out and about: London Day 3

Day three included Windsor Castle, the Churchill War Museum, the National Gallery, and the British Museum among other stops of course.

The whole of Windsor castle is much larger than this picture but here is just a small piece of the beautiful estate.

This is where we entered the inside rooms. The tour started with an intricately designed doll house that had electricity and even plumbing! It was made for the queen (Windsor is her weekend home--about a forty minute train ride from Paddington). And the dollhouse was far from the most detailed work in the building. Every room had masterpieces on the wall (mostly from Van Eyck I believe) with gold trim, chandeliers, ebony furniture, and more gold everywhere you looked. We saw rooms where they sleep, greet guests, keep china, eat, vote on new knights, and where the fire of 1992 started.

The courtyard where official guests first arrive.

This is St. George's Chapel named after the patron saint of England. This is also the resting site of many former kings and queens of England including the Queen Mother and King George VI. When we left we were able to sign our tickets so that we could go back for free for the year. Since Kevin wouldn't be back in London I suggested he sign Brendan's name and he panicked and wrote Brendan Maxhill... any Brendan Maxhill's want a year pass to Windsor Castle? lol

Leaving either Slough Station or Windsor Station

Back in Paddington Station

Some of the war rooms. I took photos of nearly all the rooms it seems but a lot of them turned out quite blurry unfortunately since it was rather dark down there.

Left: "The Slab" was about 3 feet of concrete meant to reinforce the war rooms should a bomb be dropped on them. Right: One of many maps! This museum/the war rooms were actually really cool--one of my favorite attractions for sure. It really gives you a sense of what it was like for those during WWII. It was also neat how they had a typewriter that you could type on in the museum. I wrote on it but typed too fast at first so that all the stamps jammed together. I also kept forgetting to return the register so that the end of every line had a mess of several letters in one spot. By the end of the letter it was quite legible though... it made me understand why the mostly blind elderly man I used to buy groceries for had so much trouble writing his thank you note to me and my friend Chelsey.