We climbed the 75 steps to the central tower for a stunning view of York and the surrounding area. The picture above is the ruins of St. Mary's church which we got close to as our day ended. There were 275
steps in a winding staircase. You can see my feet looking down towards Caroline. If you had claustrophobia or were very large, or out of shape, this would now have been an activity to undertake. As it was, we got some exercise. It was only 200 vertical feet, so I knew (from mountain hiking) that it wasn't that daunting of a hike.
The views from the top were amazing. On thing that amazes me about gothic cathedrals is the craftsmanship
on the top of the cathedral, where virtually no one could see it and appreciate it. The Craftsmen worked for the glory of God and it didn't matter who, if anyone, saw it.
A view from the top.
After the tower, we had a nice lunch at a tea room. Then we walked a portion of the medieval wall
that was built around the city. The entire wall is more than 2 mile around. It must be 20 feet high, and about 3-6 feet wide depending on where you are. By the way, the iron railing is not medieval <grin>. Caroline is sitting in one of the regular cutouts along the wall.
Pretty impressive.
We found a sports bar (perhaps sports pub is a better description) where we caught the last 10 km of the penultimate stage of the Tour de France on Mount Ventoux. It was a great stage. Alberto Contador held off the attacks of Andy Schleck and Lance Armstrong finished only a few seconds behind them and a few seconds ahead of Frank Schleck securing his third place finish. That is, in my opinion, an amazing feat for Lance. There was a big horse race in York going on and every TV in the room was tuned to the race except ours. In the US it would have been baseball on the TV I suppose instead of horse racing.
