York

I had a 2-day work visit to York in the UK last thursday and Friday. One of the nice things about this is I had only really thought of this in terms of the work I needed to do, so was pleasantly surprised at how lovely York is! 2 colleagues and I flew into Leeds-Bradford airport and had a 1 hr drive through the countryside to York.

It’s the middle of Spring here, the English gardens were in bloom - cherry blossoms everywhere, and little lambs and calves chewing on the new grass. Everything is so green at the moment. I know there has been some much-needed rain in Oz lately (at least in VIC), but the countryside surrounding York was still unlike anything I've seen in Oz for a very long time.We completed our workday and I had a couple of hours spare, and so with minimal time I was looking for the maximum bang for my sightseeing buck, so I jumped onto a double-decker bus touring around the city with a commentary on all the sites.

I'm no historian, but can tell you that York (formerly Eboracum) was a bustling walled Roman city, and was later invaded by Vikings, so there are many Norwegian links. In fact the name York comes from 'Jorvik' - the viking's name for the city. The tour was very interesting - I learned where the term 'daylight robbery' comes from - in 1696, William III of England introduced a type of property tax that required owners of houses with more than six windows to pay a levy. This tax apparently persisted up for over 150 years until 1851. Those that didn't pay the tax had their windows bricked up! You can still see the bricked up windows on quite a lot of old buildings today.One of the highlights of the city is the amazing Minster, a beautiful cathedral whose towers are the highest building in the city. Spectacular. Here are some photos. Not the best quality as they were taken with my phone, but you get the idea!