York, England - May 20th to 22nd and June 20th to 23rd, 2025

York is a fairly large city, but less than half the size of Edinburgh, Scotland. The York Minster (cathedral) dominates the old part of town, which is surrounded by medieval walls. We visited York twice. The first time was for two nights to pick up a rental car. The second time was for four nights a month later, as we returned the rental car. This post covers both of those visits to York.

Tuesday we took a train from Conwy in Wales to York in England. We originally planned to take the 11:52 train with a 10 minute transfer in Newton Le Willows. We walked over to the train station from the Old Station Hotel, just across the street, about an hour before our scheduled train. When we arrived at the platform, an earlier train was just about to arrive at 10:52. We saw that our route has a train scheduled every hour, including the second leg of our trip. Since we had Anytime Day Single tickets, we hopped on the earlier train.

The 10 minute transfer in Newton Le Willows was no problem, since the station is small, only two platforms, and our connecting train was on the same platform as the train we arrived on. In fact, there was even a third train that arrived and departed in-between the two trains.

The first train we rode was a Transport for Wales train. We’ve ridden a couple of those before, on our way to Conwy. All of the announcements, posted signs, and electronic displays were in both Welsh and English. Ann found it interesting to listen to the Welsh being spoken. The language has a nice rhythm to it.

The second train was a Transpennine Express. That was a new rail company for us. The train was nice, similar to the Transport for Wales and GWR (Great Western Railway) trains we’ve been on before. We didn’t have seat reservations on either train. When we got on at Newton Le Willows, none of the reservation indicators above the seats were turned on, so we just grabbed an empty seat, as there were plenty of them. However, a few stops later, quite a few people boarded, with many of them having seat reservations. So we had to change seats as a couple had our seats reserved.

When we moved across the aisle, we moved our daypacks over, but we believe we forgot to grab Keith’s hoody. So when we got off the train in York, Keith realized he didn’t have his jacket. We guess we have some shopping to do in the near future.

While we were on the train, a staff member came down the aisle rolling a snack cart. Ann bought a bottle of Coke. Since we were on the trains through lunch time, we didn’t have lunch. However, we pulled out a couple of flapjacks that we had stored in our daypacks.

Our accommodations for the next two nights was St. Raphael’s Guesthouse. It was about a fifteen minute walk from the train station on mostly paths away from the streets, so it was a rather pleasant walk. The owners of the guesthouse don’t live onsite, but they had given us a door code to get in and a packet with our room key and instructions were in an envelope waiting for us inside in the entryway.

The rooms are named after local attractions. Ours was called the Bars. Bars in York are what they call the city gates in the medieval walls. At first, we had trouble locating the light switch for the bathroom. We had learned that it is against the building codes in Great Britain and Ireland to put electrical switches in a bathroom, so they are normally just outside the bathroom door. However, there is one exception, if the switch uses a pull chain to turn the switch on and off. And the bathroom in our room had a pull chain.

After checking in, we decided to go for a stroll through town. We walked through Bootham Bar and past the impressive York Minster, the Cathedral Church of St. Peter.

Then we meandered through the streets, including the Shambles, which some people claim was the inspiration for the Diagon Alley set design in the Harry Potter movies, but none of the movies were filmed there.

We made a quick pass through the Shambles Market, past a large ferris wheel, and then went for dinner. We’re not sure why the ferris wheel was there, especially since it was gone when we came back to York the second time.

We picked out a little place called the Original Shawarma. We were in the mood for something a little different and this turned out to be the perfect place. We both had the shawarma plate. Keith’s was a mixture of lamb and chicken, while Ann had the lamb. The meat came out sizzling on the plate. Served with each meat serving were two large warm and fresh pieces of naan, a small salad, and three dipping sauces. One sauce was chili, another was yogurt and dill, while the third was creamy green with a strong garlic flavor. Everything tasted wonderful.

