Windsor is where the Queen goes for the weekend. A couple interesting things about it. First, it's right (and I mean right) under the flight path for Heathrow airport. You'd have thought the Queen would have had more say on where they were building Heathrow when they did, given that the Castle pre-dates it by about 600 years or so.
Second, it takes a different amount of time to get out there (I imagine) if you're the Queen versus the rest of us. I picture for her, ending the work week at Buckingham Palace, smiling at people and acting regal by not moving much. Wrapping up and heading to her our of town home, Windsor. I figure she goes out there with a police escort, maybe they stop some traffic, or at least drive in the bus lane, and she gets there in half an hour. As for us, we took a tube to a train to another train, and then walked 5 minutes up to the castle. We made very good connections and it took us just over an hour.
Windsor Castle. Big. Imposing. Very definately a castle. And the interesting thing is that the Queen has her own flag (seriously) and that when she's at Windsor they fly the flag. It was flying while we were there, but she never came to the window and smiled or anything!
From Windsor you can walk across the river, another 5 minutes, and you're in Eton where the prep school is. Very picturesque little town (worth maybe a half hour of walking around). It reminded me more of Williamsburg and William & Mary than any other school I've ever seen, which was nice. Maxine checked and Eton pre-dates W&M by 250 years or so...
All in, we spent about 9 hours on our Windsor excursion. So, we spent the evening at the apartment, which remains a very comfortable base for us. It's an urban area and interestingly, the people in the next building were having a party in their unit, with the windows open. It made a lot of noise and was still going on when we went to bed. I was hoping that it wouldn't be that much of a problem for sleeping, but it was. So, I got their attention from our back porch (now around 11:30pm) and asked them to be quieter. They apologized and were quieter. You wouldn't think this a big deal, but in our neighborhood in LA people have MUCH more of an entitlement attitude. I've seen police on more than one occasion have to quiet down a party at midnight. And, this would be a party with valets that was probably costing $100,000. So, I was really impressed with this English guy a)not making a fuss, b)quieting down when asked, and c)apologizing... Civilized life!
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