Windsor Castle

March 29, 2010

We got up this morning around 8:30 to head out for Windsor Castle. I got up early to shower and then couldn't figure out how to make the water warm so I gave up and got online instead. One of my friends was on facebook so it was great to get to talk to him for a few minutes. Once Hilary and I were finally ready We were running a little behind per usual and ended up pretty much running to the station and then to find the right platform. At some point Hilary lost her shoe so she literally just picked it up and kept running without it, I was behind her trying not to laugh so hard I'd have to stop running. We found our platform but missed our train. The next one came pretty soon after that though and it turned out our transfer would have been the same time no matter which original train we took so it all worked out in the end.

The train ride was really easy. when we got off it was a quick walk to the Castle. Windsor is magnificent. I've never seen a building so enormous and elegant. It completely blows my mind that people actually live at this place. I knew castles were big but I had no idea how much this place could swallow an individual person. It cost 14.5 pounds to get in for students and somehow Hilary and I managed to make this the first attraction we have paid for so far which I think is pretty impressive. We walked around outside for awhile and then made our way to the inside state rooms. I love traveling in the off season because there were absolutely no lines and a usually really packed place. They had ropes lined up with wait times up to an hour listed on signs. But when we got there the lines were completely empty and we just walked right in.

The rooms we went in to were all huge. The entry ways were enormous, the ceilings were double the height of normal ceilings, the paintings were big enough to cover the walls completely and the ceilings were covered in intricate designs of gold. The odd part of these rooms were the size of the chairs. They were really tiny in comparison to the rest of the room. If I didn't know better I'd say they were designed for little children. If I had sat in any of them I'm pretty sure they chairs would have either broken or my hips would not have fit between the arm rests. History tells us that people were shorter and smaller in the past, but it is so odd to actually see the size of furniture they used. The beds were shorter and smaller than any full size bed I've seen and this was for the King and Queen so I'm assuming it was the biggest bed available at the time. The tables were at least a foot or two shorter than normal tables. And there was armor made for Henry Prince of Wales in 1607 that could not have been more than 5 feet tall.

All of the rooms were amazing in the artwork, furniture and other really expensive trinkets that were housed in them. But they all sort of looked alike. There were a lot of rooms with a lot of different names that in the end all blended together and I would never have been able to tell you what each room was used for if it weren't for the signs. Here's a list of all the rooms I was able to tour: Queen Mary's Dollhouse, Drawing Room, Waterloo Chamber, King's Drawing Room, King's Bed Chamber, King's Dressing Room, King's Closet, Queen's Dressing Room, King's Dining Room, Queen's Ballroom, Queen's Audience Chamber, Queen's Presence Room, Queen's Guard Room, St. George Hall, Lantern Lobby, Grand Reception Room, Garter Throne Room. The Ballroom wasn't a ballroom at all but just a long hallway, the dressing room and closet looked exactly the same except the closet was a little deeper to walk in to, I have no idea what the difference between the audience and presence room is, and the lantern lobby is literally a room full of lanterns, gilts and cups made of gold. There is absolutely no justification for anyone needing as many rooms as this castle had and it seems even harder to grasp that people hundreds of years ago built this place to live in. Entire towns and cities probably could have easily fit into this castle. It was amazingly spectacular though, I'll give them that.

Hilary and I got separated in the Castle - as we do in most places we've visited. I thought she was ahead of me and she thought I was ahead of her, so I'm not sure which one of us was correct but when we exited the castle we couldn't find each other. I sat outside the exit for about 20 - 30 minutes and pulled out my computer to start writing up my blog. After a while I got bored and cold so I decided that she must have kept on walking and thought we'd end up meeting up with each other eventually. I walked around the castle some more and went in to the chapel and saw a few royal guards marching. I sort of just walked around aimlessly for awhile until I got restless and decided that Hilary must have left and started exploring the town so I did the same. We were in Windsor but there was also another town connected to it called Eton. I saw some signs for Eton Cottage and decided to walk that way to explore the city and see if I could find the cottage. Well I walked and walked around Eton and eventually made it over a bridge across Thames River. The city was really tiny and cute. It was pretty much dead for the most part. Some of the shops were open, but not many. The people walking about were residents, not tourists. It was really fun to get to see a small London town on a weekday afternoon. At one point I came upon a small lunchtime place that was packed with people where as the rest of the restaurants and cafe's were pretty much empty. I thought this was sort of weird but figured it mush be a local favorite or really cheap, good food.

It started to get later and I started to get hungry so I gave up on trying to find the cottage and turned around the walk back. I walked past a bridal shop that had the most gorgeous wedding dress I had ever seen in the window. I stood for a little bit just staring at it (excuse my girl moment). Then I walked past over the bridge and checked out the signs to see if I had missed the cottage or not. Well, when I reread the sign I realised there was no cottage. The sign had said "Eton College" -- hello blond moment. I'm not sure if I'm blind or just read it to fast or what, but I had pretty much sent myself on a wild goose chase. Oh well, I really enjoyed the town so that was good. At this point it was around 1pm and I hadn't found Hilary yet so I decided to go back and get some food and see if I could find her. I went back to a sandwich shop we had seen on our way from the train station and decided to grab some food and sit outside to wait for her. I figured she'd have to walk past this place on her way back to the station if nothing else. The town was so small and we both knew where we were and how to get back to Jit's place so I wasn't really worried about either of us getting lost permanently. I got a sandwich and waited for her while finished my blog. It took about another hour or so before she found me at the sandwich place, but it worked out great cause I got time to type up my extremely long blog post.

We just got back to Jit's place and stopped in the local STA shop to book our ticket from London to Brussels. After we do that we are off to meet up with a friend of Hilary's in the city and then out for the night!