We had declined getting chips (fries) with our meal. Thank goodness, because we could barely finish the meal as it was quite a lot of food. We suppose they have to ask if we want chips because it seems like the British and Irish don’t consider it a meal without some kind of potatoes. They also seem to go heavy on the meat and light on the vegetables and the Original Shawarma was the same. Ann would have preferred about half the meat and double the vegetables with her meal, but understands that the place has to cater to local preferences to stay in business.

Wednesday was a good introduction to York. We’d be coming back in about a month, so we didn’t need to see and do everything this time. After a nice breakfast at our guest house, we walked over to York Minster.

York Minster is an Anglican cathedral, meaning it is the seat of the archbishop of York. It was built from 1220 to 1472 AD. The cathedral still has most of its medieval stained glass windows. The east window is the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in the world.

We arrived at the cathedral just in time for the 10 am guided tour. The tour is included with the admission fee. The staff volunteer led us around the Minster for about an hour. We found the tour very informative. We could have stayed to explore more of the cathedral on our own, but we were at our information overload limit. Our tickets are valid for one year, so we’ll come back next time and explore more. There is an extra charge to climb the tower, so we planned on doing that during our next visit to York as well.

From the cathedral, we worked our way along the streets over to the Shambles Market. Along the way, Keith went into a clothing store and found a jacket to replace the one he left on the train the day before.

At the market, we got some lunch. Keith went to the hot dog stand and ordered the Salty hot dog, which came with pastrami, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and mustard, sort of like a combination of a hot dog and a reuben sandwich. Ann tried a Breton Galette from the Krep stand. A Breton Galette is a crispy, savory crêpe made with buckwheat flour. Ann had the Saucisse galette with spicy sausage, cheddar cheese, roasted cabbage, pickled shallots, dill salsa, and black garlic mayo. Both of our meals were pretty tasty.

After filling our bellies, we went over to Exhibition Square to catch a hop on-hop off bus tour. There are two companies in York, City Sightseeing York and Golden Tours. We chose City Sightseeing York, mainly because the bus was sitting there and waiting. The person at the booth actually hopped on the bus with us so we could take care of the payment without missing the bus. It was 26 pounds for two seniors.

The complete tour lasts about an hour. Even though it was a hop on-hop off, we stayed on for the whole loop. We sat up top, in the back, for the best views. There is recorded commentary the whole way. However, due to the noises of our surroundings, like traffic and machinery, we had trouble hearing some of the narrative.

In the afternoon, we walked the city walls. York has more miles of intact wall than any other city in England. The original walls were built around 71 AD by the Romans. The majority of the remaining walls date from the 13th and 14th centuries. The walls encircle the medieval city portion of York. The walls were restored during the Victorian Period (mid to late 19th century), when the wall walks were widened as well as extended in some areas.

You can walk most of the walls, with some short breaks, making a loop around the medieval part of town. Being up on top of the walls gives a nice perspective while viewing the town. It was a very pleasant walk, about three kilometers (2 miles) in length. Part way around, we stopped at the Gatehouse Coffee shop inside the Walmgate Bar (wall gate). Unfortunately, it was too close to closing time, so we had to buy our chai lattes to go.

We had trouble finding a nice bench to sit on to enjoy our drinks, so we just carried them and continued walking along the wall. When we crossed the River Ouse the second time, we finally found a bench. By that time, Ann had almost finished her drink, but Keith had not started his yet. So we sat there while Keith drank his lukewarm chai.

By the time we finished walking the walls, it was time for the Choral Evensong service at York Minster. The service began at 5:30 pm, but people were already queued up to go in when they opened the doors at 5 pm. The Evensong church service is choral music with a few scripture readings and prayers. The public is welcome to attend, free of charge, but no photographs or other recordings are allowed.

Attendees sat in the Quire surrounding the choir. The choir that evening was only twelve members, but their voices filled the cathedral. Many of the songs sounded like chants. At the end of the service, the organ was playing while we walked out of the Quire and under the organ pipes. It was a nice experience.

