PAUL

With only a few days left in Leeds we thought we'd better get and see the town that our county, Yorkshire, gets it name from, York. So on May 30 we caught a public transport bus to nearby York. York was the Viking capital of Britain and also an important strategic base throughout history. After getting off at the train station, we followed the advice of our handy dandy lonely planet guide and found our way to the starting point for a free walking tour of the town. The tour lasted 2 hours and we found out about the first construction in York by the Romans, including the town walls which were then used as the foundations for building the medieval town walls which still stand today. The wall has a number of 'bars' which are in fact gateways into the town, whiles gates are actually streets. We also walked down The Shambles, a street in York where the houses extend out so far across the road that you can also pass things between them across the road. We were told that the houses were built like this to reduce the amount of tax to be paid which was based on the footprint of the building. The largest attraction in York is the York Minster, it's the largest gothic cathedral in Britain. Wow. Unfortunately, they recently discovered the east end of the building is starting to collapse and so a 10 year project to repair and stabilise the building has begun. This meant our view of the massive east window was…well non existent really. However, it was still very impressive and I'll let the photos do the talking. After our tour we put away the maps and got lost among the markets and narrow streets of York, great fun. Then we finished off the day with a walk along parts of the city walls (a bit of a theme of our last few excursions). Then it was back to the station and on the bus home to Leeds.