Day 5 - Castle Howard

Distance walked: 9km,  Alcohol consumed: 1 large glass wine

Today we took a local bus service to Castle Howard.  Over 90% of the people on the bus were tourists headed to the same destination.  The only exceptions for a handful of people who were going to the giant shopping mall we passed on the way.  While the bus took a long and winding route, which took the best part of an hour, it was interesting to see the suburbs and villages on the way rather than just heading up the main highway.

Once we got to Castle Howard we took a tour around the outside of the house with a volunteer who told us about the history and the architecture.  As she was an enthusiastic amateur she provided just the right amount of detail.  After this we went inside, which I found to be a disappointment.  It is a baroque building so not at all too my taste.  Too ornate and just too much going on so I found it more overwhelming rather than impressive.  Also, only two rooms on display were set up as actual rooms as they would have been used (the bedrooms of the original Earl & Countess).  The rest were just stuffed with precious furniture and every inch of wall covered with valuable paintings.  Perhaps that is how the rooms who have looked when they were in use, but it felt more like a rather cluttered museum.

We spent the rest of the day wandering the grounds, which we just spectacular and much more interesting to me.  I love gardens, when someone else does the gardening.  Sadly, it started to rain about mid-afternoon so we had to cut our visit short and head back to York.

There were hoards of Chinese tourists at Castle Howard and plenty around York also, which we found a little surprising.  It turns out that the Chinese equivalent of Justin Timberlake had his 10 million pound wedding reception at Castle Howard, putting it and York on the map.  It sounded like an amazing affair, with 60 guests and 180 staff to look after them.  There were jugglers, acrobats and minstrels and, of course, fireworks over the lake.

Back in York we whiled away some time in a bookshop.  We found a shop with a collection of Ladybird Books for Adults with titles including "How it Works: The Husband" and "The Ladybird Book of the Hangover".  However, my personal favourites were the Famous Five books such as "Five Forget Mother's Day" and "Five Go on a Strategy Away Day".  After awhile we were annoying the staff with our giggling and had to leave.

We had dinner at Prezzo which was nearby.  This is basically all it had to recommend it.  We had a antipasto platter to start which wasn't bad, but then all they had to do way lay out some salamis and olives and bread.  I was going to say it is hard to get that wrong, but I remember places that have done it very badly so perhaps I should refrain.  For main we shared two pizzas - mushroom & proscuitto (good) and goat's cheese & red pepper (bad).  There were two thin slices of yellow capsicum on the second pizza.  To make up for that stinginess, they doubled the quantity of goat's cheese which made it just too goaty.

Back to the flat and blessed be, no 3am wake-up call at nightclub closing time this once.