York; Monday, 22 December, 2003

After an exceptionally comfortable night with the heating on full blast it was almost inevitable that I would wake to the sight of snow covering the ground. Overnight winter had made it's way to Yorkshire and had left a good inch of snow on most things. Still it makes for good photos.

Taking a slower than usual pace as the roads were like and ice rink I walked over to the Minster to look round. The Minster is the largest medieval building this side of the Alps and has more Medieval stained glass in its windows then the rest of the UK combined. There is a lot to see at the Minster but not if you are on a limited budget. To see everything that the Minster has to offer you have to pay £8.50 which is a lot for a big church!!

In addition to the Minster itself you can also view the undercroft and crypts which house not only the treasury of the Minster but also the remains of the original Roman base that was situated on the same space where the Minster now stands. The display also explains about the other two cathedrals that have existed on the site over the last 2000 years. The current Minster was started in 1245 but before that there had been a Norman Cathedral and another before that. Just outside the Minster you can see one of the columns from the Roman site that the archaeologists found lying on its side (unfortunately, as any local will tell you they got it wrong and it is upside down with the top concreted into the pavement!)

The final thing you can pay to do is to climb all 275 steps to the roof and get the spectacular view over the city.

After the Minster, and a well earned hot chocolate to warm up, I wandered over to Clifford's Tower. This is all that remains of the original castle and is now just a shell, apart from two spiral staircases that allow you to access the top of the tower to walk round. The tower itself is set on top of a high bailey so the views from the top, not being quite as good as those from the Minster are still spectacular.

After Clifford's tower I walked over to the castle museum. Set in the old Women's and Debtor's prisons the museum was started in the 1930's by a local doctor who noted that the rural way of life was disappearing but wasn't being noted down. To stop it from being lost he started collecting everyday artifacts to preserve the history of the way of life. The museum itself has grown so large that it has two mock up of streets inside which put the artifacts in the surroundings they would have fitted in.

The museum also has the cells of the old prison in it and you can visit the cell that the famous highway man Dick Turpin stayed in prior to his execution!

After the museum it was time for some refreshment and this came in the form of the York Brewery. Set up in 1996 this is a "Micro-brewery" set in a small building within the city walls. The brewery only produces a small amount of beer that mostly goes to the local area (although one of the large supermarket chains had just brought up their entire production of one type of beer!). The tour of the brewery includes a tasting of two of the beers that they brew.

Now happily insulated against the cold I walked back over to the other side of the city to visit the Yorkshire Museum. This is another bizarrely mixed museum pulling together artifacts from the cities and counties past but in no particular order, so that you get the whole of the Roman and Viking history and then leap back into prehistory and the dinosaurs!

Just enough time to grab some food before another Ghost Walk. This time leaving from outside the Minster.