More on York

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The first place I visited was Clifford’s Tower, which is a stronghold built on a hill. It wasn’t very large and I decided not to go inside, but I sat on a bench nearby to eat a sandwich while I looked at it. The next place I went was the Jorvik Viking Center. The main feature of Jorvik is an underground ride through a recreation of what York was like 1,000 years ago. I was a little disappointed because the pictures had shown real people dressed up as Vikings, but it’s mostly robots. It was still fun to see and really interesting, and it involved sitting down which doesn’t happen much in most museums. I wish I had saved Jorvik for after my walk along the city walls.



I went around the city walls next, but like I said yesterday the walls aren’t completely connected, so every now and then I had to wander around the city before I managed to figure out where I was supposed to go. Thankfully, you can never really be lost in York; all you have to do is look around and you’re bound to see York Minster. That is a HUGE cathedral with a lot of spires. I walked around it to admire the architecture and went inside the entrance, but I didn’t feel like paying to explore the entire place. It was an impressive building, and thankfully I knew how to get from the York Minster back to the bus station in case I ever became too lost.



While I was wondering around, I happened to find a nice park that had the ruins of St. Mary’s Abbey. I hadn’t heard about it in any of the tourist guides and I still haven’t found much information about it other than it was rebuilt several times and the current ruins are 700 years old. Apparently, 700 years isn’t old enough for it to be considered a significant historical landmark in York.



I wanted to make sure that I didn’t miss my coach back to Leeds, so the last place I stopped was the National Railway Museum right next to the bus station. The brochure said to expect a visit to last 3 hours; I had about 20 – 30 minutes. I managed to see some of the trains, including a royal train that kings and queens would have ridden in. It was fun, but by that time I couldn’t absorb much more

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