Monday 2 February 2009

York Residents Festival

This weekend it was the York Residents' Festival, and I'm afraid I'm going to be grumpy about it.

The idea is that York residents get to go and visit all of York's major attractions for free - or at a nominal charge. The problem was that everything was PACKED and it was FREEZING in the queues! The kids wanted to visit "Haunted" - a haunted house which is one of York's newer attractions, but the queue was humongous and barely moving. We tried for the Jorvik Viking Centre, which was only doing the residents' festival from 4pm, but again, mega queues in the cold.

There were quite a few interesting things going on in Parliament Street, so we stood and watched this chap (above) fire juggling for a bit while we tried to decide what to do. You probably won't believe what we ended up doing. I hardly can believe it myself. Photo tomorrow. Clue: it didn't make things any warmer!

PS. This chap set his hair on fire by mistake at one point, but just patted it out and didn't seem unduly bothered by the incident.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I guess if you juggle with fire daily, a minor mishap like setting fire to your hair is no big deal.
I think the York Residents Festival is a good idea, in theory, when you live there you pass these things daily and perhaps never go in. It is like a loss leader in a supermarket, great cheap or free publicity.

lunarossa said...

I think it's a good idea too if it wasn't so busy as you say! I hate queues and the ones in front of the Viking Museum are always huge, free entry or not! Love the street entertainers, at least there is a bit of variety. Ciao. A.

Hilda said...

Ice cream?

So sorry to hear about the long lines. I sure hope you and the kids got in a little fun.

Gerald (SK14) said...

If I remember rightly there's a crypt near there that can be visited - maybe that is where you went.

Christina S said...

Not a crypt Gerald, but a good guess. I think what it was colder where we ended up - a bit more of a wait to find out now cos I have snowy pics lined up for tomorrow!