Birdsong's Trip to the UK

Wednesday, October 26 - York, Jorvic Museum

Clifford's Tower, York

Bill McWood's birthday. Fi did our laundry. A sunny day, hooray! Walked to Clifford's Tower, and climbed to the top. This single tower was built on the site of a much larger and older castle dating from 1100. I was shaking from fear of heights.

Next we toured the Castle Museum. There were recreations of Victorian and pre-Victorian York streets, stores and homes.

We had called to make reservations for late afternoon at the "museum" Jorvic, (pronounced Yorvik), which is Viking for York, and is how York got its name. Good thing we had called to make a reservation - there were long lines in the rain for over an hour's wait for those with no reservations.

The Jorvic is a Disney-esque museum tour over the site of the ancient Viking town. In the 1980's (?), they were excavating to build the shopping center when they discovered the buried Viking town.

They could tell from artifacts what business each house owner was in: the leather maker, the wood worker, the iron monger. For the museum, they recreated each hut on the exact spot where the old building was excavated. The shops were on the bottom floor, with the owner's family quarters above.

There were human-like figures in the buildings and on the streets. Rather than walking around the museum, visitors get into seats like a ferris wheel seat and you are moved from site to site.

There is a regular museum, too, with artifacts and interesting analysis of the Vikings. One display showed a coroner's list of what killed people that year. Some were predictable: childbirth, war injuries, various illnesses. We were surprised to see "4 Bad teeth."

There was a display by Wellcome Trust that analyzed bones, teeth, poop to determine what health problems they had. Analysis of fish showed understandable pollution of the river that ran behind the old shop-houses.

Back to the White Horse. A young friendly local historian we had talked with the prior evening came up behind me and kissed me on the cheek - happy to see us again!

He told us there is still a law on the books that within the walled city, it is legal to shoot a Scot with your long bow who is begging after midnight. Watch out, Glady! No begging after midnight!