Old and Young

In our hostel this morning (now in Ireland, catching up on blogs *blushes*), a fellow traveler out of Derry asked us why we went to York. And we were like, “well, it was pretty, and there were walls…” His expression blanked.

And so we explained that in America anything over a hundred years old is considered historically invaluable. And so a wall, from which the good men of York could shot those pesky Scots, in days when bows and arrows were the ranged weapon of choice is enchanting and unique for us.

He nodded. “Yeah, we have a wall around Derry, and it’s like 400 years old. We climb on it, me and my friends.”

Hopefully we enlightened him slightly concerning American’s interest in the old and crumbly. We just don’t have it at home.

Which leads me to York, and the old with a bit of crumbly.

York is what one always wanted in a stereotypical English town. At least if you can imagine one that gets sunshine along with the rain. It has narrow cobbled streets. The walls have crenellations and slits for arrows. The Minster soars majestically above the town and from it’s heights you can see the bleached ribs of a ruined monastery.

My dear Ray took a day off from his dissertation to meet us and share interesting historical tidbits. It is apparently still legal to shoot a Scotsman from the walls after dark with a bow and arrow. Or something along those lines.

Ray also expressed a peculiar regret. When I asked him what he would miss about England he replied that he would miss the food.

He is the only person I have ever heard say that. Albeit we were dining like kings on meat pies at the moment in the “snug” room of a pub off the main drag of old York, so maybe it was just the atmosphere getting to him. Or maybe not.

We climbed to the top of the Minster (read “cathedral, but special”) – 265 tiny spiral steps up. And 265 back down again.

I’m not going to try to describe the Minster.


I couldn’t do it justice.

Our other stop was the aforementioned ruined monastery. Part of which included this:

And we are back to that age difference. Trying to wrap our minds around the idea that the Romans were here building at a time when Rome was the center of the world, before the Europeans knew there was another continent across the Atlantic, is boggling. And almost more boggling because the place is alive still. People were picnicking and kids were pretending that the foundations of a wall laid down in whatever lost century was a pirate ship.