York State of Mind.

“Where the streets are ‘gates’, the gates are ‘bars’, and the bars are ‘pubs’… and there’s a pub for every day of the calendar year!”

I feel like there is a lot to say about the city of York and I’m trying to type everythingoutreallyfastbeforeitescapesmybrain. When I booked the trip to York, I knew nothing about the place so I didn’t really have any expectations going into it. In addition to this, none of my friends had booked it so it was a solo-trip and I wasn’t sure how excited I was about it. Also, our day was full of miscommunications with bustimes/locations that I really had lost all hope and considered skipping it all together. I am so happy that I didn’t.

On the way there I quickly learned that York was a center for a lot of viking activity and actually has a pretty gruesome/awesome past. It’s full of wonderful history about Viking Warlords, Roman Emperors and, according to the travel guide that I’m copying this off of (teehee), ‘is one of the most haunted cities in the world!’. The quote at the beginning is something I heard on my way to York and one of the first things I heard, again, when we arrived. Because of the viking history there, the terms for streets and the gates (of the city walls) are all different… the Norwegian term for street is “gate”, the term gate is “bar”, and bar is “pub”… which seems SO INTERESTING RIGHT?! But really, it’s relevant because one of my favorite stories from the bus ride to York was about Micklegate Bar. As the story goes: “back in the day”, women would avoid walking under this gate for fear of human flesh falling on them… yes… human flesh… falling on them… The reason being that, York was really badass and when criminals and traitors ‘deserved’ a beheading, they would display the heads on the end of long sticks at Micklegate as a way of saying to York’s incoming visitors, “we don’t mess around”. Crazy, right?!

So as soon as we got there we unloaded from the bus and got to walk along the city walls with the guidance of a York native who also works as a tour guide for the “Original Ghost Walk of York” and this is also a reason I am definitely going back. York’s walls are actually the best-surviving medieval city walls and from them you get a pretty good view of the surrounding area. Here are some pictures

Our awesome tour guide.

The empty moat surrounding the castle wall.

After walking along the wall we ended up pretty much right outside the York Minster (the largest gothic cathedral in northern Europe) and also next this really beautiful house which is over 1000 years old, The Treasurer’s House. That’s when our guide told us this really awesome story about his friend who had been working in the house in the 50’s (I believe) when he was about 17 years old. I am going to try to recount it but may butcher it a little bit. Apologies. Anyways, he was working in a room on the ground floor when he heard the sound of a bugle. Perplexed, he looked down from his ladder to see the ghost of a Roman soldier marching through the wall and in the room! He fell from his ladder and as he sat there on the floor, about twenty more Roman soldiers came marching through the room. The strange thing was that he could only see from the knees and above of all of these soldiers. He told people this story but no one believed him… UNTIL the 1960s when they were reworking the crumbling foundation of the York Minster only to discover Roman burial ground and the surface of the old Roman roads buried at about knees height from where the new road lay. UHMM. Anyways, this solidified his story and although he had passed away before they made this discovery, he remains famous in York to this day.

The Treasurer's House and site of the famous Roman soldier ghost story.

So, after this guided tour we were off on our own in the city. I started off my day alone and went straight to the York Minster. Like I mentioned before, the York Minster is the largest gothic cathedral in northern Europe and is absolutely stunning. There are two main parts of it to see including The Central Tower and The Crypt. The tower was 275 tight-squeezed and dizzying steps to the top, but they were well worth it…even on a slight hangover and mild claustrophobia!

On my way from one tower to the next.

View from the top.

Our guide had told us that just last year, some man set a time record for making it to the top of the tower… then he died from overexertion. But no worries, I made it back down the tower in one piece and then got to explore the rest of the minster. If you’re wondering what exactly a minster is, just picture like… seven extremely ornately designed churches all mushed together… because that’s kind of what it is. I spent a good amount of time there but feel like I could have spent all day just looking at all of the different sculptures and historical artifacts. Offertory vessels from the church, dating back to the 1200s, were on display in the crypt in addition to the tomb of St. William, who died in the 1100s but wasn’t discovered there until the the 1960s. MORE PICTURES NOW…

One of the rooms in the minster.

Priest pulpit. Amazing.

"Now everyone look where I'm pointing, that's where (insert historical fact here)"

The tomb of St. William of York, d. 1154

The remainder of my day was spent trying to get out of the blistering cold and snow. It snowed for the first time since I’ve been here… about 2 inches, but everyone here was basically in a state of panic. I found shelter in the little shops on/in (?) The Shambles, which is the name for a tiny street in York which is actually the most visited street in Europe. It had a Diagon Alley feel to it, probably because of all of the people dressed as wizards and the pet owls they were selling? JUST KIDDING, LOL. It was the cobblestone roads and the old buildings that were leaning in towards each other. Anyways, I had a lot of fun exploring and found a really amazing fudge shop and then a fish & chips restaurant nearby. I think it was a combination of the cold and snow, but warming up with this meal after a cold day of exploration in York was a really awesome way to spend my first official fish & chips meal!

The Shambles.

Little Shambles.

I spent my last hour in York at the York Castle Museum which it situated next to the only remaining tower of the old York Castle (Clifford’s Tower is the site of the most well-known and devastating anti-semitic massacre in medieval England, which occurred in 1190). The Castle Museum had some pretty cool, but random, exhibits. This included an exhibit about the history of war weapons, an exhibit on the affect that World War II had on everyday life in Britain, a history of children’s toys from the last century or so, a “Life in the Sixties” exhibit, and then York Castle Prison.

Clifford's Tower - what remains of York Castle

Weapons n'stuff at the Castle Museum

Children's toys from the World War II times. Money was being saved for the war so they resorted to things like gas masks for entertainment.

It was quite rushed towards the end of the day and with the bad weather we couldn’t really see everything that we wanted to, so I guess that just more reason to go back! My next trip there will consist mostly of ghost-related things and checking out the pubs that I never got a chance to. I mean, there IS a pub for every day of the calendar year, so why not? Until then I will be making a trip to London, Stratford-upon-Avon, and hopefully to Northern Wales and I’m sure I will have nothing at all to say about any of those places so don’t bother looking here for updates. 😉