Episode Ten: In Which our Heroine takes a Royal Tour of England

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Including her experiences...
Hanging out in Windsor pubs
Touring the Queen's residences
Visiting the Eton boys
Wandering around London
& Eating Fish and Chips by the Thames
... among others

After some problems with the trains from London and a number of delays, Laura and I made it to the Eton station about 5 minutes before her shift at work was due to start. We sprinted through the streets and she ducked behind the bar just in time. I sat in the pub while she did her shift and met some of her co-workers and regulars, as well as reading magazines and doing some of the crosswords. Towards the end of the evening I went across the road with Graham, the manager of another pub, to see his place. I'd been joking with him about how everything closed early in England, and I think he was quite embarrassed to see his own pub's door shut and locked when we arrived at a minute past eleven, as he'd been promising me it would still be open. I went inside and met some of the staff, and we then went back to collect Laura and her roommate Sally before going out to another place that stayed open later. "Later" was 12'o'clock, and nothing else was open, so we said goodbye to Graham and stopped at the kebab shop for a bite to eat on the way home. Laura and Sally live upstairs at the pub, and we made up a very comfortable bed out of the couch cushions that I stayed on for the night.

After a sleep in the next morning, Laura and I made some breakfast before heading to Windsor Castle to visit the Queen's palace. Having arrived in the dark the previous evening, I hadn't noticed that the wall on the hill I'd seen was actually part of the castle, and I was pretty impressed by the fact that I was standing there looking at a castle in the middle of town. On the way through the streets, we passed Windsor Guildhall, which had hosted the wedding of Charles and Camilla and (at that stage) was due to host Elton John and David Furnish's ceremony as well.

Windsor was the first castle I can remember having visited, and I was very impressed. We received a map of the grounds after admiring the resident cats in the entrance building, and began our own Royal Tour. We started with a display about the history of the castle, including the different Kings and Queens who have stayed there, the redecoration of various rooms and some information about the fire there in 1992 and the rebuilding afterwards. We found it quite amusing that a reminder of the fire has been permanently built into the castle with some stained glass windows that feature various scenes of heroism from the days surrounding the fire.

We then went to see Queen Mary's Dolls House, which is a huge model that was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1924. It's unbelievable - all of the lights actually work, it has hot and cold running water, there are two lifts to carry the dolls between floors, and even the toilets actually flush! Queen Mary had apparently described it as the "perfect present," and it was easy to understand why.

From there we moved on to the Drawings Gallery, which I loved. The first things I looked at were some drawings by Leonardo Da Vinci, and they were incredible. Not having expected to see anything like that, it was an amazing feeling just to be looking at something that Da Vinci had done, and on top of that they were wonderful drawings. Among other things, he had done some studies of the human body and its internal muscles, and they were perfectly detailed, with intricate muscle and sinew all penned in. They looked even better than the ones I've seen in modern medical textbooks, and I almost couldn't believe that he had done them by hand all those years ago while looking at actual body parts. There were also some examples of his "mirrored" handwriting.

The main exhibition in the Drawings Gallery was called "Queen Victoria and the Crimea" exhibition, which had a lot of paintings depicting the Crimean War, as well as information about Queen Victoria's involvement. Having known little about the war, it was interesting to read the information from different perspectives. The most interesting items on show were various pieces of correspondence from the Queen, including some original letters to Florence Nightingale promising medical supplies, and a letter declaring her intent to give a medal to all men involved in the war. It was pretty cool to be looking at items that actually made an impact on world history.

We then headed to the State Apartments, which were also amazing. I'm trying to think of new words to use here, but it's difficult to describe the lavish furniture, architecture and wallpaper, the brilliant paintings by famous names such as Rubens and Van Dyck, the shields depicting the emblems of each Knight of the Round Table (except for a few that were blank due to a Knight's dishonour), the detailed designs on the porcelain dishes, the polished swords and suits of armour... it was all pretty incredible. I had really had no idea what to expect in a castle, and I was amazed at the quality and history behind everything.

Our final stop in the castle grounds was St. George's Chapel, where we saw the final resting places of various royalty, including Henry VIII, Charles I and the Queen Mum. One of the Castle Wardens stopped us to let us know where various people were buried, and I later heard her give the exact same speech to the couple behind us. She was a lovely old lady though, and all of the Wardens were very helpful, and knew an amazing amount about the Castle and Royal history, answering every question we asked of them. Coming out of the Chapel into the Castle grounds, I was surprised to see colours on the horizon, so I asked if it was sunset, and sure enough, the sun was starting to go down. I realise that it's dark a lot of the time in England, but sunset at ten to three in the afternoon is just ridiculous!

