I cannot believe how late we
slept in this morning. We were having a reasonably laid back day so we chose
not to set the alarm – 9.00 we woke up! It is amazing how quickly you adapt to
the confined space you are put in. It is with military precision one needs to
work to ensure we don’t get in each other’s way, have meals, get dressed, and
do dishes and so on. Showers where (and will be) had in the toilet block at the
caravan park. They are very clean though I still can’t get my head around
enjoying ‘the camping showering/toileting’ experience. We do have a miniscule
shower and toilet on board but have decided we will only use them in an
emergency. After a coffee and toast we finally headed off into Windsor which
was only about 20minutes away from the park.
We parked the vehicle back in the
Coach parking area and then wandered to the main street, passing by a Jubilee
Fountain that was erected for the Queens Diamond Jubilee this year.
We had a wander through the
Windsor Royal Shopping arcade which was full of shops and restaurants with many
people out enjoying this charming town. We sat and had a Cinnamon Danish and
Latte watching the people pass by and the pigeon’s ever hopeful of crumbs being
dropped. It is also amazing what they will do to a phone box to attract the tourists!
Next on the agenda was to head
across the road to Windsor Castle for today’s tour. We collected our pre-booked
tickets, souvenir guide book and audio guides/headsets and headed off to
explore this wonderful Castle. Windsor Castle is the oldest and largest
inhabited castle in the world. Originally built in the eleventh century the
Castle has seen nearly a thousand years of constant evolution to fit the
changing needs and tastes of successive monarchs. It is the official residence
of the Queen where she spends most of her weekends. More than 160 people live
within the precincts of the Castle. Over 200 people work at the Castle among
them include maintenance staff, housekeepers, porters, a clockmaker, grooms and
coachmen furniture restorers, choristers, priests, police and soldiers, a
flagman, the wardens and other staff who present the palace to the public,
librarians, curators, bookbinders, conservators and archivists. We started the tour along the
line of an ancient road and explored the external area with the audio guide
giving a wonderful description of what we were seeing The Moat surrounding the
Tower since the Eighteenth Century has been maintained as an ornamental garden
which was simply beautiful. This was located in the middle Ward – the entire
complex is broken up into 3 wards – Upper, Middle and Lower. The Upper ward is
where a large portion of the Castle is private except for the State Apartments,
The Drawing Gallery and Queen Mary’s Dolls house – all of which we walked
through and very spectacular. No photos were allowed but the souvenir guide had
captured everything in brilliant colour. Queen Marys’ Dolls house built in 1924
was simply amazing. It was built to be an accurate record of an aristocratic
London House of the time. It has running water, electricity and is filled with
thousands of objects on the tiny scale of 1 to 12.
Once we had finished our tour of
the Castle we headed back through the shops and continued to explore Windsor a
bit further. We decided to have an early dinner at a Pub which was delicious. Then we collected our Vehicle and back to the park for an evening dedicated to
more blogging and fine tuning the arrangements for the next two days as we will
be heading off to Stonehenge and Bath.
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