York is the county town of Yorkshire, like Chester (one of our previous stops) it is a walled city, at the meeting of rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. In 2011 the population of York was 198,051.
York grew with chocolate industries and railways as the main contractors, being the birthplace to brands such as KitKat and Yorkie bars, and having factories such as Nestle, which also grew here, being current contractors. Also, for it's location, it grew as a river port, receiving great traffic and transporting products.
York hosts the biggest Food and Drink Festival in the UK, attracting over 150.000 people over the course of 10 days
We arrive in York, the city of ghosts and KitKat (according to our online sources), and the birth place of notorious Guy Fawkes. York is most famous for being a major chocolate manufacturer, place to many chocolate brands now acquired by Nestlé, one of the most important manufacturers is Rowntree, which created the KitKat, along with many other brands.
Presumably, one of the most important stops here in York is Minster Cathedral, the largest Gothic Cathedral in North England. We learned that the Cathedral was built over 3 other churches and was severely damaged and recovered at least five times (a common occurrence with European cathedrals); once in a fire in 741, damaged by William the Conqueror in 1069, destroyed by the Danes (a Germanic tribe) in 1075 and again by fire in 1137 and 1984. It was also expanded and remodeled numerous times.
Entering the cathedral we are welcomed by original statues, faces and gargoyles, each with a different expression, going from silly to macabre. We are also very surprised by the height of the place, it's like there is no ceiling at all! Next we see the Great Window, the largest medieval age tempered glass window in existence. We also appreciate the misericords and the naves of the cathedral. Unfortunately the access to the crypts was closed at the time we arrived, but the beauty of York's main cathedral is satisfying enough.
We heard about the involvement of George Hudson's York and North Midland Railway with the development of the city and decided to visit the award winning Nation Railway Museum and use this opportunity to also visit the Air Museum in York. Railway Museum, as the name suggests, is a museum which tells the story of rail transport in England, it holds the national collection of significant railway vehicles, pictures and written records as well as a few imported locomotives (mostly asian). It houses over 400 items, circa 100 of them being locomotives, (including the "Flying Scotsman" the fastest locomotive in the world) and over 300 items of rolling stock, although there are many hundreds of thousands of other objects and records. It was established in 1975 and it is believed that it is the largest museum of it's type in England and the second in the world. it has won many awards including European Museum of the Year in 2001. It's collection is vast. In Elvington, York, we visited Yorkshire Air Museum, the only memorial to allied air forces in Europe. It is an independent museum opened in 1980, it's main focus is in education and the history of flight. We discovered that it houses over 60 aircraft, 20 historic vehicles and 250.000 artifacts and most of the staff are volunteers. On the museum's walls we notice many awards, we see that it has won: Top Specialist Attraction in UK - 2011 & 2015; Top Attraction in Yorkshire, Press Top Tourism Business; York Top Marketing Award and Winalot Top Dog Friendly Museum in UK. http://yorkshireairmuseum.org/exhibits/
We heard rumors about York's Central Library and went there to investigate. We couldn't find any evidence proving that it was indeed the first public library in the world, nor did it's establishment amuse us, we got a quick read from it's collection anyway, 1984 by George Orwell, and quickly left.
Our visit to York is almost over, we spend our last day getting to know the city''s nature, walking around the 6 Stray parks in York: Bootham Stray, Micklegate Stray, Knavesmire,Hob Moor) Monk Stray and Walmgate Stray. Together these parks contain over 800 acres (3.2 km2) of land, York Racecourse, animal population such as cows and cradle, statues, university buildings, a sight to Yorks Cemetery and a plaque to Joseph Rowntree, who as we already know, founded Rowntrees chocolate factory.
We are are expecting to spend some time at England's beaches, something we haven't done yet. Hopefully Whitby has beaches!
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