Clifford's Tower, the keep of York Castle
York was once a walled city. The walls are still up today which you can walk around. There are 2.5 miles of wall in total which encircle the city. Here is the history of the city walls.
This area in York is called the Shambles. The shambles is a term for an open air slaughterhouse and meat market. In the late 1800's it was still filled with butcher shops which have all disappeared and are now replaced by cute boutique stores.
It reminded us of Diagon Alley from Harry Potter
Christmas Decorations around York
For Christmas Eve Church Service we went to York Minster. It is the second largest Gothic Church in Northern Europe. It is the seat of the Archbishop of York who is the second highest office in the church of England. You can see the spires in the background of this picture coming through the mist.
York Minster
It was very crowded in the cathedral, around 4000 people, so we got to sit in the carols section of the church. These are the wooden boxes in the nave. It was pretty cool to be sitting in this section. We couldn't see the choir or the people giving the readings but we could hear it, which is all that we needed.
The view from where we are sitting in our wooden box pews.
After the service we took pictures of the church, which would have been been beautiful in the daytime, with the sun coming through all of the windows. It was very cold in the church, around 50 degrees.
The view from outside the church at night.
Even though we would have loved to spend our Christmas with our families, we had a really nice and relaxing Christmas. Plus Kit's parents are here right now so we do have family with us for a week!
We loved York and wished some of the museums would have been open to visit, maybe if we go back. We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!
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