YORK DAY TRIP AND STAY CITY HOTEL REVIEW

7th - 8th August 2021

NEED TO KNOW

If you chose to be healthy and take the stairs - bear in mind that they come to an end on the second floor and you have to walk the width of the hotel to then access the remaining stairs for the further floors above. This to me seemed very problematic if there was a fire - so there must be alternative accesses, surely??

Take earplugs and a mask if light sleeper

Re assuringly for me - as we are still in the middle of the pandemic - the whole apartment smelt of bleach as soon as you opened the door.

A weekend is long enough to shop, sight see and get drunk. A long weekend is probably best if you're a history nerd.

PRICE AND BOOKING:

We booked through a Hen party package - Which all went tits up due to Covid so I can't really comment on pricing.

DIRECTIONS/PARKING

Very secured parking - relatively easy to find on sat Nav too - if you put the correct postcode in! (we didn't)

Validating the carpark ticket didn't work the first time - so be prepared to have to reverse out awkwardly if this happens to you - or just don't pre pay.

THE HOTEL

The 'apartment' itself was compact but with a spacious feel. Which was mightily impressive when you think about everything that it included. There was a sink, decent size fridge with small freezer compartment, standard oven, and microwave, small dishwasher, washing machine/tumble dryer, dinner table and 4 chairs, TV, and even the little things like oven gloves, tea towels, cooking utensils, cutlery, fairy liquid, dishwasher tabs, tea, coffee and milk sachets were even in included. There was however no vegan milk - but that's usually the case anyway.

We had a 4-bed apartment which was two singles and two sofas which were sofa beds.

The sofa bed was super easy to assemble and really comfy as it's a properly raised wireframe. The only downside is when made there is no where to put the 'back' sofa cushion so can clutter up the floor space (I didn't think to try and see if it would fit in the wardrobe as I'm guessing if you were there for a while this would be full of suitcases/clothes etc) Plus the bedding for both the sofa beds were stored in the wardrobe of the main room also.

The shower gets hot, but it wasn't the most powerful.

SURROUNDING AREA

I love York and if you have never been I highly recommend it. But if you dislike crowds - I advise avoiding bank holidays, school holidays, Christmas etc as it can very busy. Especially down the 'Shambles'.

But don't let this put you off because this truly is a beautiful city with so many stories to tell...

for example Visityork.org says that "York is a city with a dark past, its history is rife with tales of guts, gore, torture and ghosts. The International Ghost Research Foundation even declared York as the most haunted city in Europe due to its bloodstained history and over 500 hauntings within the ancient city walls."

And then there's The Shambles, which is (now) a quaint little cobbled shopping street with overhanging timber-framed buildings, some dating back as far as the fourteenth century (around 1350-1475) but it definitely has a different feel and vibe to it today than it did back then...

The street used to be full of butchers', shops and houses and the name 'Shambles' is thought to of derived from the word 'Shammel', an anglo-saxon word for 'the shelves' which were featured in the windows and I believe it used to known as 'The Great Flesh Shambles' because it was full of butchers, displaying meat on those shelves.

There wouldn't of been much waste sewerage disposal back then, and the butchers' would of had a slaughter houses at the back of their shops so the street would of been full of blood, guts and poo! Very different to today! indeed!

It is said also that at particular parts of the street if you stretch both your arms out you can touch both sides at the same time! Me being 5ft 4 I doubt this is doable - but worth a shot if you're down there one late evening when it's quiet and you're not Hobbit sized?!

I read somewhere that this, along with the overhanging timber framed fronts was to give the street shelter from direct sunlight as they'd hang the meat on hooks on the front of the shop or shelves in the window to entice people in to buy and if you look closely some hooks are still there today.

The street now comprises of jewellery, gifts, clothes and tea shops. It also has a slight resemblance to that of Diagon Alley from Harry Potter - so there are about 3 Harry Potter themed gift shops also selling wands and potions etc. and these are very popular and might require queuing to get into! But totally worth it!

Also dotted around on some of the older buildings are cat statues. These were originally placed to scare away rats and mice which were thought to be carriers of the plague in 1665/1666. Some have had to be removed, or replaced over the years - but it's still fun to try and spot them. More info can be found here.

As with most tourist places, there are open top tour buses you can book on, or even a Gosht bus tour if that's more your thing! Or The Dungeons!

But even without knowing the history - just walking around and seeing all the old buildings made of wattle and daub, the Cathedral (one of the largest of its kind in Northern Europe), the Castle / Clifford Tower, parts of the remaining City walls, and visiting the Viking museum is truly a magnificent day.