Day 26 (Sunday) Tour Windsor Castle & Hampton Court

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Our first formal tours of London were focused on Windsor Castle and on Hampton Court. The biggest difference between them is that Windsor was built as a fort and after creating the very fortified walls it was then embellished inside to be one of the homes of the king/queen. That needs to be contrasted with Hampton Court which was built as a palace for courtiers to have an elaborate lifestyle but being mildly fortified to resist any disorganized rabble but not to withstand an army. So those are the two main things we saw today. The skies were intermittently cloudy/sunny, but there was a wind which made it kind of cool today.

Let’s start with breakfast. David had the classic English breakfast and Janet had the Continental Breakfast, both served in the hotel breakfast room. We will not have time to eat there the remainder of our trip, so today was the only opportunity. The “classic breakfast” had one fried egg, two sausage links, a slice of English bacon, an order of baked beans, and a pile of cooked mushrooms. Of course Janet ate the mushrooms, but also had the bacon and tomato with her toast and tea. We both had orange juice. It seemed like a reasonable way to split up the food and was sufficient to get the day started, it still wasn’t quite a classic American breakfast.

We took a taxi to the tour location near Victoria Station. Our plan was to ride the underground back to the hotel, but that turned out not to be necessary. The tour only had 11 people and we had a 16-person Mercedes minibus. The guide was an endless source of information, especially concerning the English royalty starting back before the War of the Roses and up to reasonably current times. He pointed out items of interest and spoke with extensive details about each topic – he was really remarkable.

Our first stop was at Windsor Castle. Along the way he pointed out the home of Margaret Thatcher (with one of the few armed policemen in London), and where Sean Connery lives near Roger Moore (both or James Bond fame). It turned out that our guide is a collector of movie posters, so he also gave us a lot of details about auctions of movie stuff and other interesting information.

The town of Windsor is clearly focused on tourism, with many shops and restaurants, but also monuments which line its cobbled streets. Highlights include: the Old Kings Head famed for where William Shakespeare wrote “The Merry Wives of Windsor”, Windsor Bridge and Sir Christopher Wren’s house. We did not visit it, but across the bridge is Eton and its college, founded in 1440 during the reign of Henry VI. Our guide went to Oxford so he did not have a lot of good things to say about the other college.

Windsor Castle is steeped in history, but is one of the current homes to Queen Elizabeth. She was not in residence today so it was easier to move around in the castle. Our guide (Tony – bald as a cue ball) explained a lot about the castle and town, but he was not able to provide any commentary while we were in the Royal Apartments. These are decorated in lavish furnishings and goes well beyond being extravagant. We saw many of the rooms (including where the fire had started a little over a decade ago). Everything has been fully restored in excellent condition now. The royal dining room has a table that ordinarily seats 60, but can be expanded to 160 when they have a state dinner. The carpet in that room is the largest seamless carpet in the world and weighs about 2000 pounds. It was quite a challenge to get it out of the castle before the fire could have started burning it. There are nearly countless paintings which they say are each nearly priceless. If we had a guide along explaining each item then it would have take many hours to get through all the rooms. It really was over-the-top in magnificence.

Our tour tickets enabled us to skip a very long line waiting to enter in the beginning, but we could not jump ahead of the line to see Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House, so we skipped it this time. However for us the royal apartments were the highlight of this tour anyway. Maybe if someday we come back for the Textile Display, then we might see the dollhouse here. But we certainly did not feel cheated like we did in Edinburgh (missing the royal jewels).

All along Janet had been having some difficulty with the walking and steps, but she was able to keep up. The big problem was that she had slipped climbing out of the minibus and banged her knee. But she made it through Windsor Castle without too much difficulties or particular problems. After touring everywhere we reasonable could in the castle, we had a nice lunch in one of the local shops. Then we were back onto the mini-bus and headed for Hampton Court.

We drove past Runnymede, but just like our Stonehenge tour, there does not appear to be enough to even slow the bus down, much less have a visit. All the way to Hampton, Tony explained the history of Henry VIII and all his efforts to have a male heir. It was a very convoluted history and impressive that he knew all the details and could answer any of the questions. Anyway we arrived at Hampton Court, but Janet’s knee had stiffened up during the ride and she could just barely walk.

We got into the Palace and saw a little of the main floor courtyards and rooms, but we could not tackle the stairs of extensive walking through the palace. We did get to ride a horse drawn tram ride and enjoy a panoramic view of the spectacular gardens at Hampton Court Palace. The grounds are marvelous, but David made it quite clear this was NOT going to be a model for the remainder of our landscaping. There are manicured lawns, shrubs, and trees. We did not go out into the Privy Gardens (completed in 1702 for Williams III) to the East Front Gardens but we did see the stunning South Gardens and the Lower Orangery. But we made our way back to the entrance/exit and let the rest of the group continue the tour of the additional areas of the palace.

We had a lengthy walk back to where the bus had parked (up the side of the river and across a bridge), but the guide agreed to drop us off a couple of blocks from our hotel instead of taking us back down town, which was the published end-point of the tour. Several other folks wanted to see things in the Kensington area, so many from the bus got off too at our impromptu drop-off point.

We got back to the hotel and David went to a local restaurant to get Fish & Chips to go (which here is called takeaway) and we ate in the hotel room. David wanted to try an authentic British beer, but they only had “to go” in 6-packs (too many for us), so he got a bottle of Heineken (a reasonable substitute for a local beer). Then we settled down for the evening and tried to do what we could to make Janet ready to take tomorrow’s final busy tour. But except for the injury it was a very good and interesting day. We are both still struggling with coughs and head colds, but we think we can survive until we get back to the states. It is kind of draining of our energy, so we have not done much more than our basic objectives, but that is still a lot to have seen. It would have been nice to go to Covent Garden, and if we had more time, Janet would like to have gone to a show at Piccadilly, but it just can’t happen this trip.

With some difficulty, we are able to get onto the hotel network, but only to check our e-mail. We have not been able to reach the blog web page yet – don’t know why that is the case. Well, too late to try to figure it out now. Good night -

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Photos

Windsor Castle
from a distance

Windsor Castle
southeast of London England

Tony - our guide
with group at Windsor

Clock at Hampton Court
Tells time, day of week, month, season, phase of moon, etc

Horse-drawn Carriage
at Hampton Court

Fountain at Hampton Court
only one of 13 original fountains