A Festive Break in York #2 :: Around the City, Betty’s, a Christmas Market & Van Gogh

Hi there everyone 😀

Whilst we were staying up in Husthwaite with Jackie and Phil back in November we spent a couple of our days exploring York.

For our first we opted to use the park and ride from Rawcliffe Bar, which ended up working out quite well.

We had a full day on the cards … including a visit to the Treasurer’s House, another NT property, to maybe do a bit of Christmas shopping, an afternoon tea at Betty’s, a wander round The Shambles and the Christmas Market and finishing off with the Van Gogh immersive experience in St Mary’s Church.

The park and ride dropped us right outside the theatre … perfect for a quick toilet stop before heading through the city walls and around the side of the Minster for Treasurer’s House, which was to be our first stop …

I will tell you more about our visit to Treasurer’s House, which was another historic hall full of Christmas charm, in a separate post … but first we got to catch up with this very special bear along the way …

From Treasurer’s House we meandered the city centre streets towards the bottom of The Shambles … which didn’t seem quite as busy as it can be … there were still plenty of people about though … stopping to take in the window displays of the quirky shops and ancient buildings … 

We cut through to the market, where a little bit of sunshine put in an appearance …

… before carrying on with some general mooching about …

We were more than ready for a sit down out of the rain when it was time to head for Betty’s …

… where we whiled away a very civilised hour or so over a festive afternoon tea … and said “absolutely” to the offer of a sandwich top up …

When we came out of Betty’s it was beginning to get dark and everywhere looked just lovely with all the twinkling lights and Christmas decorations …

We made our way down Parliament Street and the Christmas Market …

It was now time to head for St Mary’s Church for our Van Gogh experience … which I was really excited about …

Though the city was busy we were actually the only people in the church and it really was an oasis of calm. With no idea whatsoever of what to expect we got comfortable and just sat back and enjoyed the show …

It really was a fabulous show … so different to anything any of us had seen before and definitely felt so immersive. It was very atmospheric in the empty church, surrounded by images constantly moving … at times it was hard to know where to look. It was also pretty poignant learning a bit more about Van Gogh and his personal struggles. 

It was a nice relaxing end to what had been a very full and enjoyable day. We had certainly crammed plenty in. All that was left to do was to head back through the city to catch our bus … which arrived pretty much just as we did. 

We were all certainly happy to hit the warm and comfort of Anthology Cottage for a very chilled out evening. 

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