York - Sightseeing & Sightpeeing.

I visited York day before with a couple of friends. It was just a day trip. Quick run through of what we did :

Caught the 9.29 am train to York. The Midlandmainline website had apparently provided wrong information. I had read that the 9.21 to York would take only 46 mins, but when we reached the train station...there was no 9.21 and the 9.29 took 1 hr 20 mins. Did not matter though, I had a good chat with co-passengers.

Reached York at 10.53 am. I had noted the time. I led my friends through to the Travel Centre mistaking it to be the Visitor Centre. Well, I realised my folly when all I could see were train time tables and queues. So, we came out saw the Visitor Centre , walked in, gathered brochures, spoke to the advisor. So now we had a list of places to visit. We were on our way.

First stop, The Wall, no ..not Rahul Dravid. According to history, Romans built a wall around the city of York. Basically, it was their most important city in that part of England. It was a fortress and had an administrative centre as well. Anyway, back to the wall. It runs round the city and is really well maintained. We walked along the wall, along Leeman Road and soon reached a Tower. I guess this was where the tower gaurds sat and drank, cracked jokes etc. We took some snaps there and then, walked down the stairs towards the river. River Ouse it was. One of my friends had the crazy idea of pissing in the river. Well, hold on. Not exactly pissing. I am sure you might have done this once in your life. He took out his bottle and with his back towards us and facing the river he squeezed water out of the bottle. For a person who was on the street..it looked like my friend was pissing. Job done. Took a few snaps, got some ice-cream, and then ventured forward. A little bit of sightseeing and a little bit of sightpeeing.

Next stop, York Minster. Nope, not Westminster. Its a cathedral and it is Norman style. It started out as a small barracks + cathedral, built by the Romans. It was strategically placed and the Romans loved it. They had about 5000 soldiers in and around the small cathedral. Of more importance is the fact that Constantine the Great was proclaimed the Emperor of the Romans right here in Yorkminster. He was at York with his father, the Emperor when the Emperor passed away. Constantine was made king and as the years passed he became the Constantine the Great, and he did some great things indeed. Anyway, Yorkminster can be split into three parts if you plan to visit it.

Firstly, the Cathedral itself...we paid 7.50 pounds to get in and have a look at all the three parts. That is with student discount. The Cathedral is quite posh and nice to look at. There are some nice seats and if you are tired of walking, there is always place to sit. For more serious readers, there are some brilliant mural paintings on the windows dating back to 1310. If I am not wrong, the construction of the whole place was finished in the 14th or 15th century. The intricacy and architecture is worth seeing. The place has a calm and nice feeling about it. We took a guide..they come free. But our guide was very boring, and he took a long time. We had just one day, so we gave him the slip. We had a look at the place ourselves, tried to appreciate the beauty, kissed the pope's head and made our way to the Undercroft.

The Undercroft. You can guess that by the words Under we had to walk down a flight of stairs with a pair of earphones. It was cool because, you could press start on the small gadget and this voice would start playing. The voice explained what to do and for the next half hour it explained various parts of the Undercroft. The tour starts with an explanation of where we are and why the Cathedral was made, right from the Roman time. After the Romans left, the Anglo-saxons rebuilt on the same site and created a new Cathedral. This was then expanded by the Normans later on. The tour also talks about the various people who helped build the cathedral and the construction methods used. There is also a drainage system underneath the Yorkminster which we can have a look at in one section of the tour. The tour of the Undercroft ends with a quick walk through the Crypt, where the artifacts and personal possessions of the various Archbishops of England are kept. I enjoyed the Undercroft tour because you had the choice of stopping the audio commentary, have a look at some artifacts, then press play and hear the voice continue. It was great.

Lunchtime. We walked out way to a Pizza Hut, but decided against eating there and rightly so. If we have come to York, its better to eat something different and maybe some local shop...not boring old Pizza Hut again! So we found this nice italian place, ordered paninis and drank some coke. The local indigenous food of Fish and Chips etc was not what we wanted. The hot steaming paninis was really tasty and the chips were what you expected. The waitresses and waiters were Italian or Spanish, so we would occasionally hear Graci, Beuno sera etc.

Yorkminster Tower. A flight of 275 steps. An extremely narrow path, spiralling towards heaven. There were three of us, and each decided to count the steps while going up the stairs. Unfortunately, I lost count after 25. We all did. The walk up the stairs was tiring and we needed to stop at regular intervals. Do not doubt our stamina, it was just the fact that the space was so narrow, that you had to walk keeping one eye on the stairs, one eye on the person in front of you, one hand on the wall, and one eye on the camera. I have a third eye. We reached the top and were not dissapointed. The view was fantastic but it felt like we were in a cage. There was a net enclosing the walking areas but there were large enough gaps at regular intervals to take a proper picture. I clicked many pictures and we spent about 15 minutes on top. Oh yeah, there was a lady who vomitted upon reaching the top. I guess it was her idea of leaving some indication or signature of her having made the ascent. We started our descent and were determined to get the counting right. 1....5...10...20...24..."What's 25 +1 ?" 25...26....28..The guy in inverted commas was my friend who was trying his best to distract us. He cracked some of the silliest jokes ever which resulted in three people laughing continuously and then sitting down on the stairs. Yeah, and holding up the concerned people above us. We made the landing safely though.

Clifford's Tower. Not worth it. 2.30 pounds down the drain. It is just a tower and that is what is left of the Clifford Castle. There wasn't much to see and not much history either. There was a poster inside the tower of who used to stay in the castle. Not worth a mention.

18.00 hrs. We walked along the crowded streets and made our way to the National Rail Museum. BUT it had shut for the day. Bad timing. We eventually made our way to the River again and sat on one of the benches. Just chilled for an hour. We then made our way to the train station at around 7.30 and caught the 8 pm train back to Sheffield.

An enjoyable day trip. Walking through the streets and exploring places is always more fun. Very peaceful and beautiful city. I had a good break. It's back to work now.

So...when are YOU visiting York?