No Queen Sightings this Time

Monday was a bank holiday, so Jeff and I were blessed with a 3-day weekend. We traveled just outside of London to Windsor for a couple days. On Sunday, we went to the Wellington Regatta on Dorney Lake. We watched easily over 40 races from college teams all over England. It was a beautiful day, and we even got a little sun! We actually planned to go to Windsor Castle, one of the Queen's "summer/weekend homes", but we enjoyed our time at the lake so much that we stayed there all day instead. 

That night we walked around the absolutely adorable town of Windsor. There were plenty of cute little restaurants and a lot of little shops. We randomly walked into The Crooked House of Windsor. It is not only a crooked house, but a tea shop. We ate at a quaint little Italian restaurant later that night. 

We woke up bright and early to walk down the large path in the Windsor Great Park. The path leads up to the Windsor Castle. We walked for a while before entering inside the castle grounds. We were not able to take pictures inside the castle, but we took a few pictures of the outside. Inside we saw Queen Mary's Dolls' House. Jeff was obviously unimpressed with this room, but I thought it was really interesting. Each room in this gigantic doll house resembled the rooms in the actual castle. According to the audio guide, many investors would donate a smaller version for the doll house that they donated to the real castle. For example, the plates in the doll house were miniature versions of the actual silver platters (& really made of silver). Although Queen Mary never played with the house, it would be a very impressive doll house to own to say the least.

 The castle was huge! This is picture doesn't do the size justice. Check out the aerial view.

 If I lived in the town of Windsor, I would definitely be spending a lot of time in this area. People were walking and playing with their dogs, running, biking, and socializing. And what a view!

This is the section of the castle grounds where the queen stays. No sightings this time!

After the doll house, we went into The State Apartments. Many of these rooms are used for events for the Royal Family. Through our room-by-room audio guide we learned a great deal of what the rooms are used for and about the great fire of 1992.  Over 100 rooms were damaged in the fire, so many features of the castle were created and built within the last 20 years.  In one of the rooms, they "fixed"  the floor by flipping each of the pieces of the wood flooring over. You couldn't see any damage! Seems so simple, right?

Before heading to St. George's Chapel, we watched the changing of the guards. There was a whole parade of music and presentation for this event.  We were not upfront when it started, but we lucked into a great spot because the guards walked past us as they went to their posts. We ventured around the chapel for a little bit before heading out.  Although, St. George's Chapel was beautiful, but it doesn't rank in our Top 5 churches we've seen so far in our few months of being here. I think we just gravitate towards the stained glass windows, towers, and intricate features of other churches more.  

We had a great time, and we know we are so blessed being so close to these amazing sights. We only drove 2 hours to see one of the most well-known castles in the world. Amazing.