We took the train from London to York on Tuesday arriving shortly after 1:00 PM. Our hotel was about a twenty minute walk from the station. Not quite as close as we were in London but not bad and we were able to find it without any problems.
This is our first visit to York and our impressions were very favorable right from the start. York is a walled medieval city that dates back to 71 AD. It's obviously withstood the test of time which has included invasions, plagues, bombings, etc. Today it is a thriving city with close to 200,000 residents including around 22,000 university students.
We actually did something we don't usually do and that is we hit up a bunch of the touristy places of York. We purchased what is called a "York Pass" which is kind of like an "all you can eat buffet" of tourist attractions. It was a one day pass so to take full advantage of it we started early and went hard all day from place to place. We got in the Castle Museum which was very nice, the York Minster, the Chocolate Story, a river cruise, a one hour bus tour and a tour of the York Brewery. I won't go into details on all of them but I will say we really enjoyed everything we did.
The cathedral is called the York Minster and it is actually the largest gothic style cathedral in Northern Europe.
The beautiful structure is over 800 years old and one stained glass window contains over two million pieces of glass. Fearing the cathedral may be bombed in World War II they removed every piece of glass and safely stored it until after the war when it was reassembled over a six month period.
As you might expect with a building this old there were some structural issues that needed to be addressed about 50 years ago. When they started the repair work they discovered the cathedral was built on top of some Roman Barracks that date back to the time of the Roman Emperor Constantine who was in power from 306 to 337 AD! So there's your history lesson for today!
York has a sweet history and one that Beth really liked and that's chocolate. Several of the famous chocolatiers of their time came from York. While some of their candies are more well known to folks from the UK one product that pretty much everyone not living in a cave is familiar with is Kit Kat. Kit Kat's were developed by two brothers Henry and Joseph Rowntree. They sold to Nestle which I'm sure their kids, grandkids and great grandkids have really appreciated but this is still the home of Kit Kat's and over six million are made in York everyday. Heck, our hotel even leaves us two free Kit Kat bars in the room daily. One thing I wasn't aware of was that Kit Kat's come in flavors and in Japan there have been over 300 flavors! If you're so moved you can even order some of them on Amazon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit_Kats_in_Japan
So we've covered cathedrals and chocolate. Now I'll be moving on to the third "C", cats. I've never been a cat fan, never owned one and don't see it in my future but if I did I'd make it one of the ones hanging around (literally) the city of York. Seems as if way back in the 1700's York was overrun by rats and mice. As a way of trying to rid the city of these creatures as well as warding off "evil spirits" cat statues were place on and around buildings all over town. Most of these statues are long gone but there are 22 that still remain. You can pick up a "cat trail" map that does not tell you where they are but does give clues to help you find them. We didn't really dive in too deep but we did spot 5-6 of them perched on windowsills or clinging to the sides of buildings.
One of the reasons for the rats and mice might have been a street called the Shambles. This narrow street in the heart of the city is now home to cafes, pubs and trendy shops but back in the 1600's and 1700's it was the home to a row of butcher shops. As you can imagine sanitation wasn't real high on the list of priorities back then although with cholera and other plagues maybe it should have been. Legend has it that the streets were full of "blood and guts" because nobody had the gumption to clean it up. We were told that the statement most parents tell their kids while referring to their messy rooms, "your room is in shambles" actually originated here.
One other little interesting tidbit that we learned that I can actually remember was the way they figure out if a lady was a witch. Now if you're a fan of Monty Python and the Holy Grail you know they had their own crazy method in the movie. As silly as their method seemed the good folks of York used an equally silly method. Seems as if you were accused of being a witch they took you down to the River Ouse that runs through town and dunked you in the river for 3-4 minutes. When they let you up if you were still alive you were considered a witch and taken off to be burned at the stake. If you came back up dead, congratulations you were not a witch and all charges were dropped!