For dinner, we went to the Churchill Hotel’s Beer Garden, not far from St. Raphael’s Guest House. Most of their food was pizza. It was wood-fired in a little food truck outside the hotel in the beer garden. There was a sign out front advertising pizza and beer for less than 13 pounds, but our bill was much higher than that, closer to 40 pounds, or 20 pounds each. So we’re not sure where the 13 comes from, perhaps the cheapest pizza paired with the cheapest beer.

However, the pizza was rather tasty and worth the price. Ann had the Margherita Pizza with Nduja sausage and garlic oil while Keith had the prosciutto pizza. Ann’s had Nduja sausage a couple of times before (Dartmoor National Park, England - March 28th - 31st, 2025 and Exeter, England - March 27th, 28th, 31st, and April 1st, 2025). It is a spicy Italian sausage. We paired our food with a Jorvik Blonde Beer from Rudgate Brewery in York and a Kopparberg Summer Punch from Sweden. The summer punch was apple cider with a taste of peach.

Thursday we picked up a rental car to drive to the Lake District. Our car reservation was not until noon, but we needed to check out of the guest house in York by 10:15. However, they gladly held our luggage until we needed to walk over to the car rental office.

So we spent an hour or so walking around the Museum Gardens behind the Yorkshire Museum and the York Art Gallery. In addition to some flowers and interesting plants, there were also some ruins inside the gardens. One was the southwest wall of the Eboracum Roman Fortress. Another was some of the walls and foundations of St. Mary’s Abbey. Near the southeast entrance of the gardens, we found a coffee food truck. So we stopped and enjoyed a couple of chai lattes.

The walk over to the Enterprise office was not too bad, about a 20 minute walk from St. Raphael’s Guest House. Along the way, we took a little detour to use the restrooms at the train station. We had a two and a half hour drive ahead of us, and didn’t want to have to stop for a bathroom break.

Our previous posts covered our time between picking up the rental car and touring the Lake District (Lake District National Park, England - May 22nd to 25th, 2025), various locations in Scotland, and Durham back in England (Durham, England - June 17th to 19th, 2025). This post picks back up as we leave Durham, England to drive back to York.

Friday was a short drive from Durham to York, mostly on the A1, which was a motorway most of the way, so it was easy driving. We needed to return our rental car by noon. We arrived at 11:30 am. After returning the car, it was about a half mile walk to St. Raphael Guest House to drop off our luggage. Even though it was only noon, our room was already ready, so we were able to check in.

For lunch, we walked over to the Shambles Market. Ann got a chicken yakisoba from Nana Noodle Bar while Keith got a Yankee Dog from the Dog House. Soba noodles are made from buckwheat, but the noodles in yakisoba are fried ramen-style wheat noodles. The Yankee Dog was a hot dog with sauerkraut, dill pickles, relish, and fried onions. For dessert, Ann got a lemon and sugar crêpe from Krep.

Then we went shopping. Our Altra trail runners were wearing out and we needed replacements. Keith tried earlier to order them from Amazon and have them delivered to York, but he couldn’t get the timing to work out. So we walked in to a store called Up and Running, which we knew sold Altras, hoping they would have our size and a style we liked. They had the Altra Lone Peak 9+ in our sizes. They were mostly dark blue, but with bright blue accents. So they weren’t as subtle as the all black ones we were wearing, but at least they weren’t a fluorescent or neon color, so we bought them. We left the packaging at the store. Ann wore her new shoes from the store so she could put her old ones in the shoe recycle bin in the store.

Ann’s reading glasses had broken a couple of days prior, so we went to a Boots pharmacy and picked up a new pair. She was hoping for a variable focus pair, but they didn’t have any. Also, the pair she had before were 2.75 magnification, but the pairs in the pharmacy went from 2.5 to 3.0. She picked up a 3.0 pair and hoped they would work. It turns out they were great for reading her phone in her hand and food menus when they were about a foot from her face, but her laptop screen was another issue. If she brought the screen to within about a foot, then the glasses were fine, but having the screen that close was not comfortable as she had to lean forward. That is why she prefers the variable focus ones. Perhaps she’ll keep looking.

