Leeds, York and Nottingham

We started out after work on Friday on the infamous M1…infamous for accidents that cause major traffic jams! The weekend before, what should have taken us an hour to get home, took 4 hours thanks to an accident that closed down the motorway – luckily this trip was only delayed by 2 hours.. never thought we’d miss Atlanta traffic.

Finally we arrive at our nice hotel, ye ole Holiday Inn Express in Leeds. Most of Leeds is very new; the area we were staying in pretty much had demolished all the old buildings and put up strip malls and a casino! Oh yeah, the Brits are huge gamblers… more to come on that at the Leeds United match.


We get up and wander around the town center, if you want to shop this is the place to go. We started off in the market, which was interesting…you can buy everything from fresh seafood to a washer or a TV. However, you cannot buy a football jersey in this market. We did find a sporting goods store and purchased an Everton jersey for Chip, mission accomplished.

After wandering through town, we headed to the Royal Armouries Museum. This museum is huge and surprisingly free.

Here are some pictures of what is in the museum, Chris’s dream vacation. I think he would live here if they’d let him:

Then onto our first football match, Leeds Untied vs Scunthorpe. We thought an hour to go 2.9 miles in the car would be plenty of time…when we pulled off the exit we were surprised. There were about 29.000 people at the game, and Leeds United is just League 1, not the Premier league. After finally finding a place to park, surprisingly we paid about $8 and were right next to the stadium.

Here is a shot of the crowd outside the stadium:

An odd thing about going to a football match in the UK is that you can buy beer, but you can’t bring it to your seat, but you can buy mini bottles of whiskey in the stadium store and bring that in with you???

Also there isn’t a scoreboard, so you just have to keep track in your head. The crowd did a lot of chanting, singing and taunting, but we couldn’t really understand what they were saying because of their cockney accents. The one thing I did understand was “The ref is a wanker! The ref is a wanker!”

Here’s a few more “action shots” from the match:

After the game, off to York, about 30 mins north of Leeds. We checked into our hotel and headed into town for our Ghost Tour. The group was pretty large, at least 50 people total. Our guide was exactly what you would expect leading the tour, very theatrical and dramatic. We got some good historical facts and a nice tour of the city to help us plan out or activities for the next day.


Jay, blinding the tour guide as he tries to tell a scary story…

Now that we have the lay of the land, we head out to York during the day. Here’s some shots:

In 1190, 150 Jews sought protection in the wooden version of this castle and rather than denounce their faith, murdered each other.. Supposedly when this stone castle was built, the stones bled.. you can still see pink on the stone:

York Castle, which houses some great recreations of old York, as well as debtor prison cells:

So random! The museum had these crazy cutouts in their courtyard.. Of course we snapped a couple shots:

More CRAZY cutouts… what’s the deal??

Condemned cell. Comfy bed, think it’s about the size of our bed at the flat:

Street performer:

Obligatory massive medieval cathedral:

Robert, food picture! Traditional Roast lunch:

The Shambles…. Wait a minute, holy crap! Is that a hobbit!?? Didn’t even see it, it’s like when you take a picture in an empty room in the middle of the night and people say there’s a ghost in the picture. That’s pretty cool.. I didn’t know hobbits showed up in pictures:

The old city wall that still surrounds the York city centre (yep, re):

A couple of cars for Robert:

That concluded our trip to York. Time to start heading towards home.. On our way we had one final destination for the weekend. Nottingham – the home of Robin Hood!

This city is in bad shape.. I think 1/3rd of the homes were for “let”, a lot of business closed down and hooligans out and about. It was quite sad as we drove deeper into the center. But we had two main destinations: Nottingham Castle and Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem. Here’s some pics:

Nottingham Castle – there are some really cool spots where they built it directly into the stone beneath it:

Main Entrance:

The Grounds (we had to sneak in, they were closed when we showed up):

Robin Hood and his Merry Men tribute:

On to the pub! 1189 AD !!?? Yes, the Crusaders drank here… supposedly the oldest pub in England. What an amazing atmosphere. This is again, built directly into the stone, literally beneath the foot of Nottingham Castle.

A couple pints of “Nottingham ale” and “Ye Olde Trip”:

After watching this British tool spend 15 minutes trying to play this game of throwing a ring and trying to catch it on a bull’s horn, I decided to give it a go, as they say. 3 minutes later.. yep, got it. J Of course, not wanting to be outdone, and stealing my style, the Brit got back up and finally got it on the horn. Cheater.

Notice the form.. back straight, eye on the target… haha:

The Horn:

Definitely the coolest pub in England:

So that’s it! What a great weekend. I don’t think we could have taken in anymore in a single weekend. As the time ticks away, and the looming deadline of giving the car back, I honestly feel we’ve experienced some of the best England has to offer. I look forward to the next couple of weeks and absorbing what’s left of our English travels before we start off for some serious European sight-seeing.