More Winter Travelling

I had holidays to use.....due to some sad circumstances at work earlier this year it was hard to get time off - things needed done....so now I had time left to use before the end of the year. After Paris I took a trip to York with my parents and then on to London to visit friends. 

York is an amazing city, a real microcosm of British history - vikings, Romans, medieval streets and buildings, the city walls, the Minster (the largest gothic church in northern Europe) and the city was voted Best UK City in 2008. We have as a family visited York many times before and once again we participated in some of our favourite past-times - walking the medieval walls, visiting the City Art Gallery, staring at the Minster's facade as it changed colour in the fading light, visiting the little shops and restaurants dotted around the city, walking by the river, soaking up the Christmas atmosphere. It was cold when we were there, we even awoke to snow on our first morning!

The churches in York are amazing, the Minster with it's amazing facade and stained glass and the smaller churches such as All Saints Pavement with it's 15th century lantern tower, the 15th century;  Holy Trinity Church, said to be amongst the oldest in England, with its uneven floors and unusual box pews; 15th century St Martins, rebuilt from 1961 after being destroyed in bombing in 1942, with its golden sculpture of the Last Supper and its amazing stained glass window, removed for safe keeping in 1940 and returned to the church on rebuilding. 

Thursday my parents took the train home and I headed south to London to visit Garry & Julia for the weekend. I hadn't been in London since last November. It's funny, the minute I descend the escalator into the underground I feel like I am in the big city, country bumpkin come to town!! This visit I went to my favourite clothes shop, COS (why can London be the only branch in the UK) and then on to the fabulous Borough Market, London's oldest food market - wow the food and the colours, the smells and the sights and the bustle! I love food markets and I love taking photos of food markets - the natural colours and textures inspire me!

I guess my visit proves that at least in London, the UK can support the kind of markets that we saw in Paris.

I also visited Petersham Nurseries in Richmond where we ate great cake and wandered the greenhouses looking at plants and Christmas decorations. The smell of garden centres really is something special and this one was beautiful - the decorations and lighting were really atmospheric and the chocolate and hazelnut cake was divine! We took a trip to the National Portrait Gallery to see the Annie Liebovitz exhibit and to eat lunch on the South Bank.