Best free views in York
What with the crap weather and generally not being around at weekends, I haven't been into York city centre in a while, despite living only 10 minutes away. Today I quite fancied mooching around with my sightseeing hat on (also needed to calm down after a little incident on the M62 yesterday, terminating an otherwise excellent weekend with Lord Ross in Manchester...)
The good thing about York is that most of the best sights are at street level. But there are some places worth investigating that offer quite spectacular views of the city from higher up; being a miser, I object to paying for my views, so all of these are also free:
Viking Hotel
The 1970s monstrosity that is the 'Park Inn' (Viking) Hotel has one redeeming feature - the view. Walk nonchalantly through the main entrance, get in a lift, ascend to the 8th floor and then check out the panorama. There's some renovation work going on a the moment, so the view is somewhat obscured by scaffolding; but well worth the visit anyway. The view above is a composite of two photos, showing the River Ouse, City Screen, the Guildhall, Lendal Bridge and the Minster.
Marks and Spencer
Believe it or not, take the escalator to the top floor in the Pavement branch of M&S, walk to the back wall, and you'll see an amazing view looking north over Newgate market towards St Samson's church and the Minster.
The walls
Obvious I know, but walking the walls affords some quality views of the city - and it's totally free. The best section IMHO is the stretch between Gillygate and Goodramgate bars (above), as it arcs around the edge of the Minster precinct.
Clifford's Tower
It costs to get into Clifford's Tower, but if you have the bottle to climb over the railings at the top of the flight of stairs, and ignore the 'keep off the bank' signs, then you'll get a pretty good 360deg view of the southern part of the city centre, without having to pay a cent. The not-very-inspiring view above shows the carpark (should've been a park) and Fairfax House. And a Nissan 350z convertible.
Posted by monoman at 09:16 PM on August 25, 2008