This is our first visit to York and our impressions were very favorable right from the start. York is a walled medieval city that dates back to 71 AD. It's obviously withstood the test of time which has included invasions, plagues, bombings, etc. Today it is a thriving city with close to 200,000 residents including around 22,000 university students.
We actually did something we don't usually do and that is we hit up a bunch of the touristy places of York. We purchased what is called a "York Pass" which is kind of like an "all you can eat buffet" of tourist attractions. It was a one day pass so to take full advantage of it we started early and went hard all day from place to place. We got in the Castle Museum which was very nice, the York Minster, the Chocolate Story, a river cruise, a one hour bus tour and a tour of the York Brewery. I won't go into details on all of them but I will say we really enjoyed everything we did.
The cathedral is called the York Minster and it is actually the largest gothic style cathedral in Northern Europe.
The beautiful structure is over 800 years old and one stained glass window contains over two million pieces of glass. Fearing the cathedral may be bombed in World War II they removed every piece of glass and safely stored it until after the war when it was reassembled over a six month period.
As you might expect with a building this old there were some structural issues that needed to be addressed about 50 years ago. When they started the repair work they discovered the cathedral was built on top of some Roman Barracks that date back to the time of the Roman Emperor Constantine who was in power from 306 to 337 AD! So there's your history lesson for today!
York has a sweet history and one that Beth really liked and that's chocolate. Several of the famous chocolatiers of their time came from York. While some of their candies are more well known to folks from the UK one product that pretty much everyone not living in a cave is familiar with is Kit Kat. Kit Kat's were developed by two brothers Henry and Joseph Rowntree. They sold to Nestle which I'm sure their kids, grandkids and great grandkids have really appreciated but this is still the home of Kit Kat's and over six million are made in York everyday. Heck, our hotel even leaves us two free Kit Kat bars in the room daily. One thing I wasn't aware of was that Kit Kat's come in flavors and in Japan there have been over 300 flavors! If you're so moved you can even order some of them on Amazon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit_Kats_in_Japan
So we've covered cathedrals and chocolate. Now I'll be moving on to the third "C", cats. I've never been a cat fan, never owned one and don't see it in my future but if I did I'd make it one of the ones hanging around (literally) the city of York. Seems as if way back in the 1700's York was overrun by rats and mice. As a way of trying to rid the city of these creatures as well as warding off "evil spirits" cat statues were place on and around buildings all over town. Most of these statues are long gone but there are 22 that still remain. You can pick up a "cat trail" map that does not tell you where they are but does give clues to help you find them. We didn't really dive in too deep but we did spot 5-6 of them perched on windowsills or clinging to the sides of buildings.
One of the reasons for the rats and mice might have been a street called the Shambles. This narrow street in the heart of the city is now home to cafes, pubs and trendy shops but back in the 1600's and 1700's it was the home to a row of butcher shops. As you can imagine sanitation wasn't real high on the list of priorities back then although with cholera and other plagues maybe it should have been. Legend has it that the streets were full of "blood and guts" because nobody had the gumption to clean it up. We were told that the statement most parents tell their kids while referring to their messy rooms, "your room is in shambles" actually originated here.
One other little interesting tidbit that we learned that I can actually remember was the way they figure out if a lady was a witch. Now if you're a fan of Monty Python and the Holy Grail you know they had their own crazy method in the movie. As silly as their method seemed the good folks of York used an equally silly method. Seems as if you were accused of being a witch they took you down to the River Ouse that runs through town and dunked you in the river for 3-4 minutes. When they let you up if you were still alive you were considered a witch and taken off to be burned at the stake. If you came back up dead, congratulations you were not a witch and all charges were dropped!
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| The York Minster |
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| The York Minster |
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| From the top of the City Wall-York Minster in the background |
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| Beth in her happy place. What she is showing off is the chocolate lollipop's we made. They didn't last too long! |
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| The Shambles |
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| One of the cats along the York Cat Trail |
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| The River Ouse. Not the place to be if you were accused of being a witch! |
