Continuing my tour of England, I decided to visit the city of York. I had heard that it is a beautiful part of the country and one place I had to see before leaving England. York has a huge history, dating back to 70AD. It has at one time been under the control of the Romans, Angles, Vikings and Normans, each leaving their mark.
I managed to buy a ticket through Megabus.com for £1! The journey was a train from London to East Midlands Parkway, and a bus from there - about four hours in total. The return journey cost £9 - so both ways for a tenner; cheap!
The journey was nothing exceptional. The most interesting part was seeing the massive cooling towers of Ratcliffe on Soar Power Station near the East Midlands Rail Station.
I arrived in York about 1pm to grey clouds and rain. I called in to the hostel to drop off my gear. At first I thought I was in the wrong place - the hostel was so nice - chandelier and nice paintings. It looked like a flash hotel. It was reasonably priced too - so if you are heading to york, check out Ace Hotel.
I donned my rain jacket and headed out. From the small amount of research I did, I found that a good introduction to the city is to walk the 'walls'. York is almost completely surrounded by ancient walls, which were first built by the Romans, and have been added to and extended by almost all inhabitants since. The walk was quite interesting - there were information boards along the way giving plenty of information about the history of York. I ended up walking the complete circuit, which fully circumnavigates the old town.
