AS the sun shone throughout Easter weekend, museums across York still managed to lure in crowds away from the rays.

Visitors waited in queues for more than an hour throughout Saturday and Sunday to go underground at the Jorvik centre, in Coppergate, while the Yorkshire Museum saw a constant flow of customers taking a break from the sun.

Tourist information centres reported a high number of enquiries about the Jorvik centre, York Dungeon, the National Railway Museum (NRM) and Castle Museum.

The NRM fared well, with the Yorkshire Wheel and some outdoor exhibits to balance its indoor attractions as people passed in and out of the heat.

Chris Morton, head of visitor information in York, said: "People were inspired by the weather to come out to York because there is so much to see and do.

"People obviously wanted to have picnics but, despite this, we had a strong demand for a number of the indoor attractions."

With the good weather continuing into this week, she was confident visitors would continue to flood into the city. She said: "We expect the number of visitors to attractions to remain buoyant over the school holidays."

The good weather helped to pack many of York's outdoor attractions, such as York Boat, which was running at full capacity throughout the weekend, and Yorkshire Air Museum, in Elvington, which had more than 1,000 visitors.

George Hedworth, duty officer at the museum, said: "We had a large number of visitors over the weekend, and this was definitely helped by the good weather."

Lee Clark, of York Museums Trust, said: "It's been a very good weekend all round. York Art Gallery had about 1,000 people through the doors on Saturday, about the same on Sunday, and yesterday was also looking good. The Yorkshire Museum was very pleasing as well considering the hot weather.

"As you would expect as well, the Castle Museum had people queuing out the doors."

The museums are confident they will still be able to pull in the visitors this week, as eager sight-seers go out and about in temperatures which are predicted to reach 18 degrees centigrade.