DAY 22: YORK

I WOKE to the sound of church bells.

You just don't hear enough of them anymore.

Growing up on the northside of Brisbane, the bells of St Andrew's Anglican Church in Lutwyche would ring out every Sunday and on special days.

When we were married in the church - the same one as my parents - I didn't hesitate to pay the little extra for the bells to ring out the happy news.

Today's bells, I assume, belong to the York Minster.

The massive cathedral is as big on elegance and craftsmanship as it is on size, and it is the largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe.

After getting in late to our accommodation at The Gillygate Hotel, we were still able to stroll around the walled city (whose settlement dates back to Roman times) and marvel at the Minster in its twilight glow.

Its square also boasts a statue of Constantine the Great (who was crowned Roman emperor in York in 306AD and was instrumental in establishing the foundations for the western Christian faith) and a partly tiled roman column, found during excavation of the south trancept of the Minster in 1969.

Follow your nose (or a convenient signpost of attractions) just a short walk to The Shambles - a quirky ramshackle 15th century Tudor street of shops, cafes, restaurants and bars that plays tricks on the eyes.

It claims the title of Europe's most visited street.

I was glad to have The Shambles almost all to ourselves to window shop as guitar blues and chatty voices spilled out into the street from crowded bars.

We finally settled on a late dinner at The White Swan Hotel (dating back to the 1400s itself) complete with part of a roman pillar in a glass display in the floor.

York is definitely a happening place on a Saturday night. But it was much nicer being woken up by church bells than the loud shouting from drunken revellers walking past our bedroom window after the bars closed.

Lesson of the day: Try not to become a whinging Aussie about the hidden costs of travel. But I am sick of  putting our hands in our pockets to pay for parking virtually everywhere, for public toilets, for multiple tolls and going in and out of the central traffic zones, for air and water at many service stations, for sim card top-up vouchers that don't transfer between Ireland and the UK for the same phone company. Maybe that's the Scottish blood coming out in us!