From Vikings to Bettys teas
There's just too much to choose from in York, discovers Richard McComb...
Life is full of tricky decisions and a visit to York is no exception.
Do you, for example, go there for spiritual renewal, or blood-curdling terror? Chocolate roulade, or an ice cream sundae? The steam room, or the sauna?
All these tough challenges were bravely endured during our highly enjoyable two-night family break.
With York being York, it is impossible to do everything in a relatively short period of time so we took the discerning cheats' way out and did just what we fancied. It turned out to be a winning formula, ensuring both adult satisfaction and child pleasure.
There can't be many places where you can see a Viking having a poo but the JORVIK centre is one of them. The attraction has become one of the city's must-see places.
The ride back through time, with visitors transported back into the York of more than 1,000 years ago, is terrific fun. Elevated pods sweep seated sightseers through recreations of Viking Age streets, festering with human life (and waste), and providing an insight into the birth of burgeoning trade markets and cramped urban living.
At the end of the ride, there is a stark reminder of the violent conflicts that once punctuated everyday life. A series of cracked skulls, reclaimed from the mud and filth under modern-day York, illustrates the uses to which a clumpy great sword can be put. It's grisly, but fascinating.
And so from terror to horror. Our two daughters insisted they were tough enough to cope with the spookiness of the York Dungeons; and so they were - right up until the moment we moved passed the ticket office and stepped tentatively inside this "living dead" of a museum.
I won't give too much away, but it is not without foundation that the management warn people with heart conditions to proceed with extreme caution.
Those with a taste for the macabre will enjoy the re-creation of the little plague girl who was bricked up behind a wall by her loving parents. And the 14th century plague doctor's larger-than-life assistant is a marvel. Just don't look in his eyes.
From an educational perspective, the dungeons give an atmospheric visual account of the exploits of the city's most famous son, Guy Fawkes. Then it's time to attend the hanging of highwayman Dick Turpin at the gallows.
After so much hellfire and damnation, we were in need of spiritual cleansing. So after nipping into the National Trust tea shop, we headed towards the main reason why people having been coming to York for centuries: the Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of St Peter in York, better known as York Minster.
The largest Gothic cathedral in northern Europe, the Minster as seen today bears no resemblance to the original building, which was built out of wood in 627AD to baptise King Edwin, King of Northumbria.
In fact, chapels have been built and demolished over the years and the building has been ravaged by three large fires, the last in 1984 being caused by a bolt of lightning which devastated the roof of the south transept and shattered the famous rose window.
King Edwin's successor, Oswald, finished the construction of a stone church to enclose the first wooden building, and dedicated it to St Peter.
Work on the modern-day minster was started in 1220 by Archbishop Walter de Grey, with a view to rebuilding the Norman Minster on a scale to rival Canterbury. Work was not completed until 1472.
Builders have a reputation for dragging out jobs and 250 years is a long time for a project by any stretch of the imagination. But as soon as you see the minster's great presence rearing up over the city's tiled rooftops it is clear that it was worth the wait.
Walk inside the cavernous building and you can't help but marvel and be touched by the overwhelming aura of peace.
Astonishingly, York Minster gets neither government nor Church of England cash for maintenance and parishioners will be looking for some divine intervention if the Dean and Chapter is to reach its new fundraising target of £30 million, the bulk of which is needed for restoration of the East Front and Great East Window.
Some people pray for the life everlasting, but for other people heaven means only one thing: shopping. How fitting then that just outside the minster's precincts should lie the glittering temptations of Mammon.
To its great credit, York has a range of independent and designer shops in addition to the ubiquitous multiples. Sadly, there is no escaping Starbucks but York fights back by offering the delights of hand-crafted chocolates, antiques, jewellery, posh frock shops and hip clothes for the bright young things of the county set.
After a day pounding the streets, York has a vast array of places to re-fuel.
But if you go to York, you'd be a fool not to drop into Bettys tea rooms. You know it has got to be good because people queue to get in. Waiting in line, gawping at the mouth-watering pastries and cakes, then being led to a table by the vintage maitre d' is part of the experience.
The gentle ching of silver spoons on bone china accompanied the cocktail pianist as we feasted on dishes of chicken, pasta and Bettys haddock and chips.
Then it was the main event - the puds.
Ice cream sundaes with fresh blueberries, raspberries and crushed meringue, chocolate roulade, chocolate mousse with vanilla ice cream and warm chocolate sauce - perfection on a plate.
Like all good things, you leave Bettys - and York - wanting more.
