Great Britain Road Trip, Part V: The Home Stretch

If you've been following along with this whole road trip, Day 5 took us from Edinburgh to Durham to York, in northeast England. That's from F to G to H on this map.  

The skies seemed to clear as we drove south out of Scotland, and we had a mostly dry day on Sunday. We stopped briefly in Durham (in northeast England) to see a bit of the town and stretch our legs. We wandered into this central plaza where we found a brass band playing.

Downtown Durham

Brass band concert in the square

Statue of local coal magnate

Next we hiked up the hill to see the town's castle and cathedral. There was a vintage MG show going on in front of the cathedral, and at the same time the church bells were ringing to call people to the evensong service. It was a strange mix of activities.  

Looking uphill to the castle

Durham Cathedral

Door knocker on Durham Cathedral.  A sign nearby said that, in centuries past, fugitives could use this door knocker to request sanctuary at the church.  They were given 37 days sanctuary to put their affairs in order before they agreed to stand trial or leave the country voluntarily.

Our goal for the day was York, so back in the car we went. York was another hour and a half or so down the road. We made it there before dinner time, and we were greeted with this lovely sight, immediately across the street from our hotel.

Clifford's Tower, all that remains of York Castle.  And beautiful blue sky!

As it was Sunday afternoon at 5:00 by the time we were checked in, most everything was closed. We walked around town a bit and strategized for the next day. This bit of blue sky was most welcome, and we felt we needed to spend every moment we could outside. We have been in England long enough to know that weather this pretty doesn't last long. All the rain that has been coming down in the UK over the past couple of months has caused the rivers to swell. This is what we saw down by the banks of the  River Ouse, a couple of blocks from our hotel.

Water right up to the steps.  I think that ramp in the background is a boat ramp, but it was completely surrounded by flood waters.

Flood

The next morning we visited the York Castle Museum, which has nothing to do with the castle, other than the fact that it's located where the castle used to be. The museum takes you through recreated rooms that show what life was like in York from about the 1500s through the 1950s. One area of the museum even has a street recreated to show shops that would have been along the street in the late 1800s, complete with horse and buggy.  

York Castle Museum

We also visited the Jorvik Viking Center, where we learned what life was like in York during a few hundred years of Viking occupation. The museum includes moving cars that take visitors through a model Viking village with narration about what you're seeing. It was kind of like Viking Village Disney-style. It was actually pretty smartly done, because the kids enjoyed the museum much more than they would have if we were just looking at artifacts in glass cases.  

Last on our road trip itinerary was a visit inside Clifford's Tower (photo above), which we had seen from the outside the day before.  

Inside Clifford's Tower

Looking up at the scary spiral staircase to the top of the tower

View from the top

And then we had a long drive home.  We saw a little bit of a lot of places.  Though we wished we had more time in all of the places we visited, I think we made the most of our summer vacation.