I only visited York for the first time last year and it has fast become one of my favourite UK cities. It's less than an hour away on the train for me so I can't believe I only went last year and since then I've been back so many times, whether it's for the day or for night's stay. Last week, my mum, Jess and Jess' mum Alison headed down to York for the VIP re-opening of York Dungeon so we decided to get an early train and make a real day of it.
Sometimes day trips are all you need for a little break from reality, especially when you're in the midst of exams and revision like me and don't really have the time for overnight stays. We got the train down to York early and, of course, my mum and Alison had packed us a train picnic so we had "lunch" before it even hit 9am, complete with Prosecco, chocolate eclairs and cheese sandwiches. That's definitely life right?!
York is such a good place for a shopping day because not only does it have loads of huge, well-loved high street brands like Topshop, Zara, H&M, Mango and everything else, but the cobbled streets are lined with independent boutiques and the kind of traditional stores you don't see often enough anymore. There are handmade chocolate shops, wool shops, little trinket shops, market stalls, handmade lemonade stands...You name it, York has it. It's so much fun looking in the smaller stores seeing what treasures you can find!
After we'd had a bit of a shop around, we head down by the River Ouse for a pitstop. It was such a beautiful day and it didn't feel like we were walking around good ol' rainy England at all! The sun was shining and giving off actual heat (I know - shocker!) so it was lovely to sit by the beautiful river which is lined with traditional English pubs. Also, we spotted some absolutely adorable ducklings - I'm such a sucker for baby animals so this honestly made my day and I spent a good ten minutes taking photos of them. Just look at them! We went to Las Iguanas for our lunch, somewhere which Jess and I are already fans of as there's one in Newcastle and it's my go-to restaurant for Mexican food! Of course, we had to sit in the sun on the terrace with our cocktails, pretending we were on our jollies - it's the only thing you can do when England gets a bit of rare sun right?!
The York Dungeon was our last stop for the grand re-opening after it was flooded last year so make sure you catch my post all about that for some super scary, hilarious fun!
Have you ever been to York?
Amy x
