York: Trains, a grange and a little archaeology

Rachel: A three hour drive from Cambridge is the pleasant city of York, which the Lonely Planet enthusiastically describes as being a wonderful and quaint place. I fear however that starting our journey in Brugge has destroyed all our expectations. York is lovely, don't get me wrong, but as Matt exclaimed "York's only a fairytale city. Doesn't quite get there does it." I sighed in agreement.

It was already 6pm on Tuesday when we arrived in York so, after a quick google search, we selected our camping spot for the night. When we arrived the site was full (apparently other people read Lonely Planet too) so we set off on plan B.

Google maps led us to a one way dirt lane on the outer edge of the city. I looked at the map in confusion. Apparently down this narrow lane was a camping spot but there were no signs to suggest it. Just lots of trees and lots of paddocks. We each inhaled deeply and set off. At the end of the winding lane we found a grassy square with 4 motorhomes, a few tents and a collection of old stone buildings at the end of a pebbled driveway.

Thankfully a sign explained all - we were at Acomb Grange, built in 1120 (woah!!). It was a collection of private houses, a BnB and an accountants office. We knocked on the front door and were warmly welcomed by the owner who said we could have a powered site, explained some history on the estate (quite fascinating really - if you're interested look here: www.acomb grange.com.uk/history) and left us to set up.

We enjoyed it so much and, as could not explore York in one day, we stayed here for two nights (Tuesday and Wednesday).

The first destination in York was the National Railway Museum. The museum was mostly full of excited little boys so I will leave Matt to tell you all about it.

Matt: Trains are awesome. This museum has lots of trains. This museum is awesome.

Rachel: Is that really all you're going to write?

Matt: Fine. The National Railway Museum is awesome because it caters for all different types of train geeks.

Thomas the Tank Engine loving kids can see the awesomely coloured authentic, still operational steam trains that fill the main hall and watch the turntable inside effortlessly pivot a 20 tonne forest green locomotive around 360 degrees in 90 seconds.Anorak wearing trainspotters can sit on the balcony and view the main North-Eastern English railway line and the screens showing the real-live switching tables and location of locomotives around York Station.

People interested in the history of trains can see the various incarnations of The Flying Scotsman, marvel at early traction engines and walk across a hall filled with locomotives from the last 15 decades, including a real Shinkansen (bullet train) loco from Japan.

People who love the Royal Family can see several of the carriages specifically built to transport Kings and Queens around Britain, people who love model railways can fog up the glass, people who love women acting as male train conductors from the early 20th Century deliver long, overwritten monologues, and people who love the smell of steam, coal, grease and oil can step inside a functioning rail work shed and sniff.

Personally I love the complexity of the system. I love that hundreds of MASSIVE, long vehicles travel through towns and cities, criss-cross the countryside, dive into tunnels and traverse bridges and deliver millions of passengers, mail bags and tonnes of goods every day and pretty much, none of them ever bump into each other. The amazingly network of schedules, switches and signals, and the people who operate them fascinates me. This museum catered to me as well.

It was awesome.

Rachel: Want to finish the post? I'm writing the next one already...

Matt: I have visited York before, with my family in 2004, but I didn't visit the town's huge cathedral: York Minster. I think we were all a bit tired and grumpy and wanted to sit down and have lunch, so Dad ducked off to have a peek himself. It was a good choice. By Dad, of course.

The minster is, first of all - massive. "It's the largest Cathedral north of the Alps," the chap who owns Acomb Grange told us, "You can fit Canterbury [Cathedral] inside it". It's also very spacious, uncluttered by the horror-movie level of corpses and tombs built into Westminster Abbey, there's a lot of room to walk around and enjoy it. Also, the £9 entry price keeps the masses out, so you can easily swing a cat that's swinging another cat without hitting anything or being hassled. The windows that are still there are stunning, and huge.

The undercroft held an excellent (and surprisingly secular) exhibit about the Romans, Normans and Saxons who had built various incarnations of cathedral on the site before the current Medieval one. Archaeologists uncovered lots about it while engineers removed the floor of the building and reinforcing the piers underneath, because of fears in the late 1960s that the building was going to fall over.

After the Minster we crossed the town to Clifford's Tower, which is a squat medieval stone tower perched on a small mound of grass, but as everything else in York apart from the Minster and a few other churches is quite short, it provided a fantastic view of the town. The floor was, however, uneven and the walls were a little crumbly, and it got me thinking "Was this thing built for 700 years of use?" We hastily left. As far as we know, the tower is still there.

Speaking of things that are very old and weren't necessarily built for centuries of use, we next skirted the outside of the town on top of the city wall. The wall, built in the 12th to 14th centuries, still encircles most of the city and provides a great, if not slightly unsettling way (there's only a railing on one side) to see York. In fact, as the walls cross over streets and between buildings, we saw a few people using it as a thoroughfare on their way home from the shops. There's something you don't get at home - shortcuts over 12th century battlements.

It was on this wall that we first encountered THE CAT. A black cat with a white belly and legs, making it's way home from doing some mischief no doubt. For whatever reason, we took a photo of the cat. It was a good idea, as you'll find out in future posts.

We walked from the South to the North-West of the city centre on the wall and got the park and ride home. We returned the following morning to go to the Jorvik Centre, a museum telling the story of the Viking history of York.

It could so easily have been tacky, but it wasn't. From the first moment you walk onto a glass floor suspended 6 inches above a real archaeological site, including artifacts, water and sticks in the exact position they were in when found by archaeologists many years before - you're hooked.

I won't ruin it for you, but after an hour of EXCELLENT animatronics, holograms, real Viking skeletons (featuring cuts, fractures, stab wounds and degenerative joint disease) you really feel like you can imagine what it would be like to live in ancient Jorvik (the Viking name for York).

