N and N's New Adventure: Day 26, June 20

Day 26 Wednesday June 20, 2012

Today is the trip to Windsor and Windsor Castle. We walked to Victoria Station, got our train tickets to Windsor, got money from the magic of ATM's, and took the 507 Bus to Waterloo Train Station.

At Waterloo we got a cup of coffee from Costa and stood in the station waiting for the first train after 9:30 which was at 9:58. It was rather fun looking around at people today. There were men in the usual suits, but there were also men in morning coats....complete with the tails and top hats. There were ladies dressed in very fancy cocktail type dresses with impossibly high heals. Some of the shoes even had platforms and then higher heals. The center of attraction, however, was the hats. There were ladies with all kinds of hats.....small ones with feathers sticking up and out, hats that looked like plates stuck on the sides of their heads, hats as big as a large pizza with one side squished so that it stood up on their heads. Just imagine the hats from the last royal wedding on tv, and you can picture the hats we saw today. The event was part of the Royal Ascot Horse Race. I am not sure, but I think it takes place over several days.

I just looked it up. There is a very stringent dress code for the Royal Ascot. The strictness depends upon the ticket that is purchased. Anyway, those going to the Royal Ascot proved to be quite entertaining.

The other funny event was the nice British lady who stopped and asked me very politely about one of the trains. I was able to help her. Apparently, I looked less scary than some of the dressed up people.

There is an abundance of people in London this year. There is also an abundance of police officers. Every where you look you see both. We have found that getting in the way of commuters on the sidewalks and in the tube can result in rudeness from normally very polite British people.

Our train's platform was posted, and we made our way to the train. It was a pleasant ride to Windsor from London. We were able to see the sides of buidlings that we had seen from the Thames River the other day. British trains are not slow. They have schedules to keep. We arrived in Windsor at precisely the time the schedule said we would. We went outside the station and started our trek (up hill, of course,) to the castle. It is rather hard to miss.

We walked right up to the ticket station. Yes, there is a cost. Then we waited in line with a number of other people. The ticket line is stopped while security catches up. The tickets with our concession rate (polite talk for senior rates) was 26 pounds. We joined the line for security which is just like security in airports. The Queen was in residence this week.

We picked up our little hand held tour guides. I should have checked mine because it didn't work. However, rather than go back and get behind a horde of people, we went on and shared Neil's hand held device. My major objective was to see Queen Mary's Dollhouse so that is where we headed. Their was a line by the time we got there, but it was not too long. We waited maybe 30 minutes. They had the tour split into 2 lines.....the dollhouse and the state rooms and the second line for which there was no line....just the staterooms.

The dollhouse was wonderful. It is 3 stories high with a cellar underneath. It has a formal garden underneath. All the furniture in the house is scaled so that 1 inch equals 1 foot. The lights work. The bathrooms and the kitchen have running water. The toilets flush. It took skilled artisans three years to build the house and its furnishings. The cars in the garage all work as well. The gold and silver is real as are the jewels in the crown jewels. There were people who rushed around it.....those who can say they saw it, but they did not really see it. Then there were the people like me who held up the line and really, really enjoyed it.

From the dollhouse the tour leads into a section of toys that belonged to the Queen and her sister. Specifically, there are two beautiful dolls whose wardrobes were designed by French designers....really beautiful clothes and shoes. The next stop...staterooms....

Pictures by the way were not allowed. The dollhouse was kept in realtive darkness. The staterooms were not, but still no photography was allowed.

The tour first led to the china room which was as big as my whole kitchen...perhaps bigger. They had samples of the Royal China. There were a lot of different sets...very old sets. Most of them were quite elaborate in their decorations. From there we went into an armory room.....need a sword or suit of armor....then check out this room. There was another room full of armaments later. The royal dining room had the biggest carpet ever woven in India. The table as placed would seat 60 plus people. When a formal dinner is held the table is moved to another room and extensions are placed to allow for 124 people to be seated. The rooms were large and filled with beautiful paintings and very elaborate and ornate furniture. One room where guests waited or the people dresed to be knighted had a table about 3 feet long by 2.5 feet wide and 39 inches high with a mirror attached made completely of silver. It impressed me. In the Knight of the Garter room which is where they also set up the long table, the names of the those kinghted were engraved in the walls with a number which matched their shield which could be found on the ceiling or on the wall. Some of the shields were painted white because the person had been found guilty of a crime against the crown.

We finished the state rooms and went out to the courtyard for a break. The Queen's cars were brought around to the private apartments to collect the Queen and her entourage for the trip to the Royal Ascot horse race. I think her horse came in second. Since the cars were loaded under a closed portico, we left. We went toward the exit. We stopped to go through St. George's Chapel. It was another beautiful and old church. We walked on Henry VIII and Anne Bolyn's burial spots. There were a lot of other important people buried as well.

We left the castle, looked at the line waiting to get in and decided we had done well to arrive when we had.

We stopped at McDonalds for a quick lunch. We chose not to spend much more time in Windsor which seemed to be more tourist than history. Legoland is in Windsor, but we really didn't want to spend the ticket price to go. We walked back toward the station with a side trip down to the Thames. We saw a herd or whiteness of swans....a whole bunch gathered along the edge of the river to get the food that was being thrown.

We rode the train back to Waterloo and went in search of a book store that Pete had told Neil about.....all the books and materials had to do with transportation. It was a rather amazing store. We went back to Waterloo and found the 211 bus back to Victoria.

We stopped at Victoria Station. We went upstairs to the Garfield Restaurant and ate. After dinner we walked back to the easyhotel.com and collapsed.

Steps today: 16,820