We swung by the Ate O’Clock restaurant to see if we needed reservations for dinner that evening. As we made reservations, they asked us if we were celebrating anything. Well yes, we were celebrating Ann’s birthday.

After relaxing back at the room for a little while, we walked back over to Ate O’Clock. Ann had the venison loin with a red wine gravy and vegetables while Keith had the salmon fillet. For dessert, Ann picked the dark chocolate and peanut butter delice while Keith chose the Tonka bean & raspberry crème brûlée. After we ordered our desserts, they bought out a sticky toffee pudding for Ann with a candle and Happy Birthday written in chocolate sauce. We had forgotten that we told them we were celebrating a birthday, so now Ann had two desserts. She didn’t mind. Everything tasted wonderful.

At St. Raphael, we had the same room as before, called The Bars. There was a nice large fan on a rotating stand in the room that we don’t remember seeing during our first stay. We were grateful it was there, because the temperatures were much warmer this time and we needed the fan to stay cool enough to sleep.

Saturday, we visited the National Railway Museum. The museum is free to visit, but they accept donations, with a suggested amount of 5 GBP. Even though we don’t normally visit many museums, we spent a few hours there, although part of that time was sitting down for a couple of cold drinks, then again to eat a light lunch at the cafe inside the museum. It was a hot day outside and we were hoping to spend the heat of the day inside air conditioning, but the museum was pretty warm inside.

The National Railway Museum is large, with thousands of artifacts and hundreds of trains on display, showing the history and engineering of railways. We didn’t see everything, even just skimming the exhibits. We visited the Great Hall and the North Shed. The Station Hall was closed as part of their multi-year construction project. The Station Hall is scheduled to reopen in September. The Central Hall and Museum Square are expected to open in 2027. The Wonder Lab was open, but there is an entry fee. It is an interactive area that looks like it is geared towards children, so we didn’t enter.

There is also a Flying Scotsman VR Experience, which also costs money so we did not do that either. The Flying Scotsman is an A1 steam locomotive that originally went into service in 1923. It was the first locomotive to reach 100 mph in the United Kingdom. The locomotive was restored from 2006 to 2016. The Flying Scotsman travels around for different events during the year. It is at the museum occasionally for maintenance, repairs, and storage. The Flying Scotsman was not there when we were at the museum. It was scheduled to run services between Bishops Lydeard and Minehead on the West Somerset Railway starting on June 28th (Flying Scotsman Events).

After leaving the museum, we went searching for better reading glasses for Ann. We went into two optometrist stores. One didn’t sell reading glasses at all and the other informed us that variable focus reading glasses can only be made to a prescription, which takes days to have made. Instead, Ann ordered a pair online through Amazon and had them delivered to our home back in Colorado. Our daughter will bring them over as she is joining us in London on Tuesday.

On the way back to the guest house, we stopped at an ice cream food truck, Yorkvale Ice Cream, for a treat. Ann had a predictable scoop of mint chocolate chip with a scoop of double chocolate chip. Keith had vanilla with caramel honeycomb. The cones were refreshing on a hot day.

We hung out in our room until dinner. The large fan kept us comfortable. For dinner, we went back to the Original Shawarma. We went there during our first visit to York. This time we got the shawarma wraps instead of the plates, because it was a little too much food last time. However, we each got a side of chips (fries). It was a perfect amount of food this time.

That evening, we attended the Verdi: Requiem at the York Minster, performed by the York Musical Society chorus and orchestra. The acoustics inside the cathedral were phenomenal. However, sitting on the wooden chairs for 90 minutes without a break was a little uncomfortable.

