The Original York

Two weeks ago, our search for adventures led us to the City of York, two hours north from where we live.  I have heard from a number of people how beautiful this city is and how it is definitely worth a visit. I found out online that in February, York holds the annual Viking Festival with events planned for two weeks. So on Feb. 23rd, we took off for York.

We’ve got to start getting up earlier and leaving earlier on our daytrip days…we used to be out of the house by 8-8:30 am in Japan making the most of the day. I think it will be much easier to do when the sun is up earlier too. Anyway, we got on the road a bit later than anticipated…and right at the motorway exit to go to York from the main road, we got stuck because of an accident. Everything was shut down (I hear that happens all the time here…not just a lane is shut down but the whole motorway).  So we spent almost an hour sitting in traffic. We finally got to York at 12:30 pm.

It’s difficult to write about York in just a few sentences. York is a VERY old city. It goes way back to 71 AD when Romans arrived into the area. They did not name it York though, they named it Eboracum.  Alex and Mark actually found a column that remained in downtown York from the times when Romans ruled over this area.

Then came Anglo-Saxons and stayed there between 400-800 AD

Finally, on November 1, 866 AD, the Vikings invaded York. This date may well have been chosen with care. It was All Saints Day, an important festival in York when many of the town’s leaders could have been in the cathedral, making a surprise attack even more effective.

They changed the name of the city Jorvik, and soon transformed it into the capital of a kingdom of the same name, roughly corresponding to Yorkshire today. The name of the kingdom was Danelaw. Their neighbors from the North (the Saxons) and the from the South (English kings) attacked constantly. Then finally, in 954, the last Viking King was defeated and York has become part of the united Anglo-Saxon kingdom.

That is until William the Conqueror marched in with his Norman soldiers…but he comes from another era, so no room for him in this post.

All the kids wanted to see in York was the VIKINGS. And we saw plenty.  The first thing we did was catch the “Viking procession” through the streets of York. Here are some Vikings getting ready to start their march.

Then a group of them stopped to make sure people could take pictures.

Mark is always the one who gets the weapon for the pictures.

I told Alex when he grows up he is probably going to be the size of that guy behind Robert.

This is Alex’s warrior face.

We walked along York’s beautiful streets just soaking in the atmosphere of this northern town.

The kids wanted to make Viking coins. So we let them-well, they actually only used the hammer one time and the rest was done by the guy in charge of making the coins.

After a very nice lunch of sweet and savory crepes, we headed to the Beard Competition. But first, we had to stop and take a few more pictures.

The beard competition had three parts—one for kids, one for women and one for men. Apparently, this is a big deal around here because many kids showed up with their hand made beards to impress the judge with their creativity.

You can see a few women here.

By the time the men’s turn came, Mark looked like this. So I had to walk around with him inside some stores to warm him up.

Katya and Alex stayed for the whole competition (almost an hour) because they thought it was quite interesting. The men had real beards, and the guy from Finland won. And somehow we did not take any pictures of that part…

Festival events were coming to an end because it was 5 pm. The only thing left was a battle show (which would have been really cool, but expensive for all of us) in the evening. Maybe next time we’ll stay late for it.

We had to see the most beautiful building in York of course, York Minster. So we walked over to it and decided that we will have to definitely visit York on another day, hopefully when it’s warmer.

York, we’ll see you again soon.