Fodor's Expert Review Shambles

York's best-preserved medieval street and one of the best-preserved medieval shopping streets in all of Europe, Shambles has shops and residences in half-timber buildings with overhangs so massive you could almost reach across the narrow gap from one second-floor window to another. Once a hub of butchers (meat hooks are still fastened outside some of the doors and the street was deliberately kept narrow to prevent sun from falling on the meat), today it's mostly filled with independent shops and remains highly atmospheric.