Sunday was a relaxing day. We had big cities coming up next on our itinerary, London and Amsterdam, so we wanted to enjoy some peaceful walks before then to balance things out. We joined the locals and strolled along the River Ouse. We started by walking through the Museum Gardens. There is no access to the river between Station Road bridge and Bridge Street, so we followed the road that ran parallel to it, which is a shopping street that changed from Lendal, to Coney Street, to Spurriergate. At Bridge Street, we joined the South Esplanade along the river. When it crossed the River Foss, the path became the New Walk, still following alongside the River Ouse. When we reached the Millennium Fields, we crossed the river on the Millennium pedestrian bridge to Rowntree Park. Locals were enjoying the park, playing tennis, basketball, and cricket. Children were playing on the playgrounds.

We stopped at the Rowntree Park Reading Cafe for lunch, sitting at an outside table overlooking a pond filled with ducks and swans. There were even three gray cygnets, already about half the size of the adult swans.

Ann had the reuben while Keith ordered the roasted vegetable soup. The food was fine, but the views and people watching were better.

From the cafe, we continued along the west side of the river to Skeldergate Bridge, where we crossed back over to the east side of the river. We checked out Clifford’s Tower and the York Castle Museum from the outside. We didn’t feel like paying the admission to go inside either one. We’re not big museum people and the hours we spent inside the Railroad Museum the day before will do us for a while. You can walk up the hill to the base of the Clifford’s Tower for free, but we didn’t even do that. The current building at Clifford’s Tower was built during the 13th century by King Henry III. The York Castle Museum portrays everyday life from the past.

From there, we strolled by Fairfax House and the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall, admiring them from the outside. The Fairfax House is a richly decorated historic townhouse. The interior was designed in the 1760’s. The Merchant Adventurers’ Hall was constructed during the 14th century as a guild house for charity, worship, and business.

We wandered around the streets of the old town some more before ending up at the Vanilla Cafe on the east side of York Minster for a couple of drinks. We enjoyed people watching while we sat there at an outside table. Then we headed back to our room.

For dinner, we walked back to the Hole in the Wall pub for a Sunday Roast. We’ve had a Sunday roast before, back in Dartmoor National Park. This time, we had a choice of roast beef, chicken, or turkey. Keith chose chicken while Ann had the roast beef. The chicken was half a chicken along with a pig in a blanket, which was a sausage wrapped in bacon. Along with the meat, there was mashed potatoes, roasted potatoes, seasonal vegetables, gravy, and, of course, Yorkshire pudding. Yorkshire pudding, which is similar to a popover, is the essential part of every Sunday Roast. Having two types of potatoes always seems redundant to us, but is common here in Britain and Ireland. Our generous portions of vegetables consisted of carrots, broccoli, and red cabbage. Keith thought his chicken was a little dry, but was fine with a little extra gravy from Ann’s serving. Ann enjoyed her roast beef, although she prefers her roast beef more on the rare side and this was well done. Overall, it was a very satisfying and filling meal.

Later that evening, Keith went to a concert in St. Olave’s Church not far from the St. Raphael Guest House. The concert was performed by the Academy of St. Olave’s chamber orchestra. They performed classical pieces by Mozart, David Baker, Shostakovich, and Beethoven. Ann decided to stay back in our room and work on a video. She’s not a big fan of classical music and had her fill from the concert the evening before. We are with each other 24 hours, seven days a week. It is nice sometimes to separate now and then to do our own things. Keith enjoyed the St. Olave’s concert better than the Verdi: Requiem the night before, as the music selection was more to his liking.

Monday was another laid back day in York. We started by climbing the tower of the York Minster. Our York Minster tickets from our first visit were still valid, as they are good for a whole year. That got us inside the cathedral again, but we needed to buy additional tickets, 6 GBP per person, to climb the tower. They send a group up every 45 minutes as the spiral stairs are too narrow to allow two-way traffic.

