We decided to spend half-term break up in York. Unfortunately we had some cold and wet weather while we were there but we were able to find some fun indoor stuff to do on the rainiest days to stay dry.
Day One:
We spent some time at the National Railway Museum and the Yorkshire Museum. The Railway Museum is free (donations appreciated) and the kids really loved it. Actually, Aaron and I enjoyed it too. There are tons of engines and coaches, and a huge warehouse with old signs, furniture, motors, and other train paraphernalia.
The Yorkshire Museum isn't a huge museum, but it has a lot of neat stuff about the area, including a bunch of Roman artifacts. They have some interactive stuff for the kids to do too, which is great.
On day one we also walked on the city walls. It's a pretty neat way to get around the city. We just walked one section of the wall and felt satisfied with that.
Day Two:
We went to the Jorvik Viking Centre first thing in the morning. We had to wait in line outside for a while since we didn't book timed tickets ahead of time, which was unfortunate but not terribly unexpected. I thought it was a little overpriced, but it was a neat little ride though the Viking village.
Next we walked over to Clifford's Tower, which gave us a pretty nice view of York but it was cold and windy. It's also pretty small so I'm glad we got in free with our English Heritage membership.
Then we walked across the street to explore the York Castle Museum. There was a surprising amount to see there, including an indoor village street, a bunch of classic toys, a huge WWI exhibit, and real prison cells.
Day Three:
We went over to York Minster for the morning. They have these neat backpacks for kids filled with activities and stuff for them to use while walking around the cathedral (magnifying glass, flashlight, binoculars, etc.). The kids loved it. The cathedral itself is gorgeous, and even has a cool little museum in the lower level.
Then we walked over and did some shopping on The Shambles. There were so many cute shops! We found one that sold Christmas ornaments and décor (all year round, it seems) and bought a cute, and very British, ornament. We stopped into Monk Bar Chocolate and picked out some goodies. And of course we had to walk through each of the Harry Potter themed shops, which were mostly clustered together near the end of the street. It definitely felt a bit like shopping in Diagon Alley!
Day Four:
We ventured outside of York for the day. We had originally planned to take the steam railway all the way to Whitby, but the service wasn't running to all the stops so we decided to drive instead. But we couldn't miss the opportunity to stop by Goathland Station, which was the filming location of Hogsmeade Station in the first Harry Potter film.
After lunch at the station tea room, we headed on our way to Whitby Abbey. I partially wanted to stop here because of it's connections to Dracula- in the novel, this is where Dracula, disguised as a dog, gets off a boat and climbs the 199 steps up to the Abbey.
We also squeezed in a stop at Helmsley Castle and Rievaulx Abbey right before they closed for the day, before we headed back to our hotel in York.
Day Five:
Before heading home, we spent a good portion of a day exploring the ruins of Fountains Abbey. This was one our favorite ruins that we've seen so far. It was huge and had enough remaining walls that we actually could get a bit of a sense what the rooms were, in at least a good portion of the abbey. It also had huge grounds with some buildings still fully intact, including the water wheel at the mill. They also had a nice café where we got a hot meal before getting back on the road for our drive home.
