Advertising Feature from York Park & Ride
Lucy Oates, a freelance journalist and mum based in East Yorkshire, shares her top tips for a fun and hassle-free family day out in York:
With its many museums, galleries, theatres, festivals and other attractions, York is a favourite day trip destination for my family and I and, as my work requires me to write reviews and features about the best places to visit, we often make the journey up the A19 from our home in an East Yorkshire village to check out what’s on offer. Our favourite discoveries to date include:
Jorvik Dig(www.digyork.com), which is run by York Archaeological Trust, the organisation behind the Jorvik Viking Centre. At £6.50 for adults, £6 for children or £20 for a family of five, this purse-friendly attraction is a hands-on archaeological adventure that gives children the opportunity to discover exciting artefacts from 2,000 years of York’s history. Armed with one of the plastic trowels provided, budding archaeologists can dig their way through a series of four specially-constructed, indoor excavation pits, which are based on real-life digs in the city and filled with replica Roman, Viking, medieval and Victorian finds.
York Theatre Royal(www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk) has a fantastic programme of children’s theatre, but families with young children will also appreciate the dressing-up area in the ground-floor café, which is stocked with a wide range of fun costumes and props for children to play with.
Located in the picturesque Museum Gardens, which is an idyllic picnic spot during the summer months, Yorkshire Museum (www.yorkshiremuseum.org.uk) is home to a series of fascinating exhibitions covering everything from Roman York to Yorkshire’s ‘Jurassic World’. The displays are fun and interactive, with plenty of hands-on elements to keep little people occupied, as well as heaps of fascinating facts and artefacts to capture the imagination of older children.
We’re huge fans of York’s Park & Ride service, which enables you to park free of charge at any one of six different sites located around the city. As we live to the south of York, we tend to use the Park & Ride sites at the Designer Outlet or Askham Bar. A return fare for an adult is £3.10, but up to three children can travel free of charge with one fare-paying adult and there are also discounts for regular users, making it a much cheaper option than using a city centre car park. The buses are pushchair accessible and have free wi-fi on board, enabling you to keep the kids entertained more easily – that’s if the prospect of a bus ride into the city isn’t exciting enough for them! For more information, visit https://www.itravelyork.info/
Tucked away on Back Swinegate, Luxury Ice Cream Co (LICC) has just about every flavour of ice cream imaginable – and a few more besides! You can buy an ice cream to take away but we like to grab one of the little tables inside as it’s such a quirky space that has all the charm of an old-fashioned ice cream parlour or sweet shop.
