Day One Hundred

When Bob and I travel we try to eat a good breakfast, skip lunch and have an early dinner. That way, we get the most walking and sightseeing in as possible. This tends to have another effect - the more we exercise, the more we can eat at dinner! It's great to be able to go to a nice restaurant and order a bottle of wine with our meal and actually finish the food and the wine. Tonight was no exception. Had a marvelous full English breakfast and then walked from our hotel (The Grange in York which I highly recommend)through Bootham Bar and right into York Minster. The sun was just coming in through the stained glass windows on the east side and we were able to have the whole place to ourselves. Very peaceful and awe inspiring as York Minister is probably one of the most sun lit, expansive cathedrals in all of Europe. It feels so modern and yet is so ancient. It's foundations are Roman and Norman which you can see by touring the below ground level excavations. We then spent the rest of the day shopping and museum hopping. We also got to walk some of the ramparts and climbed Cifford's Tower. I was able to snap a wonderful photo of York Minister and the walled area of York from the top of the Tower. The only purchases we made today were confined to a book Bob bought for the plane ride home and I was enticed by a shop keeper to sample some fudge which I was gawking at through the shop window and ended up with a couple of pounds of different flavors to bring home to my hommies.

With my package of sweet indulgence under my arm, we walked down to an Italian restaurant for our last dinner in York before heading off to London tomorrow morning. Great meal, great bottle of wine, a few chunks of fudge, and we were ready to get back to the hotel. We were the only ones in the restaurant, as it was still pretty early for diners on European dinner schedules, except for a little old Englishwoman sitting behind us who came in with her shopping bags and had a treacle pudding and a hot chocolate. Just before she left, putting on her overcoat, scarf and hat, she came over to apologize for intruding, asking us if we were on our honeymoon. I smiled heartily and informed her that we had actually been married for 30 years. She said she had been watching us, even though she could only see Bob's back, but had a full view of my face as Bob and I talked during our meal. We were both very flattered and talked with her for several minutes before she excused herself and left for home - a native Yorkshire woman. How wonderful that she shared her observation with us.