Michael's and my four day unlimited rail passes had one last day to go. We spent the day taking the East Coast rail line to York and back, a distance of about 200 miles each way. The East Coast line is another high speed route from London to Glasgow and Edinburgh, Scotland. There were only three stops between London and York. Our first class coach had free Internet and complimentary coffee but no free breakfast. Of all the high speed trains we rode, I think Virgin had the best amenities and the best service. Michael used his new iPhone to track our location and speed. I could clearly see a blue circle moving across the Google Earth map. Our speed maxed out at 130 mph. The landscape was mostly flat. Few rivers and no canals were visible in the fleeting landscape. More cows and horses than sheep. Rapeseed plants were in bloom and many fields were bright yellow. I am surprised that for a densely populated country there is so much open farmland. Most people live in towns and cities. Michael got a great picture of some British train spotters on the platform at Doncaster. These older gentlemen get their kicks from counting and tracking the trains that pass their station. We were fortunate that the rain fell mostly while we were on the train and it had pretty well cleared by the time we got to York.
York is a major rail intersection and we saw lots of different trains. The high speed trains go mostly north-south and local service is provided for east west travel. It is relatively easy to get from London to anywhere but to go from Newcastle to Manchester is a chore. The station is just outside the walled old city of York. Michael's intrepid guide book suggested we walk the wall of the old city, walk through several historic neighborhoods, cross the river and eventually visit York Minster, the largest medieval Gothic cathedral in northern Europe. The city isn't as much of a tourist trap as Chester. For one thing it is much larger. There are streets with all the usual mall type stores and signs advertising the usual historical exhibits. There are also unexpected little medieval and Tudor streets. We even stumbled across a local outdoor market. The Shambles was so narrow and overhung that it looked its hundreds of years of age even though today's stores are mostly gift shops. The sun came out and we had a lovely walk.
I have been inside a number of Gothic churches. York Minster is the lightest and airiest one inside that I have seen. It is absolutely beautiful. The priest and staff were preparing for a wedding in the Quire area, right in the center of the cathedral. Some of the church was off limits but they graciously let me take photos from a distance. A cathedral is the head church of a diocese, the area administered by a bishop. It is where the bishop has his cathedra, or seat. A minster is the Anglo-Saxon name for a missionary church. The first minster in York was built in 627 A.D. At that time in England the Christians were converting the pagans. Many churches dating from that era are Minsters. I walked around the interior of the cathedral peering into all the open nooks and crannies while Michael circled the exterior. I took about a hundred pictures.
Our next destination, in fact the reason for our trip to York, was the British National Railway Museum. This has the reputation of being the biggest and best rail museum in England. It is certainly big and probably is the best. The museum consists of three large interconnected buildings. There are static displays going back to the beginnings of railroading and working up to the first Chunnel train and even a coach from a Japanese bullet train as well as a sit down restaurant among the trains. There was a Royal train from Victoria's era and in the workshop area we saw the steam powered Flying Scotsman locomotive from the late 1800's in the process of restoration. We wandered into a simulated control center with live displays of the York train yards. A bunch of train nuts were hogging the displays and more were out on the porch overlooking the station and yards spotting trains. They really know how to have fun. Perhaps the most interesting, to me, was the warehouse. A hundred and fifty years of rail memorabilia was tucked in very which way. There as no sense or organization but it was really intriguing. By mid afternoon we were museumed out and headed back to London. The train we took was non stop. We were back to London in under two hours. We had to wait ten minutes or soon a siding just outside Kings Cross Station because we were fifteen minutes early and the platform we were assigned to for debarking was occupied.
Kings Cross station is across the street from St Pancras station. I had no time for pictures as we ran for our train the day before so we took some time to explore the beautiful old station and its modern extension. I think by this time Michael was getting tired of my constant picture taking.
Michael said that he wanted to eat dinner at a Chinese restaurant that had ducks hanging in the window. We went back to Chinatown, near Convent Garden and walked around looking at the various choices. The restaurants in the main part of Chinatown were geared for tourists and mostly overpriced. We found a small place just off Convent Garden with the ducks in the window, seven or eight unpretentious tables and reasonable prices. We had a remarkably good dinner - duck of course. It had been a long but fun day.
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