There were two primary sites we wanted to visit while in York in addition to just walking around. They are the York Minster, a large Gothic church, and the Yorkshire Museum. When we were last here together it was 1986 and we made a day trip from London on the train to see York Minster. That did not leave us much time to see more of the city. York has a long history and much of it has been preserved well.
In fact, the city has been so well preserved that it seems to be overrun by tourists. [We aren’t tourists; we are well-seasoned travelers. It’s completely different.]
I have good news and some less-good news about the two sites we wanted to visit. Our visit to York Minster was outstanding—good news. The visit to the Yorkshire Museum was not quite what we expected. I’ll explain that later. That’s the less-good news.
On Sunday, our travel from Galway to Dublin by train (mostly) was good. The first leg involved taking an Uber from Galway to the first station on the route back. We had to do that because there is a lot of work being done at the Galway railway station that would have required taking a bus to Athenry station. That didn’t sound like fun, so we chose the Uber option. The Athenry (Ah-then-ree) station was very small and we waited for the train to take us to Dublin in an unheated waiting room. It is a good thing we got there early, because we were able to get on the train and stash our luggage before the large crown who took the buses arrived. Getting all of them on board and seated was chaos. When we got to Dublin, we had to take a taxi to the airport. It is only about 7 miles, but the Sunday afternoon traffic and rain made the drive take about an hour. We flew from Dublin to Leeds on a turboprop plane and actually arrived 35 minutes early in what was scheduled to be a 70-minute flight. We think the reason was that the winds were blowing so hard that it doubled our speed.
Interestingly, there were no immigration officers to permit our entry into England! We just walked into the baggage claim area, picked up our bags and went outside—where it was rainy, cold, and windy. Our plan had been to get an Uber for the 30-mile trip to York, but Uber didn’t work. We hunted up a cab and the adventurous part of our day began.
Our driver started complaining about the dark roads before we got in the car. When we asked him if he made the drive frequently, we got a grunt. He was right: the roads were dark. The driver may have been night-blind, too. He tended to slow down every time he encountered a car coming the other way. He told us he never drove faster than the speed limit, but he didn’t tell us he didn’t go as fast as the speed limit either. When we would come to a roundabout, he would slow to a near stop, and have difficulty deciding how to get through to the next turn. When we got to York, he slowed down at every intersection, pull his glasses down from his forehead, peer at the map (which was telling him out loud what turn to make), and ease through the turn. We finally got to our hotel. The driver then said he had not made that trip before. The combination of the dark roads, the intermittent rain, and the suspect skills of the driver had us wondering if we would survive the trip. We honestly wondered if the driver would make it back to Leeds.
There needs to be a better word than “superlative” to describe experiences—at least good ones—that will stick in one’s memory as being so informative and impressive that they stand out from most other memories. Our visit to York Minster falls into that category. The Wikipedia link will give you lots of information, but it won’t give you the experience. Monday was mostly clear. It was cool and windy. Our walk from the hotel to the Minster was straightforward and, because we had pre-purchased tickets, we were able to skip the entry line.
The sunny day meant that light was streaming through the stained glass windows. We learned that York Minster has more medieval stained glass than the other 42 cathedrals in England COMBINED. Some of the windows are quite tall and glow with the light. Many of the cathedrals in England were damaged in the second World War, but York largely escaped, which accounts, in some part, for the amount of old glass.
We joined a tour given by a knowledgeable docent. He was a source of both well-known information and facts one might not find elsewhere. He told us, for example, that stained glass has to be repaired from time to time. When it does get repaired, the glass pieces sometimes need to have new iron added. Some of the windows at York Minster that have been repaired multiple time and the original pictures (which are often stories), can no longer be made out.
The docent walked us—literally—through the construction history of the building. He took us from the oldest to the newest parts, explained the problems the building had experienced such as water damage, subsidence, and several fires. To me, survivng all of the changes, reconstruction, and disasters, makes the story of York Minster even more impressive than I knew. I did not know that the building was in imminent danger of collapsing in the 1960s and only some daring engineering was able to save it. The docent advised us to go into the crypt and under-building after the tour and we were able to see how the “rescue” was accomplished.
The church is so large that we never felt crowded or rushed as we moved about. We have often visited the cathedral in Seville, Spain. York Minster is only slightly smaller. For some reason, though, the Minster feels more open. That may be that the nave is so much wider than the Seville cathedral. And, because the interior walls are mostly white, it seems more “lively.”
This visit to York Minster far exceeded our memories of our visit in 1986. I know it exceeded our expectations for this visit.
The main reason we wanted to visit the Yorkshire Museum was because we read this article about a newly discovered Iron Age hoard. [Here comes the not-good news.] Now, if you read the article, which I recommend, you may draw the same inference I did: that the hoard was on display. That belief of ours was a key factor in deciding to visit York on this trip. So, Tuesday morning, I walked up to the Museum—we’ve had tickets for a while—to see the hoard. {Patricia was not feeling well.] I had no trouble skipping the entry line because there was no long line. That was suspicious to me. Who wouldn’t want to see an Iron Age hoard? The Museum greeter was telling me about the exhibits currently on display, but he did not mention the hoard. When I asked, he said it was in the basement, but not on display. He explained the Museum had been raising money to decide what to do with the hoard but needed more time to create a display. When I told him about reading the article and deciding to come see it, he pointed out (to be fair, he said) that the article didn’t actually say that it was on display. Perhaps, he said, if We came back in a year, we would be able to see it.
That does not mean, though, that the Yorkshire Museum visit was not enjoyable (he writes with a wry grin) because it has good sections on an 11,000 year-old Mesolithic site in the area, an exhibit on Roman life in York, an exhibit on the “interactions” between York and the Vikings and a small area devoted to fossils discovered in the area. Interactions with the people of this area and the Vikings seemed to have turned out poorly for the residents most of the time. The Romans were here for several hundred years and, as elsewhere, influenced the culture in many ways.
On the way back to the hotel, I walked through an area called “the Shambles.” It is a narrow medieval street lined with old shops and flooded with so many tourists that I could hardly get from one end to the other.
I have added pictures to the York pictures page.
