Historic cities : Durham, York, Oxford

York. York is one of Europe’s historic cities. It began as an important roman city. In medieval times a stone wall was built around it, and wall is still there today. There is the river Omse near Lendal bridge. And from here you can walk around the city on the wall, it takes about two hours. In the south wall is Micklegate bar, where kings and queens entered the city. There is also Monk bar and Booth bar. Inside the city there is a cathedral. It was begun in 1220 and finished two centuries later. If you compare this English cathedral with a catholic cathedral, you will see that they are different. Cathedral in Protestant England don’t have colorful paintings on the wall, the color is in the windows. In the center of window of this cathedral is white rose- the symbol of York. There are also different interesting museums in York. One of them is the National Railway Museum. There are a lot of trains in it, for example the first public train in the world, built in 1825 and the fastest steam train in the world are here West Yorkshire. The West Yorkshire moors, where two great writers, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, lived. Their books are Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heinghts. They lived in the 1800s in the village of Haworth with four brothers and sisters. Their father was the minister at the village church. All the children died by the age of thirty, except Charlotte. She lived on alone with her father in this house. Then at thirty-eight she married. But only nine month later she died too and was buried in the church by her old father. OXFORD. Oxford is one of oldest and most famous cities in the world. it is famous for it’s university, the Oxford university. It also called a city of students, because over 12000 students are living and studding here in thirty five colleges. Oxford is a place of young people and old traditions, for example teachers are called dons and still wear black grows. Student here are taught one-to-one in the Socratic tradition. At the libraries you can still see notices written in Latin - the ancient language of scholars. Students here are surrounded by old stone building. One of them is Hertford College, one of smallest colleges in the university. About two hundred students live and work here. But Oxford is not all work, there are a lot of clubs and other interesting places for students and dons to visit. For example the Sheldonian theater, which is used for concerts and university’s ceremonies. Opposite the theater is book shop, where people buy books. It is one of the word biggest book shops, with seven kilometers of selves. There are also a lot of pubs and cafes in the city, where you can buy cheap food and drink a cup of coffee with friends. There are two rivers in Oxford. People usually travel in the rivers by boats called punts. Oxford is also famous for it’s gardens, which has a maze.