A visit to Lizzie's weekend bach!!

  Windsor Castle was our list of places we thought we might visit this trip as it is reasonably close to where some NZ family friends live and we wanted to visit them as well.

Entrance to the castle.

  Saturday was the chosen day and we set off in good time. But the good hour the journey should have taken turned into much longer as the M25 was rather clogged in places. By the time we found a park and bought some lunch (outside the castle walls and we thought anything inside would have large queues) queued for our entrance tickets and got inside the castle proper it was 11:45am.  We had tickets to Conquer the Tower at 12:20pm so decided to eat our lunch first.   We were really pleased we had bought the  food as we discovered there aren't actually any eating places, just a couple of ice cream carts.  There was some major building works going on and part of that is a restaurant/ cafe so future visitors will be fine.  We are also hoping that new toilets are included as thee facilities were woefully lacking.    

A view of the tower from the Moat Garden

  The tour to the top of the tower would have to be the highlight for us all. The guide was great and as well as pointing out the landmarks he gave us a good history of the castle. The views were also spectacular and photos were allowed to be taken except for the area where we looked down on the Royal apartments.  Fortunately the Queen was in Balmoral as we wouldn't have been allowed into this area. She usually comes every weekend - hence her bach!!

Panoramic view

 

Looking down into the castle.

 

Looking down onto the Knights in Training day being held in the quadrangle.

Next we headed off to see the State Rooms. This is where the true wealth of the monarchy can be seen and where we weren't able to take photos. Some can be seen by clicking on the word link   Windsor castle website link  

Inside the moat garden

Next area to look at was the Moat Garden. Here is the only area with any gardens. I had thought that there were more than this but alas no.  They were quite pretty with lots of roses still in flower and greenery planted on the Mott.  These plants included NZ flax and cabbage trees.

Note the cabbage trees and flax.

Before leaving we had a quick look at the quadrangle and the activities set up for the children's special day - Knights in Training. There were lots of fun knight type activities for children to do including sword fighting, falconry displays and shield making.  

A view of the long walk from the quadrangle.

  At this point we decided it was time to head off to visit our friends.  We enjoyed our visit but also feel that you could easily spend a day in Windsor town. There is lots to explore including walking some of the long walk which would give you magnificent views of the castle. There are also a lot of parklands surrounding the castle that you can enjoy.