Windsor Castle

The second part of our trip to Windsor was a visit to the great Windsor Castle, which sits right in the middle of the town, although I suppose the castle came first. Windsor Castle is around 1000 years old and has been in continuous royal use since it was first built by William the Conqueror. Queen Elizabeth II considers it her primary home and lives there nearly every weekend. About 150 other people also live on the castle grounds.

This round tower is the site of the original fortress. If the Queen is present, her seal will fly from the flagpole instead of the Union Jack. Annie was disappointed to learn that the Queen was not home during our visit. Maybe they could have had a little chat.

This is an exterior view of the State Apartments, which were previously used as living quarters for monarchs. Today they are used for official functions of the monarchy, including entertaining other heads of state. We were able to tour the inside. The rooms are filled with artwork by Rubens, Van Dyck, and Rembrandt, among many others.

We also visited Saint George's Chapel, which is housed within the Castle. It dates from the mid-1300's (though the present building I believe was completed in the late 1400's) and is the burial site of 10 English monarchs. Today it remains an active Church of England parish.

The tour was self-guided with audio accompaniment, with a version for adults and another for children. Timmy and Annie especially enjoyed using the audio device to learn about the history of the castle. It was fun to see them concentrating and staring at displays or artwork in obvious response to the audio track.

Poor Colin. He didn't want to visit another castle. He didn't like the audio tour. He just wanted to play with his Happy Meal toy, which he did, plopping himself down on the floor of the State Apartments and sending the toy whizzing under the barrier that prevents commoners like us from touching anything. Those royal guards can be so helpful about retrieving things. Luckily, there was a special activity for children at the castle on the day of our visit. The Big Draw is a nationwide project to engage people of all ages in drawing. Windsor Castle was supporting the effort by inviting the children to add to a large mural of castle life. Colin is really interested in drawing and creating lately, so he was thrilled. We practically had to drag him away!