Windsor

On Sunday I decided to do a short day trip from London and settled on Windsor. Since the tube line near my flat was down (again), I had to hop on the bus and make my way to Paddington Station. Direct trains to Windsor leave out of Waterloo, but that would have been too much of a pain to get to so I settled on going to Paddington and making a change at Slough. Trains run every half hour or so, so I didn't even bother looking at the departure times. It didn't take very long to get there; really, the longest part of the trip was waiting at Slough for the train to Windsor.

Windsor is definitely a tourist town, but sometimes that's alright. It makes for a pretty easy day, there are lots of signs directing you where to go and lots of shops and restaurants. There were a lot of nice stores in the facility around the central train station (there are two in Windsor, Riverside and Central), but I'm not really into shopping. I followed the crowds from the train station to the entrance to Windsor Castle. This is one of three official royal residences and has been a home of the royal family for 900 years. They have a pretty fast system in place, so I was able to get my ticket and into the castle pretty quickly. It was expensive (14 pounds for students) but since there isn't much else to do in Windsor I really didn't have a choice.

In all it was probably worth the 14 pounds. The royal family wasn't "in residence" so I was able to tour most of the buildings, with the exception of St. George's Chapel which is closed for services Sundays. I started by wandering around the grounds and stopping at spots to listen to the audio guide. The below photo shows the chapel on the left and the round tower in the center.

After wandering around for a bit I decided to go inside the staterooms. Before entering I snapped the below pictures of the square (it's closed off) where dignitaries and royal guests are greeted.

Unfortunately you can't take pictures inside the staterooms. So I've added the below from a web search. The staterooms are pretty amazing. It's really the only castle I've seen that has been continually modernized and up kept so it doesn't really feel like a museum. I started by viewing part of the royal collection that is on display, which includes drawings by Di Vinci. I then made my way into through the state rooms, some of which you can see below. As you could imagine, they are all decorated in beautiful works of art and historic objects. Pretty much fit what you would picture a royal palace to look like.

This is one of the few castles or palaces that I've been to that is actually lived in. It always strikes me, in an age where every family seems to move at least a few times in their lives it would be pretty amazing to live in your families home for hundreds of years. As if to drive home that fact, portraits of past generations of your family line the walls.



The final picture is of the Round Tower at the heart of Windsor Palace.

After leaving the Palace I walked towards Eton College. It's a nice walk along all the shops on High Street. It's not too far away but I was kind of worn out from my already long weekend. After looking around a bit I decided not to buy a ticket and made my way back to the train station.

In all it was a nice day trip. Very quick and easy to get to, and not too overwhelming. I probably wouldn't have gone if it was a long way from London but I figured it's one of those places that you should probably visit if you're in the UK for any length of time. It's so close I really didn't have an excuse not to, and I'm glad I did.