York, England

Happy anniversary to us!!! 43 years!!

The day started overcast…we walked into the city center towards the York Minster cathedral.
 

Passed a few buildings I don’t think we’d seen before.

The main entrance to the cathedral.   

We signed up for a timeslot right away to climb the 275 steps to the top of one of the towers. It was a narrow stone stairway.

The staircase opened after about 100 steps onto an intermediate rooftop for some up close views.

Then it was trudging up the remaining narrowing stairs.

The views from the windy rooftop were spectacular!

Then it was time to head back down.  Much easier, haha. 

Then we just checked out the interior of the cathedral.

Hugh amount of history from Roman times to the present.  Still is an active Church of England building. 

Amazing detail and architecture. 

After several hours learning all about the history, walked back along the River. 

And then along the City wall since there was no street crossing or traffic!

We went to our new favorite little diner/pub for lunch.  We noticed that it was really crowded and the majority of people had suits/ties on…Strange because we hadn’t seen that before.  Our American accents had the fellow at the next table chatting with us.  He was also nicely outfitted in a suit/tie.  Eventually he happened to tell us that he was in York for the horse races.  We wished him good luck with his bets as he departed.  Intrigued, we looked it up-today was the first day of racing for the year at the York Racetrack. And attendance in the stand has a strictly enforced dress code!  That explains all the suits and dresses!

The track is only 1.2 miles from the pub, so we decided to check it out!  When we got to the track, it was clear that we weren’t going to pay to get in. (They did have an office offering coats & ties for loan!!!). As we walked along, one of the nice stewards told us that we could just walk to the end of the viewing stands and we could watch the race for free!  So of course that’s what we did!!

Our spot on the rail was just perfect!  The horses cantered by on their way to the starting gate. 

And soon it was the starting bell. 

Even though we weren’t at the finish line it was a cool thing to watch for a couple of races.