Saturday, May 14th Part One: Windsor

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Today I went to Windsor and Oxford, two of the most influencial cities in the UK, but for different reasons. One is a Royal Castle, that the current Queen has said is her favourite home and the other is a place where people from around the world are educated. Some of those people have gone on to make a difference in the world in many different fields. One of the things that they both have in common is very old buildings.

Windsor Castle is what you'd expect a castle to look like. It sits above the city and you have to climb a winding and sometimes still road to get to it, going up. Of course, like any other modern tourist attraction, is has caused the growth of shops and restaurants along the road up to the castle.

I was lucky enough to arrive just in time to watch the changing of the guard from inside the Castle. It was rather interesting. The old guards march in to the beat of a drummers and they meet the new guards in the court yard. There is a lot of standing around mixed in with a lot of traditional ceremony. The first to leave are the guards that will go to the various guard houses around the castle. They are escorted away. In the court yard are three groups of Soldiers, those in the red uniform, those in blue and those from the band. The ones wearing the blue uniform are the next to leave, they are escorted out by the marching band to replace those that have just come in. Lastly, the ones in the traditional red uniform are taken into the guard house and the ceremony is over.

Inside Windsor Castle there were three areas opened to the public, St George's Chapel, Queen Mary's Doll House and the State Rooms. The Chapel is where King George v and his wife Queen Mary are barried. They are the current Queen's grandparents. Prince Albert also has a room there, along with others. It's a really old church.

Queen Mary's Doll House is rather impressive. The rooms are decorated down to the last detail. It even had model cars and the crown jewels behind bars. It would be any little girl's dream to be able o play with something like that.

Next was a room filled with paintings, drawings and photographs. There were drawings done by Di Vinci. On display this year is a large number of paintings and photos of Prince Philip as in June he will turn 90. There was a really good family picture done around 2007.

After leaving that part of the Castle you enter the State Rooms, where all the pomp and circumstance takes place. I saw the room in which the Queen entertains (Waterloo Room) and where she receives people. There is a really old tradition involving a select group of people who have made a significant contribution to Queen and country called the Garter. To be a member of the Garter is truly special, as there are only 25 members. There is a specific room in the Castle for the meetings of the Garter. It is set up with 22 chairs facing each other, one off the side and at the top of the room, in the middle of the rows is (what I'd call the thrown chair) and off to the left of that chair is another "royal" chair. I believe there are two chairs of honour because the Queen has a special place to sit and Prince Charles, as Prince of Wales is an automatic member.

The rooms were rather impressive, with the paintings and the furnishings. Some of the objects in the room are quite old and vary valuable. There are paintings of previous monarchs going back to Henry VI. There were family paintings of Charles I children and a very young Queen Elizabeth.

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Photos

Windsor Castle
View from outside

Windsor Castle
View from within the Castle grounds.