York

Choosing where to base yourself in York matters less than in most cities, simply because the historic core is so small. Almost anything inside or immediately outside the walls puts the Minster, the Shambles and the station within a fifteen-minute walk. What changes between areas is atmosphere, noise and price.

Couples on a short break usually do best inside the walls, particularly around Petergate, Stonegate or the Minster quarter, where you can step out of the door into the medieval streets and walk home after dinner without thinking about taxis. Micklegate suits anyone arriving by train who wants a quieter night: the townhouse hotels there are a five-minute walk from the platforms and a ten-minute walk from the centre, with the National Railway Museum in between.

Families tend to find better value slightly out. Bootham and Clifton to the north have larger Victorian B and Bs and guest houses with family rooms and, crucially, somewhere to leave the car. Bishopthorpe Road to the south has the same advantages plus a genuinely good local high street and Rowntree Park for children to burn off energy. Fulford and the villages beyond, such as Escrick and Sutton-on-the-Forest, suit drivers who plan to spend days out in the Moors, the Wolds or the Dales and only want York as an evening base.

Price expectations are straightforward. A decent double in a city-centre hotel starts around 110 to 140 pounds a night in the quieter months and climbs sharply from May onwards. Country-house hotels on the edge of the city sit closer to 200 to 280 pounds. Guest houses on Bishy Road or in Bootham typically run 80 to 120 pounds with breakfast.

Book well ahead for three periods in particular: the St Nicholas Fair from mid-November to Christmas, race meetings at York Racecourse, which fill the city several times between May and October, and the August school holidays. On race days in particular, rates can double and availability disappears months in advance. Midweek stays in January, February and early March offer the best value of the year.

The main sights cluster tightly, so a two-day visit covers most of them comfortably.

• York Minster The largest Gothic cathedral in northern Europe, with the Great East Window holding the biggest expanse of medieval stained glass anywhere. The undercroft explains the Roman and Norman foundations beneath, and 275 steps take you up the central tower for a view across the rooftops to the Moors on a clear day.
• The city walls The longest medieval town walls in England, walkable as a near-complete circuit with breaks where the medieval builders relied on marshland instead. The stretch between Bootham Bar and Monk Bar gives the classic view of the Minster and takes about fifteen minutes.
• The Shambles A narrow medieval street of overhanging timber-framed buildings that once housed butchers' shops, with the meat hooks still visible on some frontages. It is busy from mid-morning onwards, so go early if you want a photograph without a crowd.
• Jorvik Viking Centre Built over the Coppergate excavation that uncovered the Viking city, it carries you through a reconstructed tenth-century street on a suspended car, complete with the smells archaeologists reconstructed from the dig.
• National Railway Museum Free to enter and enormous, with Mallard, a Japanese bullet train and a royal carriage collection among the exhibits. It sits just behind the station, which makes it an easy first or last stop.
• York Castle Museum Best known for Kirkgate, a full-scale reconstructed Victorian street, and for the cells of the debtors' prison where Dick Turpin was held before his execution.
• Clifford's Tower The quatrefoil keep on its steep mound is all that survives above ground of York Castle, and a viewing deck installed in recent years lets you walk around inside at height.
• Yorkshire Museum and Museum Gardens Roman and Anglo-Saxon collections including the Middleham Jewel, set in ten acres of botanical gardens that contain the ruins of St Mary's Abbey.

York eats well for its size. Yorkshire pudding is the obvious starting point, served properly as a course in its own right with onion gravy in the older pubs, and Sunday lunch here is a serious institution. Local cheeses from Wensleydale and Swaledale turn up on most menus, as does Yorkshire forced rhubarb in late winter.

Bettys on St Helen's Square has been serving afternoon tea since 1936 and remains the city's best-known address, with a queue outside most days and a fat rascal scone that has become a Yorkshire fixture. Shambles Market, tucked behind the famous street, has a run of street food stalls that make a cheap and good lunch. Spark York on Piccadilly, built from recycled shipping containers, houses independent food traders and bars in a more informal setting.

The city's chocolate heritage runs deep, with both Rowntree's and Terry's founded here, and York's Chocolate Story on King's Square tells that history. For drinking, the House of the Trembling Madness on Stonegate serves beer beneath a medieval roof, while the Blue Bell on Fossgate is the smallest pub in the city and largely unchanged since 1903. Fossgate and Walmgate between them hold most of the better independent restaurants.

Camping around York is easy going. The Vale of York is flat river-plain country, so pitches are almost universally level and well drained where sites have invested in hardstandings. That flatness is a real advantage for anyone towing a caravan or pitching a large family tent, and it makes cycling into the city genuinely pleasant rather than a workout. The trade-off is that the low-lying land beside the Ouse can flood in a wet winter, which is why most sites near the river close from late autumn until March.

Weather is the usual English compromise. The Vale of York is one of the drier parts of the north, sheltered by the Pennines to the west, but you should still expect rain on roughly a third of days in any month and pack accordingly. May, June and September are the sweet spot: warm enough to sit out in the evening, dry enough to strike a tent without wrestling wet canvas, and quiet enough to get a riverside pitch without booking a year ahead. July and August are warmest but busiest, and the school holidays fill family-oriented parks completely.

Wild camping is not legal in England without the landowner's permission, and that applies fully in and around York. There is no Dartmoor-style exception here, and the farmland of the Vale is all in private hands. Stick to a proper site, of which there are plenty within four to six miles of the centre.

What to bring: a groundsheet or footprint, because the clay soils hold water; long pegs, since the ground bakes hard in a dry summer; midge repellent for riverside pitches in June and July; and a bike, because the traffic-free Sustrans route beside the Ouse from Naburn into the city is the best way in. Glamping is thinner on the ground here than in the Dales, so if you want a pod or a safari tent, look at the parks further out towards the Howardian Hills. For tents, note that several of the closest sites take caravans and motorhomes only, so check before you set off.