Windsor Castle

Yesterday (Saturday) we drove out to Windsor Castle.  It is only about 30 minutes or so from home (not counting the heavy traffic we hit).  This is certainly the height of tourist season here.  I can only imagine how crazy it will be next summer when the Olympics are in London.

We parked easily and walked up to the castle.  It took a while to get tickets, go through security and pick up our audio guides but we happened to catch the changing of the guards while in line.

The audio guide was very good and had an intro by Prince Charles welcoming us to his ancestral home.  Then we had a wonderful leisurely tour of the immense castle grounds (13 acres).  The castle has been in continuous use for almost 1,000 years. It sustained a large fire in the early 1990's but has been fully and beautifully restored.

We skipped seeing Queen Mary's Dollhouse because of the very long line - although it sounded very intriguing .  It would have been cool to see a dollhouse with running water and electricity and a working elevator, but not worth waiting in line for an hour or more. 

We did tour the State Apartments (no photos allowed) and really enjoyed it.  The rooms were oddly livable even through they were huge.  They had some video screens showing the rooms in use - like the banquet room with the shields of all the Knights of the Garter and the room where the queen "knights" people and has private audiences.  The queen has always fascinated me since I saw her when I lived in England for a year in 1961, so I really enjoyed seeing all that.

We also toured St. George's Chapel where Henry VIII and his favorite wife, Jane Seymour, are buried

and took our pictures with the guard.

After lunch in town we wandered the town and went down to the river to see the amazing swans on the River Thames.

After a drive through Eton to see the college and town we headed home to relax before taking the bus into Richmond to find dinner.  We had a pretty good meal at Rustica Pizza although the place was terribly noisy with several very loud parties at nearby tables.  A very enjoyable evening.