York (again!)

[issi]

We're off to York on Saturday for a week. Obviously train-mad Snarfy will want to spend the entire time in the railway museum but I just wondered if anyone had any other recommendations, especially nice parks/play areas/child friendly cafes. We're staying in the town centre and won't be able to drive anywhere. I'm really excited - must get packing!

[realsLINshady]

I can recommend DIG. The kids can go and excavate thier own archeological sites, find atrefacts and handle bones and loads of other stuff. My 3 & 5 year olds LOVE it.

Not much to say about parks I am afraid - we usually gallop round the city walls but I think there is good parkland around the York Museum.

There are good cafes in the Art Gallery and the Theatre Royal which are very kid-friendly.

[Louisianablue2000]

Presumably you've read Nixxie's thread?

Definitely go to Betty's for lunch/the entire afternoon. Don't be put off by the queue of empty nesters and the fancy waitress outfits, they are really child friendly, they have a kiddy menu, lovely big toilets with spacious change area and potty, they give you toys and wipes at the table for babies and the service is really efficient (and the waitresses are lovely). We always eat there when we go to York. It's heaven, no hardship for you at all!

There is a nice park around the Museum, not sure if there is a play area there though, not taken the girls to the Museum but from my pre-child memory it's a bit stuffy.

There's some nice gardens round the Minster with part of the city wall, depends how fearless you are if you go on the walls or not, there are a lot of areas with no protection from falling off. Don't walk the whole way round, the nicest bit is from the river to the Minster.

Yorvik is very popular with LOs, you can prebook on the internet to avoid the queues. We went to York Castle Museum last time we were in York but I think the girls were still a bit young (they were tired though so might have enjoyed it more if they'd had a bit more energy).

[issi]

Thanks!
DIG looks great!
Very very much looking forward to lunch in Betty's now
I did look at nixxie's thread LB2K but couldn't figure out how to get to either of the places you mentioned without a car...

[busmother]

We went for a long weekend. We quite happily spent a whole day in the railway museum even though the outdoor play area was covered in frost, and prop could have gone back if we'd been there longer. Museum Gardens was nice to just romp about and climb over ancient monuments. We went round the Castle Museum which wasn't hugely toddler friendly in itself, but they have backpacks you can borrow which was brilliant as they were then the right height to actually see things so they did enjoy it (at 22m) as there were lots of familiar things to point out. They've got a recreation of a Victorian street, and rooms through the ages. Betty's was great. We went for late afternoon tea and had almost the whole of the downstairs to ourselves. And yes, the toilets / changing facilities were amazing.