by Chioma Peters, Adriana Rodríguez, Sandy Lau, Monique Da Gama, Andreea Boros and Belilia Ayingono
Welcome to York, the city renowned for its Yorkshire puddings, chocolate and cheese, for a day us 6 students became tourists in York. From towers to dungeons we documented our visitor experience in the budding city. Arriving early, we were greeted by Michelle Brown, the leisure and marketing manager for Make It York! Which is one of the official tourism sites, and she gave us insight as to what we could expect from the city with a population of just 200,000. So, at 11.30am we made our way around city. Just a short walk from the university sees the cobbled stone streets, graced with the overlooking presence of York Minister. Built over 250 years between 1220 and 1472, it created a pleasurable ambiance as we ventured through the streets, that were laden with shops selling everything from artwork, to souvenirs, to vintage sweets. Food could be smelt from every angle, and we made sure that we got our taste buds wet!
After 20 minutes of asking the locals for direction to the York wall trail (the longest town walls in England), we finally stumbled upon it. The wall is two miles long and surrounds the whole inner city of York, hence why many of the locals couldn’t direct us properly…because it can be accessed from any direction. The wall is free for anyone to walk across and lead us to the different landmarks. However, it was quite dangerous, as it had rained that morning, making the path slippery. Further to this, there were no handrails or any form of safety precautions.
The York Wall trail led us to Clifford´s tower, also known as, “the eye of York”, a very suitable name as it overlooks the whole city and the major landmarks within it. Compared the other attraction in the city, this was one of the more reasonably priced, with concession tickets costing £4.50. The narrow path meant that we had to squeeze past people to walk around, and because the structure is so old, there weren’t really a lot of security measures.
Overall, this it was an amazing opportunity to experience the city from a tourism marketing point of view. It was great to have a good amount of time to get to know the city and learn more about the historic side of York.