart, filled with brown sauce covering a turd. suz said it was delicious and that the turdish similarities were merely visual, although she said it in a way that was obviously less wanky than that. (though the word turd was involved). the beers were good and the pub was just simply cool, it also having medieval sleeves. (?) or partaking in the medieval sleeve-wearing, at least (?)

we headed then for one of the town's leading tourist attractions, a centre devoted to the city's viking past. the centre is named jorvik, which is the name of the old viking city that once inhabited the spot where york is, and is also the name from which york derives. the viking centre was a little bit lame but kind of cool. the journey starts with a dorky trip in a time machine, and then you get on a like a motorised car that slowly zig zags you through an underground recreation of the viking town, complete with creepy mannequins, thatch buildings, animatronics, stuffed animals. and also - authentic smells! we didn't hear the whoosh as the smells were let off into the air, but we definitely knew when we'd hit a smell, because we'd smell it. and they were printed on the informative map that we'd been given upon entering - without the map we never would have known that it was 'fish market' we were smelling. we would have just thought it was the kid in front of us had let one rip, or that the jorvik centre itself was just simply rundown and perhaps suffering from poor ventilation. the best smell though, was related to the highlight of the lame animatronic journey through the viking town, and was accompanied by a great sound - as our excruciatingly slow ride turned a corner we saw an animatronic man sitting on a viking toilet behind a little fence, in a delightfully unnecessary re-enactment of what paleontologists might call 'taking a viking dump.' there was a smell accompanying the display as we went past, but the most unsettling part was the sound - this guy was having serious trouble clearing his bowels and was letting everyone know with his grunts and agonised moans. as we thought about it, we realised that this poor animatronic man was destined for a lifetime of constipation, and that he had probably been here already for many many years, from opening time until closing, constantly moaning and trying to get this one almighty turd out of his system. of course we all know that it will never come. it was touchingly poignant, and it definitely gave me a finer appreciation for what viking life must have been like.

after some more lame viking hijinks, we wandered around town. we found york's impressive gothic cathedral and soaked in its pretty amazing interiors. then we got ourselves up onto the city walls that encircle most of the old town, and went for a walk around to get some good views.

with the sun going down we headed for a quaint old cobbled street known as 'the shambles' to find somewhere to eat. our gastronomic radar, now becoming finely tuned, led us to a nice italian place. we had to wait a while for a table, which simply gave us an excuse to find another pub to have another beer in. then back at the italian place, we were ushered to our table upstairs to find that the place was cosy, friendly and that it made easily the best pasta in yorkshire. i don't even need to taste any other pasta to know this! i just know it. delicious giant filled tortellini with sage butter sauce. a food highlight of our whole trip.

we caught the bus back to our car, and went for a frustrating long drive trying to find our camping ground in the dark. after doing basically an entire circle around york, we got back home to our incredibly tiny tent and squeezed ourselves into it.

click here for photos