York Castle Museum

I had already fallen in love with castles by the time we reached York. So the thought of going to the York Castle Museum was a bit exciting for me. After getting a good dose of Viking lore, we decided to take the short walk to the Castle Museum and enjoy the history of what are really just big piles of stone.

The building housing the museum is impressive. I didn’t know it at the time but it was a former prison. We paid our admission fee and entered. It quickly became apparent that this museum, even though it had the name “Castle” in it, had nothing to do with castles. The Castle Museum is all about the history of domestic British life back to the 1700 somethings. The further we got into the museum, the more plates, dresses, girdles and washing machines we saw. More dresses and frilly froo-froo things awaited us around every corner.

Now please understand that the museum did an excellent job collecting and preserving items of value from domestic life. It was top-notch. But it wasn’t my thing. My wife loved it. In fact, it was probably one of her favorite things. But I did not. It was all I could do to fain interest. I tried to be polite but I couldn’t wait to get out of there. If you love that sort of thing, this is the place for you.

But that’s not me. I don’t care if the Queen of England wore that dress (and she did) it’s still boring and I have no interest in that stuff. But I was stuck inside for over 2 hours, trying to stay just ahead of my wife to keep her moving along. But that only made her upset. Had there been a hands-on experience where you could throw rocks at stuffed barbarian heads, protecting the Queen’s dress, I may have been a bit more interested. But there was nothing of the sort. Just a lot of dishes, old rusty tools, and a big hearse.

I sat outside on the steps for another hour, begging the museum to cough-up my wife, which it eventually did. I looked longingly at the small castle on the hill next to the museum, knowing that if I entered, my wife would come out looking for me. And not being there, she would have had speaks with me. With everyone now in a foul mood we went back to the center of town and found some sandwiches to eat inside a department store. We sat in a small square surrounded by fellow tourists all doing the same thing. You could hear little arguments breaking out all over. Apparently, everyone had the same experience we did. And now some were being made to pay for it.

Then, when you think things couldn’t get any worse, the ladies all left me sitting alone while they did more shopping. I did a lot of that. And they never seemed to find anything. They just liked looking at the stuff. When I caught a glimpse of them, I told them firmly that they could continue shopping, but I was going to the cathedral, with or without them. Sheri was interested, the girls were not. Too bad for them because what we saw was my favorite part of the whole trip.