Day 4 – Windsor Castle

Windsor Castle with the Queen's Flag

Today’s main sightseeing trip was to Windsor Castle which is 25 miles west of London.  Windsor Castle has been the home to Kings and Queens for over 1000 years and today was no exception as the Queen was in residence when we visited. You can tell by her personal flag which flies over the round tower, which you can see in the photo. The odds are actually pretty good of catching her at Windsor as the monarchy doesn’t much like Buckingham Palace, which is like “living over the shop” as our guide from yesterday described it. We were in luck as the State Apartments were open today and they aren’t always when the Queen is at Windsor. The rooms are fantastic and what you would expect for English royalty with a vast collection of art, china, portraits and weapons, with most everything dated after the fall of the republic in the 1650s.

Changing of the Guard

Our timing was pretty good as we saw the changing of the guard ceremony at Windsor Castle. There wasn't a changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace yesterday and this was a good replacement. In addition to about 20 heavily armed soldiers, there was also quite a large marching band that accompanied the change.

St. George's Chapel

St. George's Chapel is one of the more historic sites at Windsor Castle and is the burial spot for 10 English Kings, including Henry VIII, George III and George VI who was the Queen’s father.

We are getting pretty good at getting around by public transport. We have our Oyster contactless cards which are good on the tube and all busses. As today was outside of London, we had to buy rail tickets, which were pretty cheap (£15 for the two of us, roundtrip) and also efficient. We had to make one change, but it was really pretty easy.

Afternoon Tea

The rest of the day we spent as Londoners would do. We had Afternoon Tea at a hotel near us and then took a double-decker bus down to see a comedy show with the well-known comedian and TV personality, Jimmy Carr. He did one liners for at least two hours and had us in stitches. His jokes were largely in bad taste and definitely not politically correct, but nevertheless hilarious.