York

York was founded by the Romans in 71 AD, who created a fortress on the site. York has been a walled city ever since, with first Roman and then medieval walls. So, unsurprisingly, a major attraction is a walk around the city walls. It was interesting looking out through the battlements and imagining a time of Romans and Vikings.

Nowadays, walking around the walls gives good views into the town. Within the walls, narrow winding streets make for an interesting and pedestrian-friendly centre. One particularly famous street is The Shambles:

We don’t actually have a lot to say about York, and it’s not because we didn’t enjoy it. But York is where we hit the wall for the first time (haha, enjoy the terrible pun!) By this point we’d been travelling quickly through several big cities and tourist towns, getting increasingly tired and behind in those little life administration tasks. You might have noticed a big gap in our posts a while back!

We also found that we had to spend a lot of time working out the logistics of our next destination. We had left a few days between London and Edinburgh free, with the idea that we’d find somewhere small to relax for a few days. Turns out having a few days of flexibility doesn’t necessarily give you more freedom – finding an attractive place with affordable accommodation and transport at the last minute turned out to be quite difficult and time-consuming. In the end, it was easier to head to Edinburgh a few days early rather than try to squeeze in another destination.

So far, it seems to us that if you’re still largely working to an itinerary, having just a small bit of flexibility can be more trouble than it’s worth. In Southeast Asia we will have true flexibility which will be nice – we fly into Bangkok and then fly out of Singapore five months later.

So in England, we didn’t end up getting to a cute little village, but we’ve been catching up by trying not to do so much over the past few days. Which, to bring us back to the point, is why we don’t have much to say about York! But we enjoyed it nonetheless.

From York, we’re catching the train up the east coast to reach Edinburgh. The trains here are a whole different beast to back home – they glide smoothly through the countryside at up to 200 km/h. We’re excited to be heading for Edinburgh during the Fringe festival – the largest arts festival in the world! More updates to come shortly.

Comments from WordPress

• LeeLee 2012-08-21T01:04:23Z

  I’m looking forward to the Fringe Festival post! Take care guys. xoxox.

• Garry 2012-08-21T12:34:40Z

  Yeah, travel fatigue can catch up with you every so often. Even the nomadic tribes put down roots once in a while…

  We’re enjoying your blogs and photos a lot. Keep them up!

Written by Craig Drayton and Sally Robertson