Anyway, I took a day trip to York yesterday. This is where I had originally planned to go last weekend, and while I was bummed that the weather didn't permit that, yesterday turned out great. It had been raining but started to clear up right before I arrived. Here's what I saw as I first walked into town:
York is an old city with more than 2000 years of history, and a lot of that old vibe is still left. For starters, much of the city is still surrounded by a wall. More on that later.
My first stop was York's main attraction, York Minster cathedral. This is a very impressive cathedral that is well worth seeing if you're ever near York. It's built on top of the ruins of the Roman fortress that was once the center of town, as well as the ruins of previous churches. Its architecture is as gothic as it comes, and as such is stylistically different from other big churches I've been to, such as Hagia Sophia in Istanbul or St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City.
Technically, you can go into York Minster for free, but it's worth it to pay for a couple things inside. The first is climbing the tower. This was 275 narrow stairs of pain and suffering, but the views made it all worth it:
I'm fairly out of shape and barely fit in the staircase, but it was worth it to go up and look around York from its highest point. Now I just have to deal with the old knee injury the ascent aggravated. Oh well...
After I finished the tower, I went down into the crypts, which is the other thing you have to pay for. You don't see a lot of corpses or anything, but you do see bits of the old churches and fortress on top of which York Minster was built. You also get to see various artifacts from these eras and items of religious significance that have been used in York Minster over the ages. Again, worth the money I paid.
After that, I wandered around the cathedral some more. There's impressive architecture and art everywhere you look.
York Minster is still a fully functioning Anglican church. Going to Sunday services in a place like that would be pretty wild.
After that, I wandered around the town for a while. Again, it has kind of a medieval vibe to it, complete with cobblestone streets and such.
I stopped in a small pasty (pasties, PASS-tees, are like small pies) shop for lunch and sample beef, curry chicken and bacon/leek/cheese pasties. Overkill, but then, I can't get pasties in the US, so I had to take advantage.
My next stop was the Yorkshire Museum, which was full of artifacts from throughout York's history. It was small, but it had a lot of good stuff that's been excavated all over Yorkshire (the area in and around York).
My last activity was walking as much of the old city wall as I could see. This was probably around a mile, but it was entertaining to walk around and see the city this way.
Since I was totally beat and by myself, I got back on the train and went back to London after that. In any case, this was pretty expensive for a day trip (the train ticket was over $120), but York was well worth seeing, and it provided a decent break from co-workers, reality and the like.
Definitely worth checking out. It's cool that you were able to get some photos inside the cathedrals this time. I really liked that second ceiling shot, the one with the star shaped pattern. The photo of the stained glass windows is cool, too.
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