York, England

The drive up to York took a bit longer than we expected. We ran into a huge traffic jam but because we took the GPS (with pre-purchased maps for the UK), we were able to confidently go off the main route and find back roads to get north to our destination. We didn't arrive until 4 pm. It stays light out until 10 pm so we had a few hours to see what we could see. There's a lot!

York is a walled city that has changed hands several times from Romans to Vikings and who knows what. Driving into York you can see the walls as well as the Bars or archways through the wall.

We strolled from our hotel (the Churchill Hotel at Latitude: 53°57'54.88"N; Longitude: 1° 5'23.95"W) towards York and the York Minster with a stop along the way through the York Museum Garden. We saw this old ruin of St Mary's Abbey (first photo above) that Kind Henry VIII allowed to fall into disrepair. There is also a remnant of the original Roman Wall within the Museum grounds, called Multangular Tower (to the right).

Latitude: 53° 57′ 43″ N, Longitude: 1° 4′ 55″ W

We took a stop into the York Minster to listen to Evensong, but we instead heard the Solemn Eucharist in honor of St. Peter, the patron saint of the Minster. The boys (and men's) choir sang. It was lovely.

Then we took a walk along the top of the wall. It seems the York wall is called the Roman Wall but, in fact, it is more aptly named the Norman wall. The Roman Wall was smaller and rectangular. There is now (actually, since about the 1200s) a more circular wall around York that stretches out from the various Bars or entryways into the city. We didn't even know we could walk along the top of the wall, so this was a nice surprise. The kids loved it. From this shot you can see the major slope built to detract marauders from attacking York.

These photos and more from the trip are located on my Flickr page.