We went to Windsor today to visit Windsor Castle. We caught the changing of the guard not long after we arrived. Afterwards, we continued on to tour the castle’s interior spaces. Photography is unfortunately not allowed in any of the indoor areas.
Windsor Castle sits on a hill above Windsor. It isn’t much of a hill in many areas though.
We walked by parts of the castle on the way from the train station to the entrance.
We arrived a bit early so had to queue up near some of the vehicular entrances.
We entered the castle walls after just a short wait.
Much of the castle is not accessible. This large open space, visible through a fence, is the quadrangle.
There is a nice fountain below one of the castle’s towers.
The first interior space we toured was St. George’s Chapel. This church is on the western edge of the castle. Queen Elizabeth II is buried here, along with Prince Phillip as well as her parents, King George IV and Queen Elizabeth. They are the only four people to be buried in the ground. Everyone else buried here is in some sort of casket that is not underground. This was by request from King George VI. They had to build an extension to the chapel to accommodate the graves.
After quickly touring the chapel, we waited for the guard change to occur.
The guard change ceremony is very similar to what takes place at Buckingham Palace but on a smaller scale. The old guard assembles and the new guard arrives. There is some marching around and music playing. Eventually, the old guard marches out and the new guard goes into the building in the background.
We recorded a bit of video.
It was pretty crowded immediately after the guard change!
We headed towards the state rooms for the main part of the tour.
There was a long path above the northern wall that led towards the state rooms. The path offered some views of the the town of Windsor.
We reached a huge queue that didn’t seem to be moving at all. I went to see what the queue was for and it turns out it was for Queen Mary’s doll houses. We decided to skip that and the queue and go right to the state rooms instead.
The state rooms are where many monarchy related functions take place. The rooms are very ornately decorated with all sorts of tapestries, painted ceilings, and more.
After the state rooms, the tour heads to the rooms where the King and Queen would have resided. These would have been more private areas compared to the state rooms.
After viewing the interior areas, we once again had a view of the quadrangle. A very large space!
Looking back at the interior structure of the castle.
We returned to the area where we saw a fountain near the beginning of our visit. There is also a small stream that runs down from somewhere.
At this point, we noticed some birds. Above us, we found a Red Kite.
On the ground, we saw two Eurasian Magpies. These birds are corvids, the same family as crows and Blue Jays. They were looking for food in the grass and under the leaves.
We also found a Common Wood-Pigeon.
There were many people visiting the castle today!