York

The rain has gone so we had a great day in York. We started with a visit to Clifford's Tower. It is all that remains of York Castle. Peter wasn't disappointed that there wasn't more to explore.

We tried to find a pub for Peter to watch the Penrith - St George game but the only sports pub we found wasn't open. Our next stop was the Jorvik Viking Centre. It is an interesting mix of recreation, animatronics and live action. The most interesting part was the presentation of the evidence from the archaeological dig on which the show is based.

While we were in the queue the guy doing the bag search asked us where we were from. We are used to our answer of Canberra being met with a blank stare, but his response was "I've just posted a Raiders jumper to Australia". Apparently he sells a lot of jumpers on Ebay. He was showing Peter some of the items he has for sale. After we left the centre Peter asked him if he would look up the score of the game. He was more than happy to oblige and Peter was happy with the result.

We couldn't miss a walk along The Shambles, a well preserved street of medieval buildings. It was used for the filming of Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter films and there are lots of Harry Potter themed shops.

York has more intact walls than any other city in England so we had to walk along a section.

Claire was planning to visit York Minster but Peter wasn't interested so after walking through the Museum Gardens and viewing the ruins of St Mary's Abbey we went our separate ways.

Claire was in time to join a guided tour of the Minster. It was fascinating. Each guide has their own area of interest and this guide knew a lot about the stained glass windows.

This one is called the Heart of York.

The ceiling of the Chapter House.

The Rose Window.

The tour lasted an hour then Claire spent another hour enjoying the beauty of the Cathedral.