Laura and I then walked around Windsor / Eton for a while. We had a late lunch of baked potatoes near the train station, and they were lovely and warm on yet amother freezing cold day. We then walked down to see Eton College, where some of the boys were walking across the street in their fancy coat tails. The grounds looked fairly nice, and it was interesting to see what is probably the world's most famous High School. Along the way, we also stumbled across the Eton Porny School, which has quite a unique name for an institution that is controlled by the Church of England.

After packing up my things back at the pub, we watched a couple of Episodes of Friends before we went to the train station and said our goodbyes. The journey was fairly uneventful. I arrived back at Paddington (Please look after this bear. Thank you!) Station fairly late in the evening and walked back to the hostel from there. After cooking tea, I spent some time doing my final organisation for the next stage of my trip and hitting the sack.

My flight to Paris didn't leave until late the next day, so after checking out of the hostel, I bought a daypass for the subway and spent the morning checking out some of the famous sights I'd missed during my first few days in London.

I started at the London Eye, which I didn't bother to go on after already having a ferris wheel experience in Japan. I then walked down the Thames and across Westminster Bridge, stopping to take some snaps of Big Ben and listen to him - it? - chime on the hour. From there, I walked around Parliament Square to Westminster Abbey, did a loop around the Abbey and the Jewel Tower and back past the Houses of Parliament, where a lot of excited schoolkids cluctching cameras were headed on an excursion.

I then jumped on the Underground and headed to Monument station, where I got off and saw the Momument. It's tall, and I can't for the life of me remember what it is there for, but maybe someone can enlighten me. Referring to my map as I walked along the Thames, I knew that I would soon be passing London Bridge and Tower Bridge. I got to Tower Bridge, which looks big and fancy, and assumed it was London Bridge, but it didn't match up to where it should have been on the map. I asked someone walking by, and determined that yes, it was the Tower Bridge, and the famous London Bridge was in fact an ugly contraption a couple of hundred metres behind me. I can only assume that after London Bridge fell down, they didn't have a lot of money to spend on building it up again!

My last stop of the morning was at the Tower of London, where I sat and watched the ice skaters on the rink outside for a while, and went to a free exhibition about the Tower with replicas of many of the items on display inside. It was all quite interesting, and I will definïtely need to return to London at some stage, not only for the atmosphere, but to catch up on the many tourist attractions I managed to miss. I'll definitely be taking some more money with me next time though!

I thought I'd better not leave England without trying some traditional Fish and Chips, so I bought some at a hot food stand near the Tower of London and munched through them on my way back to the Underground station. They were nice and hot in the freezing weather, and after adding the recommended salt and vinegar, I was quite impressed with my overall Fish and Chip experience.

After carrying my fish and chip box onto the train with me because the Londoners are scared of more bombs and therefore have no bins anywhere in their Underground stations, I began to make my way back to the hostel to pick up my luggage on the way to the airport. Due to some problem or another, there were major delays, and I began to worry about making my flight. Luckily, I'd left myself plenty of time, and got to the airport with just under 2 hours to take-off. The flight was quick and enjoyable, and I made it to Paris safely within a couple of hours...

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Photos

Stained Glass, Windsor Castle
These stained glass windows are part of the new Windsor Castle, and include images of the fire there as a reminder of what happened.

The sun sets early in England
Check the time on my Gucci watch from Shanghai.

So this is where William and Harry went...
It's actually another school just down the road. Interesting name though.

Comments

[tony]

Kris said she would happily go with you next time so that she can look at her "English" heritage. Keep up the good work and enjoy yourself.

[starksinchina]

No doubt about those poms. They know how to turn it on for the rest of the world. Great that you and Laura could catch up.

[Rhys]

A smashing game of bridge, wotho!
I'm not 100%, I'm sure someone else could correct me, but I have a sneaking recollection (not first hand!) that the 'original' fancy London bridge was destroyed during the bombing of the blitx when most of that part of The City (the Tower excluded, thankfully), went up in smoke. Obviously the 'original original' was a Tudor period thing, wide enough to even have houses and a street upon it, whose destruction in the Great Fire of London (166-something-or-other) was indeed the source of said rhyme. I'm afraid bins are still unheard of anywhere on the British train network - not a new thing though, it goes way back to early days of the troubles in Northern Ireland. Kind of ironic you could take your box'o chips on with you though, considering the last lot of bombers used plastic lunch boxes. Glad to hear you loved London though, if only you had the time to get out and see good ol' green England and Wales.