A glass of chilled white wine along with steamed fish and vegetables on my flight to Manchester was the perfect opening note to my journey. From Abbey town to York was the most scenic, picture perfect one-hour train journey.

The York Minster is England’s largest medieval cathedral and Yorkshire’s most important historic building, and I headed there first. Walking around the streets, one marvels at the spires of the Minster stretching skyward. Surprisingly, no one tries to charge you money to get in. The gigantic windows of intricate lead-lighting are backlit and the inside of the cathedral is completely lit up. It is a dizzy climb up 275 steps in so many circles and then down into the crypts where all the precious goods are. The basement area is actually from excavations that were carried out to shore up the 16 tonnes of stone.
At the very end of the display, I found a model of the tower above me and a small little figurine showing the location and a note pointing out how dangerous it would be if it all came crashing down on you. And keeping with the stone on head theme, there is also a rather large block on display that supposedly fell on one of the priests. This was later to be proclaimed a miracle, and it is not surprising he survived that.
The best part of the Minster was sitting through the Evensong when the choir sang. As their voices rose higher, the sounds echoed upwards and lingered onwards. Songs have been written to complement and harmonise with this echo as the song continues.

WALKING ON THE WALLS
York has walls and you can walk along and a visit to York is incomplete if you don’t walk on them. Viewing the walls, I could see the layers of different bricks from various centuries of people rebuilding and fortifying.
I entertained myself on the 13th century city walls, which wrapped around a good portion of the city. If it is pouring rain (like it was when I walked) then the best thing to do is to pick up pace and head for the nearest pub, and there are loads of choices.

Old streets My favourite part of York are the old streets. Houses and buildings are very old here, some dating back as far as the 1300s. These timber-framed homes have twisted and warped over the years and have formed these wonky mis-shaped similies of buildings. To save on taxes on land space, each floor of the building extended above the one below. This gave more floor space and literally allowed you to shake hands with your neighbour across the street on your topmost floor.
I found the Shambles Street a quaint step back in time which used to be the butcher’s quarters of the city. Meat hooks still hang below the eaves and extra large gutters run through the centre of the street to carry away all the nasty bits. Tall buildings on either side of the road sheltered direct sunlight from the windows of the shop helping to preserve the meat.
Next, I moved on to the Yorvik Viking Centre where they have put together a great “ride” which again takes one back in time to when the place was first inhabited by Vikings, which explains where the name “York” came from, what the local inhabitants used to do on a “typical” day in the streets, takes you over actual geological digs which have uncovered original street surfaces, a must-see when in York.
Later that evening, I tried out the ghost tour — a lot of fun, mostly because of our guide, who obviously had acting capabilities and had the cape and voice perfect for scary ghost stories.
Allegedly York is the most haunted city in Europe, but I didn’t see any even after a late-night dinner in one of the haunted pubs called Nineteen.

The writer is a travel enthusiast