31.8.11

York


I am not a fan of the North.

Actually, excluding Oxford, Cambridge and maybe Brighton, I find most of England outside London quite scary. So I wasn’t thrilled to be informed that my company was sending me up to York for work. My last company had sent me to some northern towns (Manchester, Leeds) and they had certainly left me underwhelmed.

York, however, proved to be somewhat different. I actually enjoyed my trip up there. I was lucky with the weather, it was warm and sunny most of the day, with the rain starting only as I was already heading back to the train station for my return, and I had time to walk around and explore in the sun. The city centre is quite small and quaint. I was surprised that there were actually a fair number of tourists about, a surprisingly large number of whom were German. Before my trip, my mother had reminded me that my favourite museum when I was a child had been the Jorvik Centre, which I clearly remember adoring when I was about 10 or so (the last time I was in York). Curious to see if it would hold up to my childhood memories, I went to have a look. The museum is dedicated to the period in the late 9th century and first half of the 10th century when York was the centre of Viking operations in Britain. It attempts to recreate parts of the city as they would have looked under the Norse Kings, based on excavations done in the area. Clearly, it is a museum aimed at children. You go downstairs and hop into a little pod that looks like something from a ride in a theme park, which is used to transport you around the recreated city. Seeing it as an adult, it struck me a bit kitsch, but still interesting. The museum is well put together and it certainly examines a fascinating period. it also gave me a better appreciation of the streets above ground and structure of the city as it is today, so when i resumed my above-ground wanderings, everything seemed better put into context.

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