We arrived in York after a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Bakewell, with part of the route running through some genuinely beautiful Peak District scenery. York is a different kind of city from Oxford and the Cotswolds villages we’d just left.
It’s bigger, louder in places, and layered with Roman, Viking, and medieval history all stacked on top of each other. It’s the kind of place where you can turn a corner from a Harry-Potter-themed shop straight into a nine-hundred-year-old church with a genuinely important piece of LGBT history attached to it.
If you’re road-tripping through northern England and wondering how much time York deserves, the answer is at least two full days, and even then, we left one major sight unseen that we now wish we’d made time for.
For all the places we talk about in this post, they are here on this Google Map: York.
Where to Stay in York
We stayed at the Premier Inn in York, which did exactly what we needed it to: reliable, comfortable, reasonably priced, and close enough to walk into the centre. If you want a no-surprises base without overthinking it, a Premier Inn is a solid, practical choice, and York has more than one location, so check which is closest to the sights you care about most before booking.
That said, if you want something with a bit more character or you’re looking to splurge, York has options at every level:
- Judges Lodging — a Georgian townhouse hotel overlooking York Minster, if you want boutique charm within a few minutes’ walk of the Shambles.
- The Milner York (formerly the Principal)– a 4-star hotel that our friends Julie and Ann stayed in and raved about! The location was right next to the train station and an easy walk into the city centre.
- Holiday Inn York City Centre — inside the city walls, close to Jorvik and the Shambles, a reliable pick for families.
- The Grand, York — Yorkshire’s only 5-star hotel, with a spa on site, if you want to turn your York stop into a proper treat-yourself stay.
Wherever you land, aim to stay inside or just outside the walls — everything on this list is walkable from a central base, and York rewards not having to drive anywhere once you’ve arrived.
The Shambles: York’s Most Photographed Street
The Shambles was the first thing on our list, and it’s easy to see why it’s the street everyone photographs. The overhanging timber buildings lean so far toward each other that in places you could almost touch both sides at once, and the whole lane has leaned hard into its Harry Potter associations; themed shops line the street, whether or not you’re a fan.
We stopped at the York Tea Room for a proper afternoon tea, and grabbed a slice at The Market Kat, which does genuinely great pizza if you need a break from pub food.
A word of warning: if you walk past the Potions Cauldron shop and get tempted by the butterbeer, know what you’re ordering. The performance that comes with it is entertaining — the staff put on a proper show — but the drink itself isn’t worth the hype. If you’re going to order it anyway, spend the extra £3 on the whisky shot add-in. It’s a better use of your money than the butterbeer alone.
Jorvik Viking Centre: The Museum That Surprised Us
We went in expecting a fairly standard museum experience and came out genuinely impressed.
Jorvik is built directly on top of the Coppergate dig, one of the most important urban archaeological excavations in Britain. Between 1976 and 1981, archaeologists uncovered around 40,000 individual objects and traced roughly nine metres of layered history on the site, thanks to waterlogged soil conditions that preserved timber, textiles, and leather that would normally have rotted away centuries ago.
The centre uses that excavation as the basis for an immersive ride through a reconstructed Viking-age street, complete with sounds, smells, and animatronic residents (some of them voiced in Old Norse by University of York students, which is a nice touch if you know to listen for it). There were times when we couldn’t figure out if it was a robot or a real person!
It’s not subtle, and it’s not meant to be, but it is rooted in real archaeology, and the artefact gallery afterwards, where you see genuine finds from the dig, ties the whole experience together. Budget at least an hour, and don’t skip the artefact room on your way out.
Hop-On Hop-Off Bus: Worth It for Orientation
We’re hop-on hop-off people, mainly because it helps us get oriented to the city. The commentary is genuinely informative, and since York is compact enough to walk but sprawling enough in its history that it helps to have context, we ended up doing most of the full route. It’s a good option for your first few hours in the city, before you decide where to spend your time on foot.
We took the Golden Tours Hop-on Hop-off because it was located right up from our hotel.
York Minster: The One We Regret Skipping
We didn’t go inside York Minster, and looking back, that was a mistake — one we want to flag clearly so you don’t make the same one.
York Minster is one of the largest Gothic cathedrals in northern Europe, built on the site of a Roman military headquarters (you can see Roman remains beneath the current building). Construction on the current cathedral began in 1220 under Archbishop Walter de Gray and wasn’t finished until 1472, around 250 years of building.
It holds more medieval stained glass than any other church in Britain, including the Great East Window, which is roughly the size of a tennis court and is the largest surviving expanse of medieval stained glass anywhere. The Five Sisters Window, a rare surviving example of 13th-century grisaille glass, is now dedicated as a memorial to women of the British Empire who died in the First World War, the only memorial of its kind in the country.
You can also climb the central tower for views over the city, or visit the undercroft to see the Roman and Norman remains beneath the Minster. If we go back to York, this is the first thing on the list.
Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate: A Quiet Piece of History
Tucked away from the main tourist path, Holy Trinity Church on Goodramgate is a small, atmospheric medieval church that’s easy to walk past without knowing its significance.
On Easter Sunday in 1834, Anne Lister and her partner Ann Walker took communion together here as a way of sealing their union, a relationship the two women considered a marriage, decades before anything like legal recognition existed.
The church now carries a rainbow plaque marking the occasion, and it’s recognised as one of the earliest documented same-sex unions in British history.
It’s a small, quiet stop, but a genuinely moving one if you take a few minutes to read the plaque and sit with the history of the place.
Walk the City Walls
York’s medieval city walls are some of the longest and best-preserved in England, and walking even a section of them is one of the best free things to do in the city. We walked the stretch from Monk Bar to Layerthorpe, and timed it well enough to catch a genuinely beautiful sunset over the city.
You don’t need to walk the entire loop to get the payoff; even one section gives you a completely different perspective on York’s layout and its medieval gates (called “bars” here, confusingly for anyone expecting an actual pub).
Pubs, Churches, and a Haunted Bar
York claims to have as many pubs as there are days in the year, and almost as many churches as Sundays — and walking around, it’s easy to believe both. We spent an evening at the Black Swan, a genuinely atmospheric pub with a reputation for being haunted. It’s worth a visit for the atmosphere alone.
If you are interested in York’s haunted side, there is a great “Deathly Dark Ghost Tour” that takes you to many haunted places and shares great stories.
Where We Ate
York’s food scene runs heavy on pub classics, which is great if that’s what you’re after, but we found a few standouts worth specifically seeking out:
- Red Goat Climbing Wall Cafe — good pastries and coffee, conveniently located near the Premier Inn if you’re staying centrally
- Côte York — solid French food if you want a break from pub fare
- The Fat Badger — more ambitious than your average pub kitchen
- Kalpakavadi — excellent South Indian food, recommended to us by the bartender at the Black Swan, and one of the best meals we had in York
What We’d Do Differently
Go into York Minster. This is the big one. We treated it as a photo backdrop from the outside and missed one of the most significant cathedrals in England.
Look for the Yorkshire Museum’s Viking finds if Jorvik leaves you wanting more archaeology — several of the most significant Coppergate discoveries, including the York Helmet, are held there rather than at Jorvik itself.
Pace the Shambles for early morning or evening. It’s genuinely lovely, but it gets crowded fast in the middle of the day.
Don’t order the butterbeer expecting much beyond the show.
Practical Tips for Visiting York
- Getting there: York is well connected by train and is 1 hour and 45 minutes from London. Buy your tickets here. If you’re road-tripping, it’s roughly 2.5 hours from Bakewell and the Peak District, or about an hour from Leeds.
- Getting around: The city centre is compact and walkable once you’re inside the walls. The hop-on hop-off bus is a good option for orientation on your first day.
- Best time to visit: York works well year-round, but a clear evening is worth planning around for the city walls walk and sunset. We were there in May, and the weather was chilly, but not cold.
- How long do you need: Two full days lets you cover the Shambles, Jorvik, the Minster, and at least one section of the walls without rushing. Add a third day if you want to properly explore the Yorkshire Museum or take a longer walk of the full wall loop.
A Quick York Itinerary (2 Days)
Day 1:
- Morning: Hop-on hop-off bus for orientation
- Midday: Walk the Shambles, lunch at The Market Kat or the York Tea Room
- Afternoon: Jorvik Viking Centre
- Evening: Drinks at the Black Swan, dinner at Kalpakavadi
Day 2:
- Morning: York Minster (don’t skip it — climb the tower if the weather’s good)
- Midday: Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, then browse nearby shops
- Afternoon: Walk a section of the city walls — Monk Bar to Layerthorpe is a good stretch
- Evening: Dinner at The Fat Badger or Côte York, sunset from the walls if you timed it right
York gave us a completely different texture from the rest of this road trip — less postcard-pretty, more layered and lived-in, with history stacked up in a way that’s hard to take in during one visit fully. We’ll be back for the Minster if nothing else.
Have you been to York? Did you make it into the Minster? Tell us what we missed in the comments.
Don’t Miss the Rest of the England Road Trip
This is the fourth stop on our full England road trip series. Catch up on Oxford and the Cotswolds if you missed them, and stay tuned for Bakewell, Haddon Hall, and our overnight stop in Corbridge before heading north into Scotland. Want each post and episode delivered straight to your inbox? Join our newsletter.
If you love what we do, please consider a donation or just buy us a gin and tonic!
Shelley is a full-time traveler, writer, and podcaster based in Portugal, where she lives with her wife and their beloved bulldog, Scoot. Originally from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Shelley is a former history teacher who swapped the classroom for cobblestone streets and passport stamps. These days, she explores Portugal and Europe in search of fascinating stories, unforgettable sights, and local flavor—then shares it all through her blog and podcast, Wandering Works for Us, where curiosity meets adventure (and sometimes wine).