It is 275 steps to the top. A little less than half way up, you switch stair wells. To get to the second stairwell, the one actually inside the central tower, you walk outside along the roof line, with wonderful views. At the top of the tower, you can walk the perimeter of the square tower. There is a metal cage that surrounds the walkway, protecting people from lightening strikes and loosing their hats in the wind. Don’t worry, there are openings in the metal mesh at regular intervals to allow for unobstructed pictures. The views out across the city and the surrounding area are wonderful. Interpretative signs point out some of the points of interest.

From there, we stopped by the Treasurer’s House to see if we could go on a tour. Since we were National Trust members, the tour was free. It looked like there were plenty of openings the rest of the day. Since it was close to lunchtime, we decided to go eat lunch first.

As we were walking around town, we noticed small glass balls embedded in the sidewalk. A little internet searching provided the answer. The tiny orbs were part of what was called York Breadcrumbs. There was a children’s book with four stories that related to the walking trail around town. After sunset, children would use a flashlight (torch) to follow the white beads, which reflected the light. A blue bead would indicate that they reached a point of interest, like the York Minster. How cool is that? Unfortunately, the book is no longer sold. (Breadcrumbs Trails - a treasure hunt from York’s past).

We walked over to the German Doner Kebab place. We had seen it in several cities so far on our trip and wanted to check them out. We lived in Germany for a couple of years, several decades ago, and doner kebab stands are quite popular there. Ann got the original with a mixture of chicken and beef along with fries and garlic dipping sauce. Keith ordered the box with chicken, curry fries, and yogurt dipping sauce. A doner kebab is a German version of a gyro. Ann’s version was the traditional one inside a pita bread with the normal fixings of tomato and cabbage. The box just contained the meat. The food was pretty good considering it was a fast food chain. But given the choice between the chain and an independent doner stand, we would choose the independent stand every time.

Then we headed back to the Treasurer’s House. Although the York Minster Treasurer used to live in a house on this site, the current building never had a treasurer living in it. After the Reformation of the English Church, the treasurer’s house was rebuilt and subdivided into five homes. Frank Green bought three of the homes in 1897 and turned them into a grand house for himself. Frank Green obtained his wealth through his grandfather, Edward Green, who invented a fuel economizer in 1845, which was successful worldwide during the 19th and 20th centuries. The Greens Power company still exists today.

The hour long tour was interesting, as Frank Green loved to entertain and decorated his home accordingly, with expensive pieces. One of the ladies in our tour group was the daughter of a man who worked in Green’s factory in Wakefield. It’s always nice when connections are found to the past.

After our tour, we stopped at the cafe in the basement of the house for a couple of drinks to refresh us. Then we headed down to the River Ouse, to walk alongside it in the opposite direction from the day before, towards the north. We continued to just past the Water End Bridge, at the Clifton Ings spillway. Most of the walk was along green space and parks. We passed by St. Peters School Boathouse, where scullers were pulling their boats out of the river. In a nearby field, others were playing cricket. It was a very peaceful walk.

Back in town, we went on the search for a light dinner, with vegetables. We ended up at the Golden Lion Pub, since there was a main garden salad on their menu. We both ordered it, but Ann added halloumi (a type of cheese) to hers. To drink, Keith had a pint of Abbot Ale from Greene King brewery in Bury St. Edmonds while Ann had the berries and cherries cider from Old Mout. The salad was rocket (arugula) with about five thin slices of cucumber, half a dozen quarter-inch cubes of pickled watermelon, five small pieces of spring onion (green onions), and about half a dozen large pieces of potatoes. We would have preferred larger amounts of the vegetables and no potatoes on our salad. Since the salads weren’t very satisfying, Ann then ordered a side of sweet potato fries while Keith had the lemon tart.

York was a very comfortable size of city for us. It was small enough to feel like it had a more relaxed pace instead of the hustle and bustle of a large city. But it was large enough to have some interesting things to see and do, as well as plenty of open spaces and parks to relax and stroll through. We had a very enjoyable and relaxing time. Now we were ready to face London next.

Check out our related video: York, England

(Ann)