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Bonfire Night where the Guy is safe

4th November 20264th November 2026 funtime65

I know you come here for fireworks, only this is the one place in Britain around Bonfire Night where the Guy is safe.

We’ve come to old York for Halloween and mingled with the Living Dead on the Shambles.

But they’re not the only restless souls in ye olde towne though where it’s hard to distinguish this world from the next,

And the goodies from the baddies.

For Fawkes’ sake

Yorkshire people we’ve discovered, and probably should have known anyway from the Father-in-Law, like to go their own way.

So that when the rest of Britain opts to remember, remember the Fifth of November.

Guy Fawkes Inn prefers to forget it.

The first thing that strikes you about the Guy Fawkes Inn, the old fire starter’s birthplace, is that there is nothing to strike.

Close to the bone: Guy Fawkes in the Gents

With the fireplace adorned instead with lights.

Visitors are invited to rest their weary bones for the night in any of the 27 bedrooms, called after the conspirators.

Though maybe tread carefully on any creaky floorboards and be prepared for things going bump in the night.

We eat, drink and get merry on Guy Fawkes Steak and Ale Pie and Guy Fawkes Bitter.

Because tomorrow he’ll die… or at least be caught.

The Evil Eye

There is a reminder everywhere in this old town of our mortality.

With us choosing to end our evening staring into Old Nick’s eyes opposite the upstairs of the Evil Eye cocktail lounge.

Where your head would certainly come off if you drank the Seven Sheds rum cocktail.

We plump instead for Cherry Sours, Chocolate Salty Balls and Nóiníns (or daisy cocktails), an Irish take on Margaritas.

And leave the Yorkie kids lying on the four-poster bed next to us.

To play Snakes and Ladders shots from the drinks on the bar menu.

Last requests

I’ve a hunch: Richard of York at The Old White Swan

Now had we been heading for the scaffold the next day like Guy Fawkes or Dick Turpin.

Or to our death on the battlefield like Richard of York.

Stand and deliver: Dick Turpin’s last resting place

Then we’d want to spend our last day on Earth here with the encyclopaedic Grace serving us cocktails.

Before we’d come back to haunt the tourists for the rest of time.

For getting in our way along Stonegate and The Shambles.

Countries, UK

Let them eat chocolate, the Irish, Rowntree and York

3rd November 20263rd November 2026 funtime65

Let them eat chocolate, the Irish, Rowntree and York… on our Jorvik journey.

The clue is in the name (Yorkies anyone?) that York is one of the world’s great chocolate centres.

Fits the Bill: With Bill by the Old Walls

Where the Irish enter our story (and don’t they always?) is because of the philanthropy of Joseph Rowntree.

The grocer having holidayed in Ireland and seen first hand the suffering of the Potato Famine population.

Movers and Quakers

Now being the charitable Quaker that he was Joseph arranged for passage for the Irish to York.

Where we hear their story from Friend of York Bill in a tower at the start of our walk around the York Walls.

And even find my Dear Old Mum’s people, the McNultys on the Census.

A trip down Quality Street

Well, this ‘Son of a Daughter of Donegal’ has found himself in York’s Chocolate Story.

Learning about Joseph Rowntree, Mary Tuke, Joseph Terry and Mary Ann Craven.

On an Aztec to Kit-Kat journey through time.

Taking in that Old Black Magic and a trip down Quality Street, Mum’s favourite.

With samples of chocolate water, the original bitter Aztec magical concoction, the grinds and nuts that go to make chocolate.

The actual bars themselves and demonstrations of the chocolate moulding before making your own lollies with sprinkles.

Keeping abreast of chocolate

Of course there’s always One and that One is for once not your Bandanaman but the Scary One.

Who puts her jelly tots, Rowntree’s of course, side by side to invent a new confectionary, the Tit-Kat!

York’s Chocolate Story on King’s Square in the centre of Jorvik, cost us £50 for two.

With two luxury hot chocolates and two boxes of six individually selected chocolates.

And all of the above… but do clean your teeth afterwards back at your Holiday Inn.

Countries, UK

Horny subject with Jorvik Norse warriors

2nd November 20262nd November 2026 funtime65

It’s a horny subject with Jorvic Norse warriors and Ulf wouldn’t be seen dead in a horned helmet which he would be on a battlefield.

