Windsor Castle

Windsor Castle was built by William the Conqueror (surprise, surprise) at the end of the eleventh century. It has been the home of thirty nine monarchs, and is the oldest royal residence in the British Isles to have remained in continuous use. 

Windsor is known as The Queen's favourite 'weekend home' and she is in residence here twice a year - and was apparently there when we were - how rude though, cause she didn't even come and say hello.... I was shocked!!! 

It was another beautiful day and we didn't want to waste a minute so we arrived right on opening time - 10am. Windsor castle is just unbelievably huge!

Free audio tours were available again - they are just great and you learn so much... even Leilani and Emily were entertained by them for a few minutes - who knows what they heard!!

They even have Royal lamps here!

These little hole things were used for the firing of arrows and are shaped like this so that the right angle could be achieved - which is all part  of the archery skill.

Once inside the castle grounds you can go into St George's Chapel (burial place for 10 monarchs, including the Queen Mother and Henry VIII), the State Apartments (which are frequently used by members of the Royal Family for special events - dinners, weddings, baptisms etc), The Gallery, and Queen Mary's Dolls House (a miniature masterpiece).

Queen Mary's Dolls House was so very cool and has working electricity and plumbing. It was made perfect and on a scale of one to twelve. It has every little piece of furniture and fixture imaginable. It was built in 1924, and was never made as a child's plaything.  

The State Apartments tour included the Waterloo Chamber, The King's Drawing-, Dining-, and Dressing-Rooms, Bed-chamber and Closet. The Queens Ballroom, The State Dining Room and so much more. It was all rather cool and had a very royal feel (I wonder why!!).

You could honestly spend all day in here, but not if you have kids! 

Emily actually fell asleep half way round, and we didn't have the pram (can't take them in) so it sped things up quite a bit! I think she was exhausted from Legoland!!

Our first stop in the Castle was actually to see the Changing of the Guards, which Emily thought was very exciting. The band was great and I loved it. 

Mick was very brave and went and had his photo taken with one of the guards - I was too chicken!! (That IS a gun he has there you know!!)

We left the castle with a few goodies - some royal chocolate and a souvenir guide book, as well as a stamp which gets us back in for free anytime in the next 12 months. 

We then headed for a walk around Windsor, and before taking the 'Windsor Sight-Seeing Tour Bus' we tried on some hats - just for all you Joey fans out there.... London Baby!

Windsor was really busy and there were heaps of tourists around... I guess you could tell we weren't far from London. Emily decided she had better 'touch' the Castle before leaving - just for the sake of 'been there, done that!'

One last view before getting on the bus... see how massive it is? All of what you can see is Windsor Castle!

The tour bus was fun and is the best way to see things I think. Unfortunately we had a group of high school girls sitting right behind us, who made it quite hard for us to hear the commentary. (You know you're getting old when you start whinging about stuff like this!) But it was good, even though I felt quite unsafe at times... because the bus picked up quite a bit a speed travelling on the outskirts from Windsor to Eton!

This is 'The Long Walk' leading up to the Castle - probably my favourite view!