Windsor Castle

Over Christmas break, our family took a trip to London. One of the days we did was a day trip to see Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Bath. We were mainly taking the tour to see Stonehenge (which, ironically, we spent very little time at). We were surprised at how much we liked Windsor.

Windsor Castle is the largest and oldest occupied castle in the world. It is an official residence of the Queen, where she usually spends her weekends (but not around Christmas time). There was a fire there that destroyed 100 rooms of the castle in 1992, but it is mostly restored now.

Windsor Castle is truly a castle; it is massive, and sits on top of a hill. It even has a moat around it, although the moat has always been dry. 300 people live and work at Windsor Castle, keeping it in good condition. It is surrounded by a little town with very cute buildings, and many little shops and restaurants. It would have been fun to just spend a day in the town alone!

Since we were on a tour, we had limited time in Windsor—as in an hour and a half. (We spent 3 or 4 hours in the smaller Kensington Palace on Sunday!) I would have loved to have spent a day there in the town and castle. We walked through the castle, but didn't dawdle to look at everything, and spent next to no time in the town. We didn't want to be left behind on the tour!

Inside of the castle, there are massive dining tables for great parties, and many grand rooms and entrances for important people. One table, for 160 people, is so large that they use a ruler to set it, otherwise it will look very messy! We saw a huge doll house built all to scale, made for Queen Mary, simply to show architecture in miniature. It has electricity and running hot and cold water. There was also knights' armor, like in a movie. I was surprised at how short all of the suits were! The castle had its own chapel, called St. George's Chapel. It was beautiful, but unfortunately we had to speed through it. Windsor Castle was a great place to visit!