Day 6: York

York is in the northern part of England and it's the same county (Yorkshire) James Herriot is from. People are a little more countryfied up there. To get there we drove through Nottinghamshire and Sherwood Forest, Robin Hood country.

This is Clifford Tower in the center of York.

Here's us on top of the tower. You can see the towers of York Minster behind us.


Here's inside York Minster. Most of the churches we went to didn't allow pictures inside so I've included these to show what the inside of a gothic church looks like since most look similar. They are layed out with a central circular area and then 4 branches off of that, 2 shorter than the others. This view is down the long side where people would sit. The heart shape at the top of the window is the "Heart of York." If you look up on the right side you'll see a dragon head coming out of one of the windows. They think this is a lever to open the baptismal font that was below it.


Here's the opposite side of the circular area, the other long end. The opening under the organ would lead you to the view above. This is the choir area and behind the photographer would be the altar. In some of the minsters, there were seats up around the edges behind the choir seats where knights sit. For example, Windsor is the home of the Order of the Knights of the Garter and a standard and helmet for each of them are at their seat. Famous people like Churchill, Norman Schwarzkopf, and the elder George Bush are members of this order, knighted by the queen.

The Shambles, one of the narrowest and oldests streets.

While in York we also saw the house of a Fairfax related to the Fairfax for which Fairfax, VA and county are named. This relative Fairfax was friends with George Washington. So many times during this trip we felt ties to these people. So many of our town and street names come from England. We asked a tour guide in this house what British people call the Revolutionary War and she said, "Well, it's really just our Civil War isn't it? Just like yours between the North and the South. And you're still fighting it a bit aren't you?" Hmmm . . .