June 28 – Windsor, UK

Windsor Castle

Weather – 30º

Steps – 14,333

Humidity – 53%

We started our day with an included hotel breakfast. The hotel has about 100 rooms. I can’t tell how many are occupied at the moment, but breakfast was not at all busy, which was nice – that’s where the not so busy part of the day ended! It was your typical breakfast buffet fare; a good way to start the day. The breakfast room was right along the river which was also lovely.

Windsor (pop: 31,000) is about 35km from the centre of London on the River Thames. It is popular with tourists because of Windsor Castle. From what we’ve observed, it is a place for day trippers rather than overnight hotel stays. There

are hotels here, but last night, although it was Friday was very quiet…today was very, very busy, and again, tonight wasn’t thronging like during the day.

guard

A visit to Windsor Castle was our main activity for the day. We had to queue for about 20 minutes even though we showed up at our ticket time, it

was just busy. Apparently, there 6-7000 people visit the castle each day during the summer months. This queue was very civilized, it probably helped that there were many, many workers, directing traffic and answering questions.

Once inside the grounds, our first order of business was to get audio guides. We never visit anywhere that offer audio guides without getting them. These were free with admission (£30, which seems pricey to me, but what doesn’t), and were quite good.

mostly St George's Chapel

The 11^th century Windsor Castle is the oldest and largest continually occupied castle in the world.

A visit to Windsor Castle is a visit to 2 main sites - St. George’s Chapel and the State apartments. There is no photography allowed in either of these places and they mean it. The VAST majority of people respected this, but I saw more than

one person sneaking photos (jerks) get caught and made to delete their photos. It would have been nice to have some photos, but it would have made the place that much more congested with people posing. The traffic flow was good.

the Long Walk to the Castle

We heard that the chapel would be busier than the apartments, so we started there. It turned out to be less busy. The remains of many British monarchs are buried here in including Queen Elizabeth II.

Then on to the state apartments – rooms where Royal business happens, hosting dignitaries, awards ceremonies, etc. Here also are former bedrooms,

Christopher Wren Hotel

drawing rooms etc. This is where the crowds were. We had to queue (yet again). This time only about 5 minutes. Inside the state apartments, it was BUSY. Everything kept moving, but there were lots of people.

The visit lasted about 2 hours. I suppose we could have stayed longer if we wanted, but I’m not sure what else we would have done. There were a few

cafés, but they were pricey and not super charming.

just finished our visit

Once done with the castle, we wandered a bit further and saw the Long Walk – it is pretty much as advertised…more of a long road really that stretches 2.5 miles from (or to) the castle.

Eventually the heat got to me, so it was time for a pint and lunch. We looked for someplace different than where we had a pint yesterday but ended up back at The King and Castle. We knew there was outdoor shade here. We could easily have sat inside out of the heat, but no where has great AC here and under the trees, the shade was lovely.

dinner with a bit of a Castle view

One thing that wasn’t lovely was the smoke. I think we’re spoiled at home with having no smoking on patios. Here almost everywhere allows smoking outdoors – apparently there are no laws against it, but places can decide to be non-smoking, no where did that we could see. As I said, we could have gone inside but coped with the smoke.

We did a bit of shopping and back into Tesco for more water and snacks.

Dinner was at a ‘French’ place on the river. Great location, but kinda oversold themselves. After was a short walk before heading back to the hotel for one last sleep away from home.