Walled city of the Minster and the Shambles.
Open accessNational Trust land — free to wander
York packs an astonishing amount inside its walls. The Minster, one of the largest medieval cathedrals in northern Europe, rises over a tangle of streets that includes the Shambles, a lane of timbered shopfronts leaning so far they nearly meet overhead. You can walk almost the whole two-mile circuit of the city walls for rooftop views, wander the Museum Gardens down by the Ouse, and lose an afternoon in the Jorvik Viking Centre or the National Railway Museum. The station is just outside the walls.
