Ideas for two days in York please

[anditwasallgoingsowell]

There is obviously loads to see, but we will only have two full days. We'll be arriving late Friday night and will have to leave early Sunday evening.

DC are 12 & 9

We were thinking
A walk round the walls
The Shambles
York Minster ( not sure we would do an actual tour of this, kids aren't overly enthusiastic about seeing it!)

Clifford's Tower (have English Heritage passes so might as well)

I was looking at Castle Museum / Jorvik - is it worth doing both? Jorvik seems quite mixed on reviews.

Also wondering if anyone had been to the dungeons. How scary is it? Does anything jump out? Or should we maybe look at a ghost walk for the Saturday night instead.

Any other ideas would be great. Thank you.

Just a hopeful bump?

Hi I live in York. would definitely recommend the city walls and the Minster , you can go to the top . I think the dungeons are a bit scary . The castle museum is fun , Clifford's tower is amazing but you can just walk to the top of the steps and back down ( the tricky part ) . There is a great trampoline park about 3 miles out of York for the kids . Hope you like it 🙂

The railway museum is great fun and not boring at all. We love it and we're not train people if that makes sense.

Dungeons is a bit naff, ghost walk is better. I thought Jorvik was still shut but maybe its reopened.

If you walk round the walls then use this www.yorkwalls.org.uk/?page_id=3690 kids like to find the masons marks - bit like Hidden Mickey's only older.

When are you going? If youre lucky, you'll be there at the festival of ideas - that's just brilliant www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2017/events/festival-of-ideas-2017/

Jorvik is open and crazy busy. Escape rooms are fun, agree ghost walk is good. Prefer railway museum to castle museum.

The railway museum is fab. Minster is interesting if that is your sort of thing. Walk around the walls is nice as are the Shambles. I've not been to the Jorvik centre yet

Another vote for the railway museum, can't believe it's free! We enjoyed the York chocolate story although not cheap, and the York castle museum - the Victorian streets part is really well done. The minster is lovely but I didn't think it was worth the price to go in. It's a lovely city, you'll walk your feet off!

If you're doing the castle museum, have a look at the annual pass thingy which gives access to the Yorkshire museum (good compact museum I think with a new Viking exhibition at the moment) and art gallery. Boat trips on river can be nice and you can drive yourself on red boats.

If kids are into history DIG can be good, getting to give being an archaeologist a go 😃. There's also a lucky cat trail (www.yorkluckycats.co.uk/york-cat-trail/) takes you down some less known streets and gets you to look at the surrounding buildings in a way you don't always manage when walking around a city.
It's a lovely city to spend some time in. Have a super weekend x

Go to Betty's for either morning snack (great breakfasts) or afternoon tea. It's a proper tea room.

My best ever tip from my home city is whenever you see an alley (a snickleway) just go down it. Some of them lead to the most amazing places. They're just gaps between ordinary shops etc but some go to beautiful churches or medieval sites (some of em lead to the bins tho )

Maybe you have already been?

I can second (third/fourth?) the railway museum. We are not necessarily train enthusiasts but went there 2 or 3 years ago and loved it. Very interesting.

Ghost tours are a great laugh too.

Somewhere we have a book on the Snickleways of York which you can use to do a quirky and interesting walk. I always enjoy the Castle Museum but you might not have time for all the museums. Personally wouldn't bother with Clifford's Tower