to wonder what's so great about York?

[FartBlossom]

Everytime someone mentions going to York, living in York, visiting York there is lots and lots of people saying ooh its lovely there, wish I lived there I love it there blah blah blah. Why?

I was born and bred in York and have just moved out of York so have lived there for 33 years apart from 3 years at Uni in Manchester.

I have got nothing against it, but really don't see its wonderful appeal at all. Is it because Im so used to it I dont see what others see? Is it because I know about a slightly darker side to it? Is it because it truely is wonderful than a lot of other places, but I dont know that as I haven't lived in most other places?

Aw, glad to hear that, OP. :)

stealth that peacock would often be found wondering down coney street

tremolo I did say that York wasnt as rough as other cities, but its not all nicey nicey as people not from York seem to think it is. Every town/city has its dark sides and I know where these are in York. That's all I meant not that it has a big teenagers with guns problem.

Fartblossom - if the name of your street was also a number, I lived in the number one down from yours.

Stealth - . RIP peacock.

No it wasn't crazy, but I know where you mean. There were a lot of numbered streets, I forgot that We lived down EA just off AA near the co-op and Thomas's

remember the peacocks as well, there used to be loads of them roaming the Museum Gardens when I was a child.

FartBlossom Well I suppose I can't disagree with you there - obviously it's not ALL as lovely as the picture you you get as a tourist, only seeing the town centre. Same would be said of any tourist spot I'm sure.

Am pnsl at the nothing happens in York and the city centre is a no go area. Really. Which one is it then?

I think of York as a whole, not just the city centre so these darker areas drags it down a bit. I think as well I lived in a not very nice area so when I think of living there I remember there. It might have been different if I lived in a nice area. Possibly the village outside of York I grew up in.

Ah, I know where you mean FartBlossom

We want to move to Harrogate, I love Yorkshire and my lovely parents-in-law live there. I am from Glasgow originally but we live in the shithole that is known as Dartford and anywhere looks like paradise after living here for 14 years!

Skirt - if you're referring to my post, I think I made it quite clear. I said there was nothing cultural going on. Though I suppose my comments could be seen as contradictory if you happen to regard drunk people fighting, vomiting and stripping off in the street as cultural activity.

yabu. i was born and bred in York too, and moved out on a promise of a fantastic new job/life - when it all went to ratshit the housing market had moved on so much we couldnt get back - and then DH got a job 30 miles outside of york and so now, we have been stuck in what i can only describe at what must be the grimmest town in the world.
its name means open sewer.
so save me your moans and whinges about York,. as i am hankering - yes hankering for home.
i do however have a cunning plan. i am going to apply for a transfer as soon as humanly possible, and dh is going to work for himself, so one day, i plan to go back home. it will have only taken about, oh, 25 years or so!

when i lived there i did not see its appeal.
now, whenever i go and i cant get parked, i lust after the days when i could walk from our flat in Fulford along the river bank into town....

Park at Sainsbury's vicar its free for half an hour then £1 an hour, there's usually quite a bit of parking. Or if you are feeling a bit flush there is Picadilly (which I always call C&A)

It gets the "ooh" response from me for the little belgian (?) cafe in the little building that runs down the side of one of the bridges.

( I really havn't described that well!)

I don't know about York being "far from everywhere"..
it's very near Leeds, easy train links with Manchester and Liverpool, (all with excellent culture)and very near the lovely N. Yorkshire countryside.
Also is 2 hours to London on the fast train, and easy to get to Scotland, due to being a rail interchange.
I like it, but can see the rough side actually, which is mainly a sort of Saturday night in town pissed up them and us type of feeling.
However, as cathedral cities go, it's a good one. And no colder than anywhere else in North Yorkshire!

Vicari am curious-what is your "grimmest town" called?

crazyspaniel there is always something beautiful or interesting going on in York, just maybe things not to your taste. Did you go (for example) to see the Hockney painting of trees last summer? It was gorgeous.

If you park at sainsburys Foss bank in York you also get your money back if you spend 10 pounds at sainsburys. We usually buy more washing powder or something.
I love York. Though do take the potent about a relative lack of ethnic diversity.

That was meant to be point about ethnic diversity. Wretched autocorrect thing!

Fartblossom, I lived exactly there as a student! I loved York, I miss Thomas the Baker but I wouldn't live in TH now. But I wouldn't choose to live on any similar estate in any town or city tbh, they all have them. I miss how cheap York is though, now I live in the south east!

i usually park at St Georges Green or The Castle car park but bloody nora - they are expensive. I hit York now from that side when i go. I remember C & A though! used to shop there (shows age!)

i used to walk in, no car park dilemma.... my mate is moving there next month

Fartblossom I lived on Alcuin when I was very young. It was a bit like E I suspect. But I'm posh now :)

Skirt - no, I didn't, I moved away from York about five years ago. I remember, though, that there was a very interesting Hockney museum / display at Saltaire.

Thing is, if you're going to hold out for a town with no social problems at all then you're going to be disappointed! I grew up in Wokingham, which is one of those places that always gets on the "top ten best quality of life" lists - in fact I think it might have been number one last time. Well, it still has council estates and drugs and a certain amount of fuckery on a Friday and Saturday night. Any town over a certain size is going to have that. If that disqualifies a place from being lovely then we can't really talk about any town being lovely.

It's especially hard to see when you live there, I think - one of my friends was astonished that Wokingham came top for quality of life, because she still lives there. But having lived in a whole bunch of other places (everywhere from Salford to a beautiful market town in Surrey), the difference to me is now massively obvious. When I visit Wokingham I can practically see the money flying around, the great big houses and gardens, the parks, the shops, the lovely old architecture. All the things I can't possibly afford.

Before we were living together, DP used to live in York. He absolutely loved it and really pined when we moved to Devon. Recently, though, we had a possible chance to move back - and decided not to take it.

I like York too, but...... I can see some of the points here. An Asian friend of mine was attacked in the street in broad daylight and had racist abuse screamed at him - and a passerby took the attacker's side! The countryside immediately surrounding York is quite boring - v flat and overfarmed. You need to get out to the Dales before it gets interesting.

I find York a little twee and overpriced but I do love Barnitt's

My brother is at York uni. El Piano. The barbican with it's quirky folk acts. The viking centre and dig. The York Waits. 5 reasons to love York!