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York Minster

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Happy Birthday to my favorite travel partner in the world!!!!! As a gift, I decided to let him take the evening off from blog writing :)

throwback to 2012


After an exciting breakfast in which I set off the smoke alarm and ran outside with the frying pan, we made our way to the York Minster.

We were just in time for Tommy and I to do The Tower Challenge. York's tower is 275 narrow steps, compared to Bath which is 212. Well worth it though for the views!



The ruins of St Mary's is between the towers, we're going there tomorrow

narrow steps

see Tommy?


After we completed The Challenge we rejoined Bob and took a guided tour of the minster. Our guide's background was engineering so he put an engineering spin on his tour which was fun. We learned that the choir is 3 feet off center from the nave because they built it from the outside in and miscalculated. We couldn't go into the middle of the nave, it was being set up for a banquet.




It's hard to see, but there are 5 kings on the left had side of the choir entrance and 6 kings on the right. Three feet off center



Our tour guide and the East Window


We were able to see the "Great East Window", which was still being refurbished the previous two times we were last here. It took four years and over £2 million to complete the work. They are currently refurbishing the "Saint Cuthbert Window". We were able to view a few of the panels in an exhibit up close which is very cool.



There is also a new to us Undercroft Museum which was really impressive. It took us along the journey of the tower beginning to develop cracks around 50 years ago and what they did to fix and shore up tower to prevent further damage. The excavation work to shore up the central tower revealed archaeology from both Anglo-Saxon and the times of the Vikings in York, but the Roman military building which resided on mostly the same plot of land while being angled more aligned with the river rather than exactly East West.  

a picture of a picture showing a crack

a bit of Roman floor


After we were done looking around the minster, we stopped for lunch at Lucky Days then perused some shops. There is a used bookstore near the minster that Tommy really likes, and he bought a few books there. 

For Tommy's birthday dinner we went to Bengal Brasserie and had a memorable meal, in Bob's words. It was very good; we tried a couple new (to us) dishes and they did not disappoint! 

Popadom appetizer, I didn't get a picture of dinner before we ate it


We had planned to go to Durham Cathedral tomorrow, but we aren't done with York yet so we are staying here. Tomorrow we will visit the Yorkshire Museum and see where the day takes us!



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