Advertisement
Published: December 5th 2011
Edit Blog Post
York Minster 1
Only Churches that were centres for ministry during the saxon period are allowed to be called Minsters. I did not get up as early as I was originally planning to but I did manage to wake up in time to have breakfast at the hostel. My first stop of the day was York Minster. It is a working Church, that apparently costs 20,000 per day to run. While I was there the choir (which was quite full) was practicing ‘Most Highly Favored Lady’ which is a really pretty song. I walked through the church and then went down into the Crypt/Museum. The site of the Minster has four layers of history associated with it, Roman, Saxon, Norman and Medieval. Downstairs is where the street level would have been in the Roman time and the level kept rising and different people kept building on and expanding the Church until it is how you see it today. Down there was very interesting and it went through a lot of history about the Church and religion in general. Some interesting things that I learned was that originally the chalices (used in communion) were very small and shallow because only the priests drank wine at mass. I went to the Jorvik Viking Museum after lunch. Jorvik is the Viking name for York
York Minster 2
The entrance (looking North) of York Minster. and while it was under Viking control York was transformed in size, appearance and n its economic role throughout England. There was a glass floor where you could see some of the excavation. They had also reconstructed a village with some of the sights that you would have seen when the Vikings were occupying England. It was a ride that you went on and they described the sights that you were seeing as well as ‘talking’ to some of the villagers. After the ride was an exhibit about what Viking life may have been like and about the skeletons and other artifacts that had been discovered and tested. Vikings died young with people rarely living beyond 40. Because of this girls would start learning how to knit and cook at 4 and boys would start to work at around 5 years old. I got talking to the guide about Viking knitting. She was knitting a pair of fingerless gloves for her brother and she was kind enough to start on the second one in order to teach me how they would have knitted back then. It is a cross between knitting and crocheting. I did buy a bone needle at
York Minster 3
The west wing of the Minster. the gift shop so I will have to try this knitting myself. Even though it was getting late I went to see the castle, unfortunately it was not open. It is only open on the weekends except for one week in February when it is open daily. For dinner I went to Marks & Spencer and bought some pita. chicken and an interesting drink. It is a sparkling mulled fruit presse. It is grapes, orange and lemon juices with mulled spice and cinnamon. It tastes like mulled wine and although it is good I keep expecting it to be hot. There are a lot of new room mates and 7 of the 10 beds are full now.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.306s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 46; dbt: 0.067s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb