Grand Tour of Great Britain: York, York Minster, Jorvik Viking Centre

It's Friday the 13th and we're waking up in York, UK. We're staying at the Hotel 53 , room 303.  After a nice buffet breakfast, we meet Louise outside the hotel. Louise will be our guide around York this morning, getting us oriented to the town and taking us on a visit to York Minster.

We make our past the Guild Hall, we learn that York was founded on the wool trade. We stop in the parking lot across from Clifford's Tower. It was built by William the Conqueror. Roger de Clifford was executed for treason against Edward II and hanged in chains from the tower walls.

We travel to the Shambles, the ancient street of the butchers of York. Not many butchers remain but there are quite a few interesting shops. A lot of restoration was done during the 1920s.

Oh look, it's a Harry Potter shop...

And the mothership for this tea drinker.

These pies smelled so good, we almost lost our tour group and stayed at the pie shop but caught up to Louise and crew and continued on to York Minster.

York Minster
York Minster is the second largest Gothic cathedral of Northern Europe.

The minster is the seat of the Archbishop of York, the second-highest office of the Church of England, and is the mother church for the Diocese of York and the Province of York. It is run by a dean and chapter, under the Dean of York. The title "minster" is attributed to churches established in the Anglo-Saxon period as missionary teaching churches, and serves now as an honorific title.

The minster has a very wide Decorated Gothic nave and chapter house, a Perpendicular Gothic Quire and east end and Early English North and South transepts. The nave contains the West Window, constructed in 1338, and over the Lady Chapel in the east end is the Great East Window (finished in 1408), the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in the world. In the north transept is the Five Sisters Window, each lancet being over 52 feet (16 m) high.The south transept contains a rose window, while the West Window contains a heart-shaped design colloquially known as 'The Heart of Yorkshire'.

I found the dragon!

The stained glass was amazing. The Minster has so many collections it would take days to look at everything.

 Louise said her good-byes and a few of us broke off from the group.

We had hoped to have lunch at Betty's Tea Room but both locations were packed. We found The Punchbowl and had a pint and sandwiches. It was not too crowded and the food and beer were great.

We hit the Jorvik Viking Centre after lunch; it was kind of Disney meets Vikings but the artifacts and the actual dig areas were fun to see. The Jorvik Viking Centre is a museum and visitor attraction created by the York Archaeological Trust in 1984. Its name is derived from the Old Norse name Jórvík for York. (The centre was badly damaged by flooding over Christmas 2015, but was repaired and reopened on 8 April 2017.)

York has more miles of intact wall than any other city in England. The original walls were built around 71 AD, when the Romans erected a fort occupying about 50 acres or 21.5 hectares near the banks of the River Ouse. The rectangle of walls was built as part of the fort's defenses. The foundations and the line of about half of these Roman walls form part of the existing walls, as follows: a section (the west corner, including the Multangular Tower) in the Museum Gardens, the north-west and north-east sections between Bootham Bar and Monk Bar, a further stretch between Monk Bar and the Merchant Taylors' Hall, at the end of which the lower courses of the east corner of the Roman wall can be seen on the city-centre side of the existing wall.

The line of the rest of the Roman wall went south-west from the east corner, crossing the via principalis of the fortress where King's Square is now located. The south corner was in what is now Feasegate, and from here the wall continued northwest to the west corner. The point where the wall crossed the via praetoria is marked by a plaque in St Helen's Square near the Mansion House.

Jay and I walked the WALL around York and encountered some pretty awesome backyards.

And a great view of York Minster.

We walked back to our hotel and freshened up a bit before heading out to find dinner. We walked around looking at window menus and ended up at Marzano on the River Foss for dinner; a quaint Italian restaurant. I had the dried tomato and goat cheese salad, followed by penne and chicken for my main. Jay had the Mediterranean Seafood. It was a little expensive but the food was really good and well prepared.

After a quick beer run to TESCO, we crashed in our room. We leave York on Saturday for Liverpool.

Lots more photos: York, UK

Grand Tour of Great Britain with Go Ahead Tours