Dublin to Yorkshire

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

We were up early this morning to catch our flight from Dublin to Manchester.  Once back in the UK, we picked up our rental car and headed for York.  En route, we stopped to pick up a SIM card for our cell phone and found that, for the Brits, topping off minutes on pay-as-you-go plans is literally as easy as buying groceries.  At the huge Tesco chain of groceries (and a whole lot more) you can buy minutes for all network providers at the checkout; they even have their own mobile network!

We had a wonderful visit to the glorious York Minster, which contains the vast majority of the remaining medieval stained glass in all of Britain.  We joined a guided tour and learned lots of information -- some historically important, some just interesting – about the cathedral. 

We wandered a bit through the narrow streets of medieval York, including the famous Shambles, where the upper stories of buildings on opposite sides of the street lean so sharply that they almost touch each other.  The Shambles and surrounding streets now house the full complement of ubiquitous brand-name shops (Starbucks, Yankee Candle) – a far cry from the trades and butcher shops of the past.

Our home for three nights is a two-storey stone cottage on a horse farm between Harrogate and Ripon in Yorkshire; our neighbors across the courtyard are of the equine variety!  Our digs are great; it’s wonderful to have a kitchen and lots of room to spread out and we look forward to staying put for a couple of days, and even to doing laundry while we’re here!