York, England
From Cotswolds, we made our way to York, England via bus and train. It was about a 3-4 hour journey. York is a historic city where Roman walls, Viking roots and medieval streets come together.
York is known for its Roman walls surrounding the city. The city walls are the longest medieval walls in England. Our first evening, we walked a portion of the walls and enjoyed sweeping views of the city
There are several staircases around the city that serve as access points to the city wall. The staircases are very steep and narrow!
We were even lucky enough to spot a red fox hanging out on the city walls!
As we were walking the walls, we looked down and spotted a cozy looking pub, The Fat Badger. We were getting tired and hungry so we decided we would save the remainder of the walk around the city walls for tomorrow and we stopped for some happy hour.
After happy hour and dinner we headed back to our Airbnb to relax for the rest of the evening before another full day of exploring. The next morning we headed to nearby Bishy Road, a vibrant neighborhood known for its independent shops and restaurants. We found a great breakfast spot, The Pig and Pastry.
We then headed back towards York city center and stumbled across quite a few performing artists.
Later that morning we found our way over to one of the most famous streets in York, The Shambles. This narrow, winding, cobbled medieval street has houses and storefronts that date back to the 14th-15th centuries.
We found a cute tea shop along this street that we stopped at to enjoy a tea break.
We also had one of our favorite lunches of the entire trip at Omoni House, a Korean restaurant along the Shambles. We got Korean corndogs that were absolutely to die for.
The charm of this street is almost ruined by it being a very heavily crowded tourist spot which makes it difficult to fully enjoy while dodging people left and right. This street is also famous for its resemblance to Diagon Alley in Harry Potter and is lined with Harry Potter themed gift shops. While the shops looked pretty cool, there were very long lines and wait times to even enter the stores. I would definitely recommend more local neighborhoods, like Bishy Road, to explore that aren’t quite as touristy and overly crowded. Nevertheless, it was still cool to see the famous street and the medieval architecture. One neat thing that we did while exploring York was to partake in the self guided cat trail. Scattered all across York are small cat statues hidden on buildings (about 35 in total). We spotted quite a few as we were exploring.
Later that afternoon we decided to check out the York Art Gallery. It’s a pretty small museum but the stellar part that made it worth it were the beautiful gardens. At the time we were visiting, the museum had a Monet inspired wildflower garden.
We ended the day by walking along the York city walls one more time. We made our way around the entire wall, encircling the city center. It’s about a 2.8 mile walk in total. We enjoyed some beautiful views along the way.
Along our walk on the wall we were able to spot our Airbnb in the distance and waved at my parents who stayed behind at the Airbnb for awhile to relax.
Our last morning in York we headed to the Perky Peacock cafe for some pastries and coffee before making our way to the next destination, the Lake District.
