Four Bars

It's hard to believe we have been here less than a week.  Though we have run into a few snags (turns out our washer/dryer is just a washing machine, so drying clothes - jeans and towels in particular - is a little challenging).  Today we did a little household shopping: a hair dryer and some clothes drying racks.  We have a portable heater, an iron and ironing board in the apartment, so we should be able to get by. 

We walked another section of the wall today on our way to the store (and again were surprised by getting rained on when the weather report was sunny, so we didn't have an umbrella or hooded jacket with us - when will we learn????).  On the way we passed what remains of York's 13th century castle: Clifford's Tower (which was the site of an 1190 massacre of the city's Jews - not York's finest moment).

And in the spit of land between the Ouse and Foss Rivers is the old castle mill:

We discovered there are four major gates (well, "bars") into the city, not three as one of the books said: and the one we saw today still has its barbican attached. (A barbican is a sort of security tower in front of the gate to check people out before letting them into the city.)  All the gates used to have barbicans, but they have been removed - which makes the gates more impressive to look at (as well as easier to let traffic through).  Here is a picture of the Walmgate Bar, with the barbican:

And here are pictures of the other "bars" with the barbicans removed:
Monk Bar

Mickelgate Bar

And Bootham Bar (yes, that's John waiting for me to cross the street.)

And the full Bootham Bar (interestingly, it is Bootham Bar that has statues of monks at the top rather than Monk Bar....)

We stopped for lunch in a quaint little cafe called The Hairy Fig, which is in the very old building next to the very old Merchant Adventurer's Hall, built between 1357-1361 as a medievil guild hall (the merchant guilds controlled all foreign trade into and out of York until 1830). It is considered one of the most handsome timber-framed buildings in Europe.

The Merchant's Hall

The Hairy Fig cafe just outside the Merchant Hall

On the way home we found a new grocery store: the first floor of Marks & Spencer department store.  We will definitely stop back as they had these individual cuts of beef and chicken billiantly packaged with various herbs, spices and sauce for cooking.  We just purchased some apples we had never heard of (Cox), which are apparently the "best" English apples. We'll see.