A quiet town.

The view from the street outside the hotel can't have changed much in five hundred years. There is something rather special about York. Life in some cathedral towns outside London moves at its own pace. That's true here. History oozes out of every nook and cranny. Come first light clerics can be seen hurrying around on their way to open up the Minster or prepare for Matins.

The hotel we've chosen does indeed have three columns in its downstairs vault. As to whether they're Roman or not I wouldn't like to say. To all but the most expert of eyes one column looks pretty much like another. However, the claim that it's the oldest British building in continuous use seems justifiable. Apropos of nothing the beds are very low and have footboards.'The Font' loves the sound of the bells right outside the bedroom window. Angus thinks you might very soon tire of their quarter hourly chiming. 'Tire' may be an understatement. I shall render a judgement tomorrow after another night of atonal four bar snippets of 'Jesu love of my soul'. Thankfully the bells stop sometime after dinner.

The food at dinner last night was good. The wine list by contrast was a disappointment. The mark up on the bottles was at least four times, possible five. Outlandish. A 2019 Paulliac at an eye watering  £195 was the only Bordeaux on offer and not even a good one at that. Some Californian wines at astronomical prices indicate that the super well heeled 1% make up a good portion of the diners. We opt for glasses of what might politely be described as a zesty Argentinian Malbec although 'The Font' makes do with one and I don't finish my second. We toy with the idea of drinking a bottle of champagne with dinner but decide against it as being the wrong solution to the problem.  Tonight we'll eat in the hotel.

In the Minster garden a bench with a life sized Paddington bear is the sort of thing that will have been photographed a million times by the European school kids that throng the place in the summer. Today, we're alone apart from two or three groups of bored looking and uniformly blonde Swedish adolescents. We're here off season and the place is quiet after the summer mayhem ( bored Swedish teenagers excepted ). A verger tells the teens to be quiet and sheepishly they all say 'sorry' in unison. 'Sorry' has become one of those catch all words that every European knows. 

Two workmen are touching up heraldic shields. York is the sort of place where this sort of activity is not unusual. They work at an 'unhurried' pace and to a standard that hints they're happy to be stewards of the place.

Half an hour later , after we've had a reasonable coffee, the workmen have moved on and are touching up another shield.

A woman lifts here dog up onto the bench next door to Paddington. She arranges the dogs fur and then proceeds to take a picture of the two of them. All the time she keeps up a steady stream of conversation with the mutt. The poor thing sensing this strange ursine presence next to it needs some reassurance.

We thought we knew York but there are so many treasures we didn't know about or had passed on prior visits. This plaque in a church restored after the Baedeker Raids refers to the church as 'she'. There is something rather other worldly about the concept of a building being so well integrated into a town that over a millennium or so it develops a persona all of its own. 

It is a little jewel box of a place unnoticed by tourists. Purists might argue with some aspects of the restoration , but not us. It works well and emits warmth and friendliness in that way some old buildings do. It also follows from this, and is equally true, that some buildings don't.

The old place battles with pigeons.

We are having a wonderful time. Later today we will head off in search of the DaVinci code window about which more tomorrow.