10 Days in England; DAY 5

Day 5 was spent in York. Just a short train ride from Harrogate we arrived ready to explore this great city!

Our first stop was the York Minster, the largest Medieval Gothic church in Northern Europe. It's beauty is breathtaking and it's size is overwhelming. On top of viewing the main rooms there is an additional Tower Tour! You must be in good shape to climb the 275 steps it takes to get there, I took a look at their site and there is a wonderful virtual tour online. I also just learned there is a Undercroft, Treasury & Crypt!!! If only I had known! In all honesty there is entirely too much to take in for one day, could have spent a few days exploring this one Minster. Interesting that church services are still held daily with all the tourism.

We continued our tour through York, exploring the streets & markets for some fish and chips (YUMMY!) and other goodies. My brother & his partner just happened to be very familiar with York (otherwise we would have been lost!) We found our way through the crowds and came to the Jorvik Viking Center, where all the gory details of vikings and conquering took place! We traveled back in time to 975 AD, even the smell was a bit appalling! It was really cool, in my opinion, to see how people thousands of years ago lived and made use of the earth the way they did. I think the most humbling realization was just how difficult it would have been without doctors or health care, people didn't live very long and if they did it was a painful life.

Next we moved onto Cliffords Tower! Here again there is much history, starting with William the Conquer in 1068. He ordered his peasants to dig a moat for protection and used the dirt to create the large "hill" that the Tower stands on today. While it doesn't look like much now, it would have been a much larger castle, this is all that remains after many reconstruction attempts. It has been built and burned down a few times, one of them being the most horrific of times. In 1190 over 15o Jews and Jewesses took their own lives after being persecuted to renounce their faith, they refused and with fear burned themselves.. anyone that survived was massacered the next day by the mob. This was not the King's wishes, he infact held a heavy fine upon the city's people as punishment and searched for the ringleader to be hanged, but never found.

As we ended our day here we took a walk around the walls of York. At one point the walls would have all connected, today they do not but are still assesable for walking around, which was great for an overall view of the rest of the city. I took some really nice pictures of the York Minster from afar and my dear brother who is sitting on the wall.