A quick visit to the York Christmas markets

The view of York Cathedral from the wall

This weekend in York was very much inspired by the Christmas markets. My friends had heard about the markets and planned this trip, so I decided to join and wasn’t disappointed. We didn’t do too much pre-planning and instead decided to just focus on the markets. We took the train to York from London on a Friday night and after cancellation and a slight change to our journey (typical of British trains), we arrived in our Airbnb in time to go to bed. The Airbnb was a cute two-bedroom house about a 15-minute walk from the train station. This house was ideal for the five of us for a short stay but probably a bit small for much longer (one of us had to sleep on the sofa).

Baileys hot chocolate at the Christmas markets

On Saturday, we wandered towards the town looking for somewhere to have breakfast. We were all surprised by how busy everywhere was - I certainly hadn’t appreciated how many people visit York for the Christmas markets. We ended up finding space in a really nice Polish cafe called Barbakan. After breakfast, we hit the markets and followed the quirky, old lanes around York city centre. I started my morning with Baileys hot chocolate loaded with cream and marshmallows. There were some beautiful stalls in the York markets and a lot more locally-made, unique gifts than I have seen in other Christmas markets. I bought my boyfriend a beautiful wooden chopping board with a natural edge, made locally from oak. There were plenty of other temptations but given I needed to get the train back to London with a small case, I decided to stick to the one purchase.

I loved walking through the Shambles, the inspiration for Diagon Alley in Harry Potter. These old streets look so pretty it’s hard to imagine that it was originally the butcher district. We really wanted to check out the famous Betty’s Tearooms in the afternoon for a cream tea but the queue was enormous so we instead walked into a lesser-known cafe in King’s Square called Harlequin. This felt like a real small country town experience with a very low-key interior but the scones and tea were just perfect! Betty’s is still on my list, but maybe on a quieter weekend.

We dropped into The Yorkshire Soap Company by chance and immediately found ourselves in soap heaven. This beautiful shop is full to the brim with beautifully designed soaps, from cake shapes to festive-themed soaps. I managed to resist buying a bar of soap but did come away with really nice hand cream. There is also a really nice gift shop next door, which sells a lot of pretty home decorations and also had a whole section dedicated to Christmas decorations. I was glad to finally see some small independent stores selling something unique, as this can be hard to come by in London.

Another side effect of York’s busy-ness was that most of the restaurants were booked out on Saturday night. Hot tip - if you’re heading to York for the weekend during a busy time, it’s worth pre-booking dinner before you go. After calling quite a few restaurants, we finally found a cosy pub that had space for the five of us. I had a very English choice of a big pie.

On Sunday, we had a quick breakfast by an entrance to the York Wall and then walked around a large section of the wall. The view was really pretty and it was such a peaceful walk - this should definitely be on your list if you visit York. So few English cities still have their old walls, so it was nice to see so much history has been preserved in York. After walking the wall, we then made our way to the train station to discover our train was delayed again. A few of us went to a cute cafe called Partisan on Micklegate for delicious tea and cake before heading back to the station. All in all, York is a very pretty city and a great choice for a quick weekend away.