York Minster

Rested up after a long day of travel, we set off again by foot into York for dinner – the town was still busy with traffic and tourists, as well as outflow from the many pubs, and we landed at Thomas’s for a bite. It was probably the first time we really felt comfortable at a table in England. The place had a locals-but-tourists-ok vibe to it, a couple of video game tables and some music in the various rooms that comprised the restaurant. A nice meal, some good chatter with our waitress and up to bar for a few drinks. We really liked the place and decided we’d come back the next night.

Back at the hotel, we went out to the smoking area for a nightcap and chatted with a group of middle aged guys from Cardiff up for a week of golf in the area. Volleyed a bit back and forth on traveling England, the necessity for us to visit Wales (“maybe next time” I offered, which may have sounded dismissive, although we really would like to visit Wales sometime) and field a remark or two about  “your Mr. Romney”, to which I replied “the guy’s been insulting our intelligence a lot longer than he’s been insulting yours…”, and we went off to get some shuteye.  

Wednesday came, our Day Without Driving, and I was personally grateful for it. I got up early enough to pop in at the hotel's fitness center – I had made it a preference, in picking out hotels, that we found ones with gyms, although this turned out to be the only one I managed to visit while on the road. The place was light and a little small, a tall blond girl with freakishly developed biceps made me sign a form (I didn’t have my glasses with me, so for all I know I deeded my kidneys over to her) and I did an hour of rowing machine and treadmill, the latter a little weird since it prompted me for my weight in kilograms and preferred distance in kilometers, and I just had to guess.

We headed into town on foot. It was a workday, so the narrow streets were bustling with trucks and cabs, and the sidewalks were full. York has a certain kind of buzz to it, sort of like a big city squeezed down and tamed by old passages, modernity grudgingly yielding way to the ancient.

There was a guy hawking a lame joke book for a charitable donation to some athletic program – we gave him a few pounds and he tried his best American accent on us. Also lame, heavy on the Texas, but probably no worse than my own lame English accent I rolled out from time to time, and the guy was funny and friendly. We also met an American busker, a twenty-something kid who looked like he needed some sleep, setting up for a morning of guitar-case gigging – he was from California and playing in a four piece band called the Buffalo Skinners, bouncing around the country and, in some cases, sleeping on the streets. York was a temporary stop for him, but he said it was one of his favorite places in England. He gave us a CD (“I’m the only American in the group!”) and we parted ways.

Along the way to the Minster, the girl with the biceps walked past me and popped into a bank. Small town, I thought.  

The Minster.

Jawdropping in scale and majestically poised in the middle of the city center, the place defied description. While it is still used periodically for special ecclesiastical purposes, the soaring 12^th century cathedral (it’s technically neither a cathedral, nor a true “minster”, as few locals pointed out to us) is really more of a museum. Walls lined with 15^th and 16^th century memorials, plenty of graves in the floor, huge doors, staggering stone carvings, a few sarcophagi dating to the 12^th (!) century, workmen and tourists and a light sprinkling of smiling, welcoming clergy.

After a quick lap through the immense ground floor, we gathered for the tower climb. The signs warned that the experience was only for those physically fit and undisturbed by narrow stairways, and they weren’t kidding. The climb, 275 steps up two ancient and impossibly narrow spiral staircases, was taxing. I was sweating when we reached the top – Sharon had to stop a number of times to get her breath. The view from the top, 360 degrees over York and toward the Yorkshire countryside extended almost as far as Leeds, thirty miles to the west. A local gentleman pointed the Kilburn Chalk Horse almost 30 miles to the North, remarking how clear the air was that day to be able to see it, which I only managed with the telephoto on Sharon’s camera. The shot's below, the horse is against the hillside above the orange bus to the left of center of the picture, but don't feel bad if you can't see it. I was there, and I couldn't see it.  

  

We've got more pictures of the Minster on the Cemetery Gallery site.