The City of York!

York historic tower

York. A old historic city with a unique character. This is a perfect place for those who love their history. The building, streets and the famous city wall which date back a long time ago have a story behind them. The cobbled streets and the stone building really gives York the charming character. York is a perfect place to go for a mini city break. Theres so much to do, the time will fly by! My first day in York: The sun was beaming with no cloud in the sky. I was plugged into my Ipod for the drive up to York with summery music playing. It was great. So far so good! I was going up there with my family, bar from two of my sisters who one was on camp for the week and the other had work, so this meant it was my turn to play the "big sister" role. Lucky me. When got there we decided to go into the city of York for the afternoon to have a look around and to see where everything was. We had a open top bus tour of York which went around the city telling us the history of it. I pretended to listen to the guide person but I had no clue what so ever on what he was on about. So I put on my "I'm interested" face and which made me look like I knew alot about history (which I don't) but it seemed to work. Anyway the tour was good, we knew where we were so that was the main thing. The aftrenoon went quick and the night took over the sun and day 1 of our mini city break was done.




Goathland station! Recognise it yet?!

Day 2 of our mini city break was different. The sun was shining and it was hot. We didn't go into York that day because the streets are quite crowded and we would all just get too hot and bothered. So we decided to go on a train ride to a place called Whitby which is a town by the seaside. I loved the train ride because it wasn't a normal modern train, it was a steam train, it was nice to do something different. This day reminded me of my holiday in Scotland 4 years ago, it was the Beijing Olympics and one of our days out was a ride on THE Harry Potter train, which had the carriage where Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson sat for the Harry Potter films. We even went over the viaduct that they did in the fims! What an amazing holiday that was. Anyway looking at the where the train was stopping one stop was called Goathland and speaking of Harry Potter this was THE Hogsmeade station they used in the first film. It also appeared in the television series Heartbeat. So that made my day. We pasted rolling hills, the beautiful countryside and lots of sheep. We made it to Whitby and it was busy. Our first stop was the fish and chip shop. You can't beat fish and chips at a traditional British seaside. The seaside was very British indeed. A pier, little fair ground rides for little children and donkey rides. (The donkeys did not look impressed that day!) It wasn't my cup of tea at all. When someone says beach or seaside, I usually think bright yellow sands, blue clear sea with waves that are worth going in the sea for. However this beach was slightly different. The sand was grey/brown, the sea matched the greyness of the sand and the waves were hardly waves even though the lifeguards were out still. It was a typical British seaside. The donkey rides were by the pier end of the beach with everyone sitting that side of the beach, but for me I wanted to walk all the way down the beach (it was a big long beach) where there were no people at all. We didn't didn't stay on the beach we walked up it then we walked back down. I decided that no where can beat Cornwall if you're talking about beaches! Now theres two sides of Whitby the town side which was made for tourists, with the bucket-and-spade kind of shops and then across a bridge the older town side with cobbled streets with teashops. Teashops meaning cake! Yes cake you can't beat a piece of cake and a cuppa in the afternoon. It was delightful! Apiece of cake was what we needed before the journey back. We got back on the train, we past the rolling hills, the stunning countryside and the sheep again and we were back at the first station we started off at. It was a lovely day, the train ride was by far the best (and the cake) and that was day 2 over.



Goathland Station! The view from the bridge!

The steam train!

















Two days gone and two days left of our mini trip to York. We went into the city of York on the 3rd day. It was cloudy and cooler so it was all good. My dad and younger sister decided to go and look around a viking museum which meant me and mum were left to look around. Me and my mum headed off to look around York by foot. We went to Shambles which is a small pretty street with over hanging buildings, some date back to the 14th century. After that we managed to find another teashop for a cup of tea. We had to resist the cake this time beacuse we were going to try this hog-roast sandwich shop thing. They did pork sandwiches with stuffing and apple saurce and some crackling. It was heaven, we went to a park and had them and they were so good words can't explain how nice they were! We walked all of the city wall to burn of lunch which was good, you could see the city of York in the middle, it was a lovely last day in York. So the last day flew by like the rest of the days and tomorrow we were heading back home. However we had a stop on the way which made everyones holiday, especially my mums!










Shambles!

The famous street, Shamles!






















Day 4: By far the best day. We headed off into the countryside. Yorkshire. We discovered the beauty of Yorkshire when we stayed last time years ago. We all prefered the country to the city. The sun was shining with a cool breeze blowing. We followed a river pretty much until lunch where we found a cafe. So we stopped to have a homemade sandwich with homemade cake too with a hot cup of tea. Yes more tea, we are a tea-loving family. We even brought a cake to have on the way home. We headed back to the car and at the very end we had to walk through a field full of cows, which made me laugh because I could just picture Hannah on DofE running down the field trying to get the cows attention. (I still can't get over that) It was a shame that we didn't have our dog with us, he would of loved it there. Before our journey home we stopped to have another cup of tea, and off we went back home. We said a goodbye to the busy city to York and then we said goodbye to beautiful, quiet countryside that we loved and we were back home again.









The river in open space!

The view of the river, take
 from within the trees!