KAY JANIS is dodging backwards and forwards along the pavement, camera in hand, trying to capture the vast splendour of York Minster in a single shot. On holiday from America, she stands about 100 yards from this great cliff face of medieval architecture. She tilts the camera this way and that, sighs, gives up, and we get into conversation.

I tell her I am in York to explore the city's links with Guy Fawkes in the run-up to Bonfire Night.

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"You know," says Kay, a retired teacher, in her bright Massachusetts voice, "I've always been a little bit confused about why you British celebrate Guy Fawkes night so uproariously.

"I always think: 'Why are they celebrating someone who tried to blow up Parliament?' I suppose it's a sort of thanksgiving the plot was unsuccessful."

So there's another quaint British custom put in its place, just another example of our national fondness for failures.

Kay and I are standing next to the Guy Fawkes Inn, an atmospheric bar and hotel whose restaurant is conspiratorially lit by candles and gas brackets. The inn, which aptly serves a Yorkshire beer called Dark Force Treason, is hugely popular with Fawkes fans.

"We get a lot of people saying he was the only man to enter Parliament with honourable intentions," says manager Ben Lovett. Some of those fans are lured by the inn's claim to be the birthplace of Fawkes. Well, the jury's out on that one, as we will see.

On Wednesday York launches 10 days of Fawkes-related events. There are special walks, talks, exhibitions, boat trips on the river and the Illuminating York digital art festival, which will see the Castle Museum transformed into a "spectacular vision of colour and imagery".

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The celebrations end on November 5 with Guy-free bonfires (the city doesn't believe in burning former residents).

The celebrations rescue Guy Fawkes from the strange half-fictional realm of popular history, up there with other lawless anti-heroes like Dick Turpin and Robin Hood. They reposition him as a real, if slightly shadowy, person and the Gunpowder Plot as a serious political and religious event; a Catholic rebellion against persecution.

They're also a chance to explore a great city from a new angle. Guide Warwick Burton, from York Walk, meets me near Dean Court Hotel, where my comfortable room looks out on the west front of the minster, floodlit at night and feeling near enough to touch.

"I'm going to tell you all about Guy Fawkes in York," says Warwick. "Which is not a lot. Plenty of claims are made but there aren't a lot of hard facts. Right. Let's have a look at birthplace number one."

It's on Stonegate, a street packed with smart boutiques and gift shops. On the wall of the Cath Kidston shop a plaque points out: "Hereabouts lived the parents of Guy Fawkes." It doesn't actually say he was born here or lived here.

"And now, birthplace number two." We're outside the Guy Fawkes Inn. "Oh, and he was also supposed to have been born in Bishopthorpe, three miles away. There is a lot of myth information."

All Warwick can say for certain is that Fawkes was born somewhere within a hundred yards of where we're standing, in the parish of St Michael le Belfrey, the church just across the road. He was baptised here in 1570, the son of a church lawyer who worked for the minster. Not much to go on but, like any good guide, Warwick can spin it out into an entertaining walk.

Next morning, a little reluctantly, I turn up at the York Dungeon, a blood-and-guts tourist attraction with live, if sickly-pale, actors. After a few minutes watching an autopsy on a plague victim ("Here's a lovely swollen liver!") I move straight on to the Guy Fawkes section.

It dwells on his 10 days of torture after being caught in the Houses of Parliament cellars with 36 barrels of gunpowder. I call back at St Michael le Belfrey, where Jim Race, a member of the church's "hospitality team", puts Guy Fawkes in perspective. "He was a Christian and he believed very much in what he was doing," he says. "He just went about it in the wrong way."

What of the city's clever exploitation of the few facts known about him? Jim smiles wryly. "You wouldn't be doing the best for your business if you didn't bend history to suit it," he says.

GETTING THERE

Dean Court Hotel (01904 625 082/deancourt-york.co.uk) offers doubles from £145 per night (two sharing), B&B. York Walk (01904 622 303/yorkwalk.co.uk) offers guided walks. Adults £5.50, Children £4. The Yorkshire Pass (yorkshirepass.com) offers free entry and special offers to 27 top York attractions. One- to six-day passes available, from £34 per adult, £18 per child (3-16). Visit York: 01904 550 099/visityork.org