So What's York Like?

[bikepete]

This picks up a few more good places:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2009/nov/24/york-10-best-budget-eats

Other favourites:

(what it says, plus cheese)
http://www.yorkbeerandwineshop.co.uk

(Traffic free 5 mile ride out on a weekend morning for £2.99 breakfast! Good Sunday carvery too)
http://blacksmithsarmsnaburn.co.uk/

(One for the summer: SB is walking distance)
http://www.yorkcarboot.com/event dates.html

 

[Gromit]

Oh I also forgot to mention it also has three charity shops, an opticians Meltons, delicateness and a bike shop.

 

[Arch]

Oh I also forgot to mention it also has three charity shops, an opticians Meltons, delicateness and a bike shop.

Delicateness? That'll be all the middle class muesli-belters.

There's also a delicatessen....

I don't know if I can add much - I came up here the same year as Gromit, for the same reason, and I also loved it enough to want to stay. If I was in the market to buy, I'd like to be in Southbank too, or Bish Road. I'm bang in the centre in a studio flat (posh bedsit).

That said I was coveting a house on Belle Vue Street today, off Heslington road (still within a 15 min walk of town, near the Uni). I've also lived on Cemetery Road, off the Fulford Road, and Farrar Street, off Lawrence Street, and they were fine too - within an easy walk of town, local shops etc. Lots of student housing, but that's the case all over the best bits of York, inc Southbank.

I don't go out much in the evening, but it's pretty easy to avoid the more heaving binge pubs. Even just round the corner from me is a pub with a 'local' atmosphere. And a restaurant for every taste, many housed in fascinating old buildings - where else can you eat Chinese or Italian surrounded by 600 year old beams.

Yes, it's packed with tourists a lot, esp in the summer and around Christmas, but you get used to elbowing your way through them. And there's nothing like riding past the Minster on a clear morning, before the ped/bike path gets too crowded, and gazing up and seeing the early morning sun reflecting off the golden stone, and the blue sky beyond.

Has no-one mentioned The Maltings?

 

[marinyork]

I would say Fishergate/Hes Road, Upper Fulford and South Bank. They are all student areas but hey, that's just how it is. I wouldn't recommend York to a younger person though.

 

[addictfreak]

I have a few good trips to York over the years, from the binge drinking weekend to a quiet trip with the missus and family. Always found it a lovely place which caters for all.

Like most places the town centre can be a place to avoid at times, but i would certainly live there.

 

[Arch]

I have a few good trips to York over the years, from the binge drinking weekend to a quiet trip with the missus and family. Always found it a lovely place which caters for all.

Like most places the town centre can be a place to avoid at times, but i would certainly live there.

The thing is, most places those times are weekend nights. In York, it's the last couple of shopping weekends before Christmas, especially the St Nicholas Fair, and then it's not down to avoiding dunken oiks, it's all about wanting to actually be able to move....

Walking down Coney Street today (main pedestrian shopping street), and an ambulance needs to get by, blues and twos. People part like the Red Sea and it noses through. Not everyone had the wit to do what I did, which was to then step out behind it and draft it (on foot), in order to get to the Post Office quicker...

I'm not sure what Marin means by a 'younger person' (a while since I was one, anyway, and then I don't think I was much of one), I know several people in my and Gromit's year who were 18 year old students, and stayed and are still in York now, 10 years later. It depends on the person, not the age. There aren't (I'm told) a lot of nightclubs, but not everyone wants that sort of thing.

 

[marinyork]

I'm not sure what Marin means by a 'younger person' (a while since I was one, anyway, and then I don't think I was much of one), I know several people in my and Gromit's year who were 18 year old students, and stayed and are still in York now, 10 years later. It depends on the person, not the age. There aren't (I'm told) a lot of nightclubs, but not everyone wants that sort of thing.

I meant that I don't think York is a very welcoming city, I was never a younger person in terms of what you're talking about. The culture there for many residents is to be "grumpy" and moan about how high the non-existent crime rate is, Polish people, tourists, the northern ring road and especially bicycles. The place has a lot of people that weren't born there and moved there later on. Several other people who I knew whilst I was there said that although the place was spoilt rotten in terms of amenities it would be the sort of place you'd retire to later on and they weren't particularly amused with how homogeneous and intolerant it was. A lot of the places that were moaned about as being scum of the earth types estates - Tang Hall, Woodthorpe, Acomb, Rawcliffe, below Huntingdon are all average to average nice places in other cities. Although people disagree with these views, it's funny how a lot of people always live outside rather than in York...

If someone can stand the ethos that York gives out, sure it's a great place to live, but your soul will soon be sucked out by the other residents endless list of complaints . If there isn't stuff you want, then there's stuff nearby back in Leeds and again York's rather spoiled on the transport links and the countryside around it if you do want to cycle. It depends on your philosophy of what living in a place is and really one can write a ridiculously long list of places to explore and so on but the person has to explore them themselves, a bit like what a guy said to me in Long Marston once when I was having a chat with him about bikes.

I agree with Belle Vue St, probably one of the best situated and nicest streets in the city. If I were a millionaire and wanted to live in York though I think I'd probably go on Shipton Road or Stockton Lane.

 

[Arch]

I meant that I don't think York is a very welcoming city, I was never a younger person in terms of what you're talking about. The culture there for many residents is to be "grumpy" and moan about how high the non-existent crime rate is, Polish people, tourists, the northern ring road and especially bicycles. The place has a lot of people that weren't born there and moved there later on. Several other people who I knew whilst I was there said that although the place was spoilt rotten in terms of amenities it would be the sort of place you'd retire to later on and they weren't particularly amused with how homogeneous and intolerant it was. A lot of the places that were moaned about as being scum of the earth types estates - Tang Hall, Woodthorpe, Acomb, Rawcliffe, below Huntingdon are all average to average nice places in other cities. Although people disagree with these views, it's funny how a lot of people always live outside rather than in York...

That sounds exactly like every town/city/village in Britain!

Since I'm now a resident with no plans to move, you're kind of accusing me of fitting in to an intolerant point of view, thanks.

And there are certainly bits of Tang Hall that are quite shitty, but I'm well aware that they are nowhere near as bad as parts of other places - I work in them on a daily basis...

 

[Amanda P]

Of course, you should move to York because these guys play there regularly.

What do you mean it's not indy? That's proper music, that.

I don't live in York. I just go there for shopping. I've lived in or near quite a few British cities; York comes at or near the top for places I'd choose to live in. Or near. Not least because it's a great place to cycle.

 

[Arch]

Of course, you should move to York because these guys play there regularly.

What do you mean it's not indy? That's proper music, that.

I don't live in York. I just go there for shopping. I've lived in or near quite a few British cities; York comes at or near the top for places I'd choose to live in. Or near. Not least because it's a great place to cycle.

Hear, hear! You missed a good one today.... We've been uncannily lucky with weather on our rides (there, I've gone and done it now...)

 

[marinyork]

Rascals, some of us have been told not to cycle for a little bit!