England and Scotland, May 2005 : Day 2
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Day 2, Friday: On Friday morning I rose very early, due to the fact that I had gone to bed so early my first day in Britain. The weather was beautiful. I walked to the Minster, five or ten minutes away, to take photographs in the bright early morning light. As I reached the Minster, I met another tourist (from Australia, I think, but I don't really recall) who had the same idea. He and I stood around taking photographs, then tried to go around the back of the Minster to get that angle, only to discover that the gate was still locked for the night. About this point we went our separate ways. I headed down to the other end of the Minster and got some photos of the scaffolding in place for preservation work on windows on the east end - a policeman later told me that the work is scheduled to take a decade, and the east end of the Minster will be inaccessible to tourists until it's complete.

I continued circling around as much of the Minster as was accessible at that hour, and stepped into a parking area to get some photos of the detail work on the Minster walls. This is the point at which I ran met the afore-mentioned policeman, who pointed out to me a beautiful but relatively hidden piece of detail featuring Saint Peter and the apostles (photo below). It was great fun to meet such a helpful and friendly person who loved their job so much as this policeman obviously did.

York Minster

York Minster

York Minster preservation work

York Minster detail

St Peter & apostles

York Minster detail

Central tower

Detail on Minster walls



Eventually I had taken as many photos of the Minster as possible short of documenting every last detail, and I moved on, exiting the city via Monk Bar, where I witnessed some of the defensive windows being cleaned. (They appear to have wire mesh or something inside, probably to prevent the pigeons from getting far in.) I walked around along the city wall for a while, examining a few interesting buildings s well as viewing the city wall from the outside. I came to another city entrance and headed back to the B&B for breakfast, stopping on the way to take a few more photos of the Minster in the light of the later morning and to explore a bit of the wall I had seen from the outside.

Minster wall

Monk Bar gets cleaned

Monk Bar

Monk Bar

Monk Bar street sign

Another cool street sign

Part of York St. John?

York city wall

York city wall

York city wall

York Minster

York Minster

York Minster

York Minster

York Minster

York city wall



After breakfast of soft-boiled eggs and soldiers (hey, it had been a long, long time), I caught a guided walking tour, which started out front of the city art gallery. The group was pretty large, so a second guide was enlisted and our group split into two. The tour lasted around two hours, and I recommend it highly. (Our guide was knowledgeable and fun, especially with some of her tales from growing up in York.) I really didn't manage to take any notes at the time, and I probably wouldn't be able to find my way back to some of the places without some exploration (I couldn't even identify a few after the fact), but it was informative and thoroughly enjoyable. I really appreciated the fact that it focused on sights that one would be a bit less likely to find on one's own - I don't recall the tour going by the Minster at all, though we certainly saw it from several vantage points, including the city walls.

York's smallest window

Roman coffins

Historical ground levels

Modern art

Abbey ruins

Bikes along the river

Our walking tour group

Guy Fawkes birthplace (on left)



The tour ended by the Shambles, a narrow, busy shopping street. I headed out to the Clifford's Tower, to get access while it was open during the day. That was quite interesting, but a thoroughly modern gift shop parked in the interior looked quite disappointingly out of place. (I did buy some trinkets nonetheless.) There are some interesting views to be had from the top of the tower, though the objects of interest tend to be truncated by buildings in the way. There are unobstructed views of the nearby Castle Museum, however, an interesting building consisting of two old prisons. And the tower itself was quite fascinating to me.

From the tower I walked across to the Castle Museum. On a grassy area circled by pavement there were a number of geese and goslings; I wish I had spent the time to get a better photo. Then on to the museum. I'm not an enthusiastic museum-goer in general, but I thought this one was reasonably interesting. One of the stranger exhibits consisted of some boxes with a note to the effect of "can you guess what's in the boxes by touch?" Yeah, like I'm going to stick my hand in some dark box to try to identify the contents...

York's longest street name

Guild hall

Clifford's Tower

Inside Clifford's Tower

The Minster from Clifford's Tower

Stairs inside the tower

Door inside the tower

Goose and goslings outside Castle museum

Gom Jabbar inside Castle museum

Preserved stores in the Castle museum



After leaving the Castle Museum I found some lunch then wandered back to finally visit the York Minster from inside. The Minster really is a beautiful and impressive piece of architecture - I spent quite a while exploring and photographing. I also visited the undercroft, which showed some of the original foundations from earlier structures on that site; photography was not allowed in the undercroft, however. I didn't climb the tower - I'm not sure if I simply overlooked it, or if it was not open to the public at that point.

About the time that I exited the undercroft, the east end was being cleared in preparation for evensong. I attended that service, featuring the Men's and Boys' Choir. The singing was wonderful and it was especially impressive in those surroundings.

Nave (from the west door)

Nave

North transept and central tower ceiling

Nave wall

Nave

Nave ceiling

"Five Sisters"
grisaille windows in
north transept

Choir screen

Central tower ceiling

Choir screen with English kings

Choir

Choir screen



It was getting late in the afternoon, and with my jet lag and early start (not to mention all the walking), I was getting quite tired, so I did some preparation for the next day, grabbed some dinner, and took a break. I ended the evening by going back out and getting some night-time photos of Bootham Bar and the Minster. Most of the ones of the Minster didn't really look very good with the orangish light it is bathed in at night.



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