20 June: York and Rievaulx

It's Sunday so go to Church.  Probably two churches: York Minster and Beverly Minster.  This should balance the number of pubs and breweries scheduled for later in the week.

I went for an early morning prowl (after waking at 4am that wasn't hard – the issue was waiting to a time not to disturb others, not daylight, which starts at 3am). Added a few birds to the list.

Off towards York with no problems on the country roads. Then we got to the A19 where we needed to go South. Due to road works various intersections were closed so we went North for 3 miles first. As we were following an old horse float this was not fast, and neither were the 5 miles back South. Whatever: we then headed off to York, at which fair city we were directed to a car park about 3 miles from the centre. We then moved on to the try to find a car park closer to the Minster.

The first one we found astonished us by charging Stg1.7 an hour. As we would be gone for 3 hours that would be Stg 5.1. Apart from sticker shock we didn't have that amount of coins (and being helpful the machines didn't take cards or notes). We shifted to another park, outside a Sainsbury's and when we later went shopping got our fee back!

The Minster was, as usual for cathedrals, half covered in scaffolding. The streets were full of cyclists many of them on 'novelty bikes'. It emerged they had been to a cyclists service “Bless thy chain set and keep thee from the path of punctures”? 

Inside the cathedral it was surprisingly light compared to the European and US cathedrals etc we had visited. However the proportions were definitely Gothic and soaring. The choir part of the service was OK although they were drowned out by the organ (or perhaps the sound was absorbed by the soaring ceilings).  I didn't take any pictures of the cathedral - possibly due to brain-death - but they had a good display of work being done on restoration including some of the figures used as decoration.  I liked this one, especially the coins which thoughtful folk had added.

We then wandered the streets of York, well crowded by tourists and visited a Vodaphone shop to get a SIM card. This was done – a great pity my phone still appeared to be locked to Virgin!

Having decided not to extend the driving by 30 miles each way to Beverly we headed back to Ingleby by the scenic route.  There were hundreds of motorbikes on the road. It emerged they had been to a rally in Duncombe Park and were using the chance to go flat as a maggot on the twisty road. As there was a sign talking about 45 motor cycle casualities in the last 5 years I guess the challenge was real. They, and the cops looking after proceedings did a good job of clogging the market square at Helmsley so we didn't stop there but headed off to the National Trust place at Rievaulx Temples – an old folly looking down on a ruined Abbey. An interesting wander, scoring wrens and a Robin!  I didn't take any images of the National Trust site, which was really just a path along a ridge with a couple of imitation Greek temples, but here is one of the ruins.

Back at the Manor we then did a short walk to avoid going to sleep at 4pm!

The weather was pretty good: lots of sunshine, little wind and a top of about 18.