We emerged from the 11th century into the 21st, both glad and a little disappointed to be back.

London Map

Here's a map of the places we went in London. Click on the link at the bottom to look at them in a larger map. Click on each dot to see what it is.
This map won't work on iPhones, iPads and possibly other mobile devices.

View European Holiday in a larger map

Motorhoming, autobahning and navigating

Our first experience of the German Autobahn was our taxi ride from the Mercure Frankfurt Airport Hotel to Friedberg to pick up our motorhome. Our taxi driver went over 170kms per hour, answered his mobile and made phone calls no less than ten times and during such calls would write taxi pickups in his diary, not even slowing down to do so. It was pure madness.

Thankfully we made it unscathed to Friedberg and, after an hour demonstration on how to use the motorhome, Matt was in the drivers seat and we were off. With no map, we picked what we thought was a quiet road and would take us safely out of Friedberg so Matt could get used to driving a left hand manual car on the wrong side of the road.

To our surprise, this seemingly quiet road turned into the main street of Friedberg with people everywhere, traffic lights, narrow streets and several fire trucks. We finally made it safely out of the town and in no time Matt was confidently zooming down the Autobahn. I have been so impressed with his driving skills and his ability to stay calm as BMWs and Mercedes zip past us.

My first go of driving the motorhome was less intense and we chose a carpark of a sports centre for me to get used to driving.

After driving around aimlessly in the towns of Wetzlar and Asslar for somewhere to stay Monday night we decided our best bet was to drive out of a town and find somewhere in the country side. Unfortunately the countryside is rather hard to find, as there is a town every 3-5 minutes along the road. We picked the little town of Biskirchen, pulled over next to a pub, had a few beers and went to bed.

On Tuesday I had my first go at driving on an Autobahn. The downside of me driving however meant Matt was now tasked with navigating us to Belgium. I was happily making my way along the autobahn when we were greeted with the sign “Niederlands”. This was slightly alarming as we had never intended to go to the Netherlands and, by our calculations, would not need to. So yes, we had accidentally driven into the wrong country. We pulled over at a rest stop and discovered the Netherlands has an unusual border, and there’s a tiny sliver of land between Germany and Belgium where we were crossing. We stayed on the same road and in no time were in Belgium. In just under two hours we had crossed the entire country and were in the lovely town of Bruges choosing a motorhome park just outside of the old city to stay the night.

First Impressions

Yesterday, after two days of travel, we successfully arrived at Frankfurt airport. There were three immigration booths open for EU residents and one for non-EU residents. Needless to say there were over 300 people in one queue and only 30 or so in the other three. When the lines for the EU residents emptied, the non-EU line, which curled around the room, were wondering whether or not the booths would open for non-EU residents. The people in the non-EU line (including Rachel and I) behaved exactly like the buffalo in this video. We were two of the first people to swoop on the newly opened booths and luckily got through pretty quickly.

We spent out first night at the Mercure Frankfurt Airport Hotel in order to recover from the gruelling flight before either of us gets behind the wheel. Matt has already demonstrated his inability to speak German on several occasions. The first was waiting in the long immigration line where Matt, intending to impress me, proclaimed "we'll get you to bed before the nicht gets to schweiz." He used only 2 German words and got both wrong saying "we'll get you to bed before not gets to Switzerland" instead of "we'll get you to bed before night gets to black". We both found this hilariously funny, for the simple reason that it was 4:30 am Sydney time, we had just got off a 12 hour flight and had had no sleep on the plane. Oh the joys of flying. Matt has also attempted to thank people three times but on every occasion has said bitte (please) instead of danke (thank you). Seeing as he could not grasp this simple task we have now agreed I will do all the talking in German to save further embarrassment.

After only one meal in Germany I know I am going to struggle with my inability to eat gluten. The buffet breakfast at the Mercure was a spread of breads, pastries, sausages, hams, salamis, cheeses, fruits, yoghurts and every kind of egg. The Germans sure know how to do breakfast. I think I will have to have a day in each country where I eat what ever I want. My day in Germany will be full of beer, pretzels, breads and wurst. I'm salivating at the thought. Hopefully the impact won't be as bad as when I was in Germany on exchange and put on 7kgs in 1 month. Goodness knows what 4 months will do to me!

Now we only have a few hours to wait before we pick up our motorhome. So excited!!

Why don't we have anything like Incheon Bridge?

Yesterday I crossed a bridge.

It took over seven minutes to get across at 80kph. It's over 23 kilometers long.

The bridge is in Incheon, South Korea and its purpose is to take people from the growing city of Incheon, near Seoul to the ten-year-old Incheon International Airport. It was built to alleviate the traffic problems on the old bridge to the North.

"But", you may say, "That's an essential bridge, and it only cost $1.4 Billion USD! Australia's National Broadband Network will cost over $30 Billion, and who knows how many Billions an East Coast Very Fast Train would cost?!"

"Well..." I would say "the Incheon Bridge is not all that's happening in the area to stimulate growth"

Some other projects in the planning or construction stages in the Incheon/Seoul area include nine new subway lines, a new light rail service, several massive building projects including 151 Incheon Tower which is under construction right next to the Incheon bridge and an extension to the Incheon airport.

The airport was built 10 years ago on reclaimed land between two islands after it became apparent that the old Seoul airport would not be able to cope with increased traffic due to increased tourism after the 1988 olympics. Does that remind you of anything?

My point is that arguing over pink batts, school halls and the cost of the NBN is going to leave Australia behind. Places like Incheon, Macau and Dubai are getting things done, and we're not.