York

I spent the weekend in the wonderful city of York. It's an amazinly historic city, with buildings of all ages and even part of the wall built when the city was founded by the Romans.

I thought I'd share some of the sights with you on here. The Minster stands high above the city, there are apparently local planning laws in place to ensure that no highrise buildings are built so the Minster will always be the highest building seen for miles around.

The city centre is mainly surrounded by the city walls, and entry into the city is through gate wasys confusingly called bars! To add somemore confusion many of the streets are called gates - apparently the gate part coming from a Viking word for street. Walking round you can drink in the history, the ancient walls, the cobbled streets and churches that are around everycorner.

There are a whole host of Ghost tours and walks taking you to the 'haunted' sites of York and retelling storys of the strange and mysterious happenings that have filled York's history. I went on one such tour, starting at the West doors of the Minster and guided by an excellent story teller. The tour took us through arches and small side streets to hear the strange stories of York, finishing in the world famous Shambles- the old butchers street of York where once this tightly packed street was filled with the blood of slaughtered animals and the bits that were thrown away....

This is an interesting Church just on the outskirts of the city walls, St Cuthburts, the small door on the side if the church is given the title of 'the devil's door' and was apparently opened during baptism services to let the devil out. I'm glad that we've moved on from the days of this!

There are many churches dotted about, many with lantern towers that before the days of street lights would guide the inhabitants of York home.