When we got up this morning, the sky was blue and the sun was shining. After breakfast, we left the bags downstairs in the office at the B&B while we headed off into the walled city to visit the cathedral, York Minster. On the way, we walked through a delightful garden area that contained some functional buildings and some ruins.
The cathedral is very close to the centre of the town. We had initially planned to visit the minster (the church area) and climb the tower to look at the view. However, the cashier explained that the tower has more than 300 steps and they have had some “serious health issues” in the past with people climbing the long spiral staircase.
That didn’t seem like an ideal choice for someone who has just had cardiac surgery even if I’d done a similar climb in various other venues recently. So we decided that Steph could do the tower and that Suzy and I would visit the undercroft instead.
It is very easy to run out of adjectives to describe the York Minster. Big is one adjective. Others include impressive, stunning, ornate, etc. It is a huge building with a very tall roof and elaborate stained glass windows.
We joined a guided tour which gave information about the history of the site and the structure of the building. Apparently it took 250 years to build the current cathedral and it was completed more than 500 years ago.
After the tour we visited the undercroft which is a museum area under the church. Back in the 1960s, they realised that the foundations of the cathedral were sinking and the cathedral was likely to collapse. They decided to secure the foundations with prestressed concrete under the main tower. When they started to excavate, they found ancient Roman ruins which are now displayed in the undercroft.
After we left the cathedral, we strolled through the nearby cobblestone streets of York. The girls went shopping while I took photos. Then we walked along the river back to our B&B to pack the bags into our car.
York is a magnificent town. Suzy told the B&B owners that we need to come back to York to spend more time and have a closer look.
By the time we had left the cathedral, it had clouded over. We travelled south on the A1 heading towards Cambridge. There were several showers during the trip and quite a few delays because of heavy traffic. We stopped briefly for a late lunch at a charming little town called Stamford. We reached Cambridge at about 4:30pm.
Suzy had programmed the Tom Tom to take us to the area at the back of the university colleges in Cambridge (such as Kings College and Trinity College). We found an ideal parking spot and walked through the gardens and over the river into the college area. The whole area was full of graduates dressed in gowns for their graduation ceremonies together with their proud relatives and friends.
We weren’t able to go into the colleges – partly because we were too late for the visiting hours and partly because the graduation events were still under way. So we toured the outside of the buildings. The river had canal boat rides and next to the river there were grazing cattle. It was a very pretty scene.
Our B&B was a farm about 30 minutes outside Cambridge. It was modern refurbished home in a pretty, green, peaceful location. For dinner we drove to a nice pub in a town about 2 miles away.
Internet reception here was slow via the USB modem because we were a long way out of town.
Click here to see my photos for this day.
The cathedral is very close to the centre of the town. We had initially planned to visit the minster (the church area) and climb the tower to look at the view. However, the cashier explained that the tower has more than 300 steps and they have had some “serious health issues” in the past with people climbing the long spiral staircase.
That didn’t seem like an ideal choice for someone who has just had cardiac surgery even if I’d done a similar climb in various other venues recently. So we decided that Steph could do the tower and that Suzy and I would visit the undercroft instead.
It is very easy to run out of adjectives to describe the York Minster. Big is one adjective. Others include impressive, stunning, ornate, etc. It is a huge building with a very tall roof and elaborate stained glass windows.
We joined a guided tour which gave information about the history of the site and the structure of the building. Apparently it took 250 years to build the current cathedral and it was completed more than 500 years ago.
After the tour we visited the undercroft which is a museum area under the church. Back in the 1960s, they realised that the foundations of the cathedral were sinking and the cathedral was likely to collapse. They decided to secure the foundations with prestressed concrete under the main tower. When they started to excavate, they found ancient Roman ruins which are now displayed in the undercroft.
After we left the cathedral, we strolled through the nearby cobblestone streets of York. The girls went shopping while I took photos. Then we walked along the river back to our B&B to pack the bags into our car.
York is a magnificent town. Suzy told the B&B owners that we need to come back to York to spend more time and have a closer look.
By the time we had left the cathedral, it had clouded over. We travelled south on the A1 heading towards Cambridge. There were several showers during the trip and quite a few delays because of heavy traffic. We stopped briefly for a late lunch at a charming little town called Stamford. We reached Cambridge at about 4:30pm.
Suzy had programmed the Tom Tom to take us to the area at the back of the university colleges in Cambridge (such as Kings College and Trinity College). We found an ideal parking spot and walked through the gardens and over the river into the college area. The whole area was full of graduates dressed in gowns for their graduation ceremonies together with their proud relatives and friends.
We weren’t able to go into the colleges – partly because we were too late for the visiting hours and partly because the graduation events were still under way. So we toured the outside of the buildings. The river had canal boat rides and next to the river there were grazing cattle. It was a very pretty scene.
Our B&B was a farm about 30 minutes outside Cambridge. It was modern refurbished home in a pretty, green, peaceful location. For dinner we drove to a nice pub in a town about 2 miles away.
Internet reception here was slow via the USB modem because we were a long way out of town.
Click here to see my photos for this day.
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