Wave goodbye to our thankless jobs
We’ll drive for miles, maybe never turn off
We’ll find a cathedral city
You can be handsome, I’ll be pretty
- “Let’s Get Out of This Country,” Camera Obscura
There’s no actual reason to identify the “cathedral city” in this song with York, but that won’t stop me from taking Tracyanne Campbell’s lyrics out of context and using them to preface this week’s trip!
Why York? Weird reason, actually; when I was 12 and getting very much into anything and everything British, the aspiring television writer in me conceived of an England-set, character-based drama. Randomly, I decided to call it York, probably because it sounded catchier than Manchester or Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and also because I had probably just opened up one of my books on the kings and queens and happened upon a reference to one of the myriad Dukes of York. Deep. But that random titling inspired me to care a great deal more than I really should have about this city, and even years after that little creative endeavor, I still have a soft spot for it. What’s more, York is, in and of itself, quite worth visiting: European Cities Marketing selected it as the top European Tourism City of the Year in 2007, which is...maybe not a terribly prestigious honor yet, as the award was first given out in 2007. But, still.
To return to that whole cathedral city thing, we’ll start things off with a visit to York Minster, second-largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe and home to Britain’s largest collection of medieval stained glass. A truly lovely collection it is, too, as these examples attest:
Unfortunately, I haven’t much more of interest to say, but perhaps this virtual tour might compensate for my present lack of wit.
Now this next destination, this excites me. I do love a nice historically significant cathedral, but museums are my truest travel love. And when said museum features displays of household objects of centuries and decades past, and incredibly detailed recreations of Victorian streets, and a new exhibition on Britain in the ‘60s, and, oh, marry me, York Castle Museum. How could one not want to visit this place?! Just watch the advert! (I really, really suspect I may soon begin to inadvertently adopt British terms and spelling. It used to happen when I was 13.)
The fake Victorian street has its own website! It has shops you can visit! It’s not as though I haven’t been to Colonial Williamsburg and Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts, so I’m not exactly sure why this sends me so, but it does, probably because it’s in England and that makes it special! Someone please help me to stop italicizing things and using a surfeit of exclamation points!
Even better, a visit to the page for said ‘60s exhibit brings us to this. (Do use this link, by the way, and not that found on the YCM '60s exhibition site – whoever created the page decided to toss in an extra “http” and I had a devil of a time attempting to figure out why I kept being sent to a site bearing a “The page ‘HTTP’ does not exist!” message from my local server.) In any event, this site is fascinating. A little overmuch with the (admittedly understandable) hyping of the York Castle Museum and York Minster (though, also a website quite worth visiting), but fascinating nonetheless. The article about Radio 270 -- on the '60s site, of course -- is a highlight.
Our next destination, the Antiques Centre York, has, incidentally, decided to latch onto the apparent popularity of the ‘60s exhibit:
Various Retro Objects that the Exhibit Will Totally Make You Want to Buy! Really!
This is all well and good; I’m rather more partial to merchandise a good few decades older, but really, how much time can I afford to while away at the Antiques Centre when this is awaiting? I mean, really. Ken Spelman Booksellers are “always keen to purchase” pre-1850 manuscripts and journals! That’s so...well, upon perusing the list of recently sold items, not entirely thrilling, but still cool in theory. And in addition to all the books, they offer house concerts by musicians of whom I've never heard, but who I'm sure are excellent, and art exhibitions, the website for which has apparently vanished, so there’s fun to be had for all! Seems we’ve narrowly missed out on the York National Bookfair, though...
...which might be a sufficient reason to conclude our stay in York and start planning our next journey. The destination? You'll just have to wait and see.
(But you wouldn't, um, be totally off-base in guessing that it might be somewhere in Great Britain.)
No comments:
Post a Comment