All of which and more we learned at the excellent JORVIK Vikings Centre.

On the site of the great excavation site on York’s Coppergate along from our billet at the Holiday Inn, booked out when the Vikings came.

That it was the Victorians mythologising about Norse settlers which was behind all this.

Because precious horns were found in Viking burial sites.

You see going into battle with horned helmets gives your Anglo-Saxon foe the advantage.

Of pulling you down by your horns.

Those berserk Vikings

What Ulf, or Joe to give him his modern name, doesn’t know about York Vikings.

You could put on the back of a rune.

He’ll teach you how to mould a Viking sword and how they were such successful pillagers.

Probably because they were berserk much of the time.

On account of wearing bear shirts into battle, the scratching from which makes you berserker.

And author Sir Walter Scott, who gave us Illustrations.

Of Northern Antiquities and The Pirate of berserk Vikings, says we’re welcome.

Off his trolley

Norseophiles, and OK we made that up, will immerse themselves here in Jorvik.

A beloved tourist spot for Norsemen and their clans.

Through the interactive trolly carts that bring you up close and personal.

With ordinary people around their trades and pastimes.

Some, of course, get into character more than others.

And Beardie Boy ahead of me in the queue for a magnet, ordered an axe.

Although you’ll be reassured to learn that they did ask him his age first.

Countries, Deals, Europe

Budapest you’ll be the ruin of me

12th March 202517th March 2025 funtime65

Four days spent in the heart of Hungary on our loveholidays and InterContinental Hotel fact-finding mission and the verdict… Budapest you’ll be the ruin of me.

We are back where we started our first night, Szimpla Kert ruin bar, and if the mood tonight is yoga mat sleepy then so are we.

On account of our red eye back to Edinburgh.

Szimpla Kert is the granddaddy of romkocsmas, or ‘simple gardens’.

Repurposed shabby chic spaces and cellars rescued after the Cold War.

Alley cats

Szimpla is more of an alleyway of social life and interaction.

Bars, concert spaces, eateries, art spaces, a library, a farmers and bicycle flea market.

Although on quieter days at the start of the week, its core business, the serving of drinks, does demand patience of a tourist.

Which means my little wine drinker is directed to The Wine Bar snug because none of the other dozen bars sell rosé.

A sign above the bar reads ‘Back in ten minutes’ which we learn is a ‘Hungarian ten minutes’, akin to Caribbean island time.

Not that we’d deny the barkeeps their quiet time seeing first hand the throngs who pass through on weekend nights.

When we catch an ambient singer and a standards foot-stomper banging out Adele and Florence Welch on International Women’s Day.

The hideaways

For first-timers of whom we count ourselves in the number the search for new adopted Hungarian beers stretches beyond Szimpla.

To a ruin bar whose front challengingly is described as being hidden behind foliage.

Now if your billet is on the Danube front you’ll be asked to build up a thirst with a half-hour walk to Potkulcs.

But to make your time work for you perhaps visit the House of Terror, the fascists and communists’ torture hub, on your way.

On a balmy night you may want to sup your Soproni IPA which comes in cheaper than the Szimpla hot spot.

But we’d recommend you to enjoy the interior and the clutter of artefacts and graffiti art inside… and the local characters.

You snooze you loos

For a ruin bar meets Paris cafe culture and it is a cafe serving breakfasts or brunches by day, we follow the Danube.

Left of our InterCon hotel. and hang another left to the Csendes Letterem.

Where we nibble on olives and tortilla chips and fill our bellies and bladders before, of course, nature calls.

Now it is part of the adventure and the mischief of ruin bar owners to funk up their loo doors and interiors.

And the Csendes Letterem proudly boasts of its success in stumping customers who end up asking where the rest rooms are?

And of course it doesn’t take much to dupe me but I’m game.

Even if Budapest you’ll be the ruin of me.

Meet you on the ut

No place like foam: Three fingers of foam

We’ve been spending four days in the Hungarian capital with loveholidays, staying in the Danube front InterContinental (£1,099 for two).

I’ve been keeping you updated between goulash, Soproni IPA, hot chocolate and Chimney Cake, history and baths on our progress.

And I’ll put it all together in a review when I shake off the red eye but meantime.

MEET YOU ON THE UT