Day Twenty One Part One: Windsor Castle Day Trip

We left early this morning to try the first of our 'day trips,' to Windsor Castle, Oxford, and Stonehenge with Golden Tours. As a quick review for those considering this exact tour, it is a great idea if you have limited time and would like to see all three sites in one day.  For everyone else, Windsor Castle is a place you really need an entire day at least to see properly, and this trip alots about 1 hr 15 min. You have 1 hour at Stonehenge and 1 1/2 hours in Oxford. So, all in all, not the ideal way to go.
It was this morning that Richard and I had our first encounter with the 'scheduled repairs' on the London underground in preparation for the 2012 Olympics.  We arrived at the tube station by our house only to find it completely shut down.  We took the bus the staff recommended, but it was crazy slow going.  At last in terror we would completely miss the departure of the non-refundable tour, we jumped the bus and took a cab. (I called the golden tours office and the gal told us if we weren't there by 8:30 there were no guarantees, and we'd better take a cab.) At least we got to ride in one of the iconic London black cabs! Th interior of which is extremely roomy, with fold-down seats as an option or just an empty cab for luggae.

 After we pelted up to the tour departure point at 8:33, completely winded (and financially depleted), we stood around until it really departed a 9 am. Letty was already not happy. 

It also turned out we were on a bi-lingual tour (not advertised in the literature anywhere) and all the information was given out by the guide very rapidly in alternating English and Spanish. Which was kind of a ripoff, as we didn't get nearly as much of a 'guided' tour as we would have had she only had to speak one language, and I kept tuning out during the Spanish parts only to tune back in when she was halfway thru the English section again. I feel that at least we should have been given the option to choose a non-bilingual tour should we have wished (and had I been with a Spanish-only speaking friend, I would have loved it, as is, we had very limited time and touring from the guide to begin with, and this just reduced it that much more.)

Trying to feel positive, we disembarked at Windsor Castle, which is just across the river from the famous boys school Eton.  The guide did not mention the free audio guides which came with our admission (but Richard and I knew enough to snag one anyway) however, she perhaps had good reason, as by the time we made it through the gates, we had only slightly more than an hour to tour the entire castle and state rooms, a massive cathedral, as well as the multiple museums that are part of the complex. 


The Cathedral Inside the Windsor Castle Complex

In addition, it turned out that if you had purchased your ticket directly from Windsor Castle, it was good for an entire month so you could return free of charge, but since the 3rd party tour operator purchased ours, all we got for our $24 (each) was this single, 1 hour visit.  Yikes! We pretty much tok a fast jog thru the ground floor of the state rooms, and took a bunch of pictures to prove we had actually been there, in lieu of actually seeing anything in the castle complex.  

We also watched the Changing of the Guard, which was pretty nifty, but it took a really long time, it's like, a 20-30 minute dealy, not just 5 min, but by the time we had cut our tour short and jogged round the castle to catch it we kinda had to cut our losses and enjoy what there was of it!

Here's a series of videos I uploaded, about 3 min. total watch time, sorry about the jerky camera action, but people kept jumping in front of me.

All in all it was a spectacularly beautiful day, and a marvelous old castle, about which I can't really tell you much, other than it was fun to take pictures of, and a really big complex to navigate.

The flying flag indicates that the Queen is in residence.

Oh, and that the guards carried actual machine guns slung oh-so-casually around their necks. England is a weird mix of firepower, so to speak.  The normal beat cops/street cops don't carry guns at all, only the bobby 'night sticks' (a club of sorts). It's illegal to carry mace or pepper-spray here, let alone a taser, so maybe they think it evens out. But the cops that are armed (those around 10 Downing Street and the diplomatic section, on guard at castles and such-like), it's no subtle side-arm, like you see on every cop back home, whoa no. It's flippin' machine gun!

We were almost the last ones on the bus leaving, and we were off to our next destination, Stonehenge, which you check out in Day Twenty One Part Two. You can also see more pictures of Windsor Castle in the Special Feature: Windsor Castle and Stonehenge.