We had to get up early again today. This time was to board our next Haggis bus to get us back down to London again. We didn’t have the same tour guide as Ped was, I think, on one of their Scotland tours now and not doing the London loop. Lauren stepped in as our lovely Scottish guide and off we went. There was alot more motoring on the way down as we had to now do in 2 days what it took us 4 days to do on the way up to Edinburgh, but she still found time to fit in several stops. The first, after we crossed the Scotland/England border back into England, was to Flodden Field where the battle of Flodden occurred in 1513. This was a great battle where the Scottish attacked the English, but unfortunately left the Scottish with so many casualties that they were considered the losers of the war. It was with this loss that they decided to construct the great wall around the city of Edinburgh for protection from retaliation- this wall is also known as the Flodden Wall.

Next up was the town of York. York was originally founded in 71 A.D. by the Romans. It was the northernmost city of the Empire. Constantine was actually proclaimed emperor here in 306 A.D. During the time of the fall of Rome, York was briefly Christian, but then came the Vikings who conquered it and renamed it Jorvik. After them were the Normans who first destroyed and then rebuilt the city with an amazing wall that still stands today. Oh to be on a island and have lots of invaders. We didn’t have long in York as it was only a couple hour stop over as we were staying in a nearby town for the night and not in York itself. There was lots that we could do. We could wander around the city walls, traverse the old streets in an area called “The Shambles”, go to the York Minster, go to the Castle Museum which had a replica of a 19th century street and lots of everyday objects from Victorian times to the present, etc. There was so much to see and so little time.

For the night we drove to the neighboring town of Beverley and stayed at a 600 year old Dominican friary that was turned into a youth hostel. I found out later that it was supposedly haunted although I saw nothing at the time. It was great fun eating chinese food and getting drunk by the fire with our Haggis tour mates.

Tags: Beverley Friary,Flodden Field,York
Categories: Becky Blogs, Haggis - Full Monty
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