We continue our trip around London. This time it’s time for a trip to Windsor to visit the palace, for which we already had tickets.
15th February
Today I have to get up early. I get up early and go to the supermarket to buy some breakfast. A nutritious breakfast with a couple of cold coffees for £5.09 (€6.30). We have breakfast and go to the station.
We get on the underground and go to Waterloo station. There we took a South Western Railway train. About 50 minutes later we were at the final station Windsor & Eton Riverside. The ticket cost £8.90 (€10.60).
We got off the train and made our way to the castle, a 10-minute walk away. We arrived just in time to see the changing of the guard.
The changing of the guard is held inside the castle on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 11am. An entrance fee is required so we missed it. What you can see freely is the guard leaving at around 11.25.
After the departure of the guard we went to the ticket office. We had tickets for 12 o’clock but as we bought them with Civitatis because they were a bit CHEAPER, we had to exchange a voucher for the tickets.
If you want to save money like us, you can buy your tickets here:
*Helps us to maintain the blog
Now that we have our tickets, we go for a bite to eat and then we go to the entrance of the castle.
Windsor Castle is a royal residence located in Windsor, in the English county of Berkshire, about 40 km west of central London.
The original castle was built in the 11th century, following the Norman invasion of England by William the Conqueror. Since the reign of Henry I (1100 to 1135), it has been used by the reigning monarch and is the oldest palace in Europe.
It was built as a motte-and-bay castle, with three pavilions surrounding a central mound. It was gradually replaced by stone fortifications. It withstood a prolonged siege during the First Barons’ War in the early 13th century.
Henry III built a luxurious royal palace within the castle in the middle of the century. Edward III rebuilt it to form an even grander ensemble of buildings. This was to make it the most expensive secular building project of the Middle Ages in England.
Edward’s design lasted through the Tudor period. During the Tudor period, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I made increasing use of the castle as a royal court and diplomatic entertainment centre.
During the English Civil War (1642 – 1646) the castle was used as a military barracks by the Parliamentary forces and as a prison for Charles I. At the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Charles II rebuilt much of the castle with the help of the architect Hugh May. He created a set of extravagant baroque interiors.
During the reign of George VI, it served as a refuge for the royal family during the German Luftwaffe bombing raids of World War II.
In 1992 it was badly damaged after a fire broke out. Between 2011 and 2022 it was the main residence of Elizabeth II.
Time to visit the castle. We pass a strict security check and enter the grounds. Soon we reach the offices where we pick up our audio guide (included). We also have a small exhibition with the historical chronology of the castle.
We leave the office and walk around the mote, an artificial hill 15 metres high. On it we find the Round Tower.
The Round Tower is an original 12th century building. It was extended in the early 19th century under the direction of architect Jeffry Wyatville. Its interior was redesigned between 1991 and 1993 to provide additional space for the Royal Archives.
We skirted the tower and headed for the entrance to the State Apartments. When we arrived there was a huge queue to get in. After a while of waiting in the rain without the queue making much progress, we asked an employee who was there. It turned out that the queue was to enter the Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House.
As we weren’t too interested, we decided to skip the queue and go straight into the flats. There was no queue at all.
The State Apartments make up the largest part of the Upper Ward. The present building follows the medieval foundations laid by Edward III.
Its interior was largely designed by Jeffry Wyattville in the early 19th century. He intended each room to illustrate a particular architectural style and to showcase the furnishings and fine art of the period.
Many of the rooms at the eastern end of the castle had to be restored after a fire in 1992. The rooms were restored to resemble their original appearance, but using modern materials and concealing modern structural improvements.
Important: photographs and videos are strictly prohibited.
For more convenience you can book the Windsor Castle transport tour with Civitatis:
*Helps us to maintain the blog
After visiting the ornate flats we moved on to the last part of the visit, St George’s Chapel.
St George’s Chapel, whose official title is The King’s Free Chapel of the College of St George, is a chapel built in the late medieval Perpendicular Gothic style.
