We got up at 8:00AM yet again to meet our 9:00 breakfast reservation in the hotel’s dining room. Very good brekkie there.
Every morning I had seen this blackboard in the hotel’s Breakfast Room, and I finally got a shot of it. I thought it was a wonderful self-deprecating, humorous look at Yorkshire-isms:
Lots of Chocolate
After breakfast we got ourselves ready for the day and left the hotel. We had a 10:30 tour booked at York’s Chocolate Story (yet another attraction covered by our York Pass), so we made our way there. We met our group and guide – an extremely androgynous individual named Pip – and he/she/they were absolutely wonderful! They took us through a mixed multi-media tour and interactive demo for the next two hours. We made our own chocolate lollies to take home. Overall, a great experience:
After coming out of York’s Chocolate Story we both realized we were feeling a little too weary to do major, in-depth exploring today. To finish off the morning we toured around central York a little more at a leisurely pace, admiring the architecture:
We then made our way back to the hotel and hung out the “Do Not Disturb” sign, taking a nap/rest for the next couple of hours.
We woke up sometime after 2:00PM and talked about what to do next. We decided to have a light lunch, so at about 2:45 we set out, settling on an outdoor patio close to us on the King’s Staith riverfront: Plonkers. It was actually very good; we each had grills and side salad/coleslaw, and just enjoyed the relaxing view beside the river:
We felt revitalized after our break at Plonkers, so we opted to continue our walk around central York. We went over to the Shambles to take another look in the shops. The queue was still endless for the The York Ghost Merchants shop, which I had wanted to see, so we passed on that.
Near the Minster Yard we encountered an Original Roman Column. Originally built around the first century, it’s believed to have been part of a group of sixteen freestanding columns (eight on each side of the aisle), supporting the walls of a basilica on the site. The column was discovered beneath York Minster during a 1969 excavation, and was given to the City of York three years later to mark the 1900th anniversary of the city’s founding:
We passed by St. Leonard’s Mews, near the York Minster:
We decided to head back to the hotel via the winding streets of York. We reached the hotel at about 5:30 and just took it easy for a couple of hours.
At about 7:15 we decided we should go out for our evening meal, so we opted to walk around a bit and see what we could find. Vince suggested an Italian place called Prezzo on Clifford Street, and we settled on that – it was awesome! We sat beside a very nice local couple who were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. We’d met so many kind locals since arriving in York; it really is true what’s said of the friendly Northerners.
We left the restaurant at about 8:30 and returned to the hotel. For a post-meal treat, we indulged in some of the chocolate we’d bought earlier from York’s Chocolate Story. After that we just rested for the remainder of the evening, turning in at 9:45.
Today’s step count: 9,958
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