It is a Royal Peculiar, a church under the direct jurisdiction of the monarch as well as the Chapel of the Order of the Garter. It was founded in the 14th century by King Edward III and enlarged in the late 15th century. It is located in the lower pavilion of the castle.
In the 19th century, St George’s Chapel and nearby Frogmore Gardens replaced Westminster Abbey as the burial place of the British royal family. Among others, the famous King Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth II are buried here.
The chapel has been the setting for many royal weddings.
Important: photographs and videos are strictly prohibited.
We walked quietly through the chapel with our audio guide and by the time we finished, it was well past lunchtime. So it was time to find something open.
Nearby there was a pub that served food at that time, called The Carpenters Arms. British food at a good price. It was really good. The final price was £40.70 (48.97€).
After a sumptuous meal, we set out to explore the town of Windsor. We start by wandering the streets. Close by is The Crooked House of Windsor.
Also known as the Market Cross House, it is a commercial building dating from 1687. It is the oldest tea house in England. It was rebuilt in the 17th century and is notable for being crooked, as the name suggests.
Next door is the Windsor & Royal Borough Museum. It is a local history museum that explores the history of the town of Windsor and the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in the county of Berkshire.
The museum’s first exhibition opened in Windsor Guildhall in 1951 as part of Princess Elizabeth’s Festival of Britain celebrations.
Down the street nearby is the Windsor Parish Church of St John the Baptist, the parish church of St John the Baptist in Windsor. It was built in 1822 on the site of an older 12th century church.
Its great jewel is a beautiful 17th century painting of the Last Supper by Franz de Cleyn.
One thing you will notice on your visit to Windsor is the constant passing of very, VERY low flying planes on their way to land at nearby Heathrow Airport. When I say low, I mean really low. They pass by approximately every two minutes making a very loud noise. By this point in the day it was starting to get very uncomfortable.
We continued down the street. We soon came to a building that caught my eye because it looked so old. It is The Two Brewers pub. It is located in a building built in 1709 although the pub was opened in 1792. More than 200 years in operation… that’s quite a lot.
It is situated on Park Street and when it opened it was the main road from Windsor to London. Stagecoach carriages, with their horses fresh from the stable, would set off for the big city.
Right next to the pub is the entrance to The Long Walk in Windsor Great Park. It is a large tree-lined avenue of just over 3km. It was created by order of King Charles II between 1682 and 1685.
By now the sound of the planes was starting to get really annoying, so after walking along a small part of The Long Walk, we decided to turn back.
We headed straight to Windsor & Eton Central station. There we took the GWR train to Slough Station about 5 minutes away. There we transferred to another GRW to Paddinton Station, where we arrived after about 20 minutes.
From the station, as it was still early, we went for a walk along the shopping area of Oxford Street. It is a main street in the city that runs between Tottenham Court Road and Marble Arch.
Follow us on social media:
It is the busiest shopping street in Europe, with some 300,000 visitors a day. It has approximately 300 shops.
It was originally part of the Via Trinobantina, a Roman road between Essex and Hampshire via London. During the Middle Ages it was known as Tyburn Road. At that time it was famous for the public hanging of prisoners on the Tyburn gallows.
During the 18th century it began to change from residential to commercial use. By this time it attracted retailers, street traders and prostitutes and was renamed Oxford Road.
In the early 20th century, department stores such as Selfridges John Lewis & Partners began to be built.
We strolled around the area and saw that the current shops are practically the same as in the rest of the world’s shopping areas. With a few exceptions, such as Hamleys Toy Shop on Regent Street.
As a child-minded adult, it was a shop I had to visit. Its story begins in Cornwall. William Hamley opened his first shop there in 1760.
The shop was so successful that in 1881 he opened the Regent Street branch. In the late 1920s and early 1930s a severe world crisis forced the shop to close. Walter Lines bought the company and in 1938 it reopened, returning to the great success of the past.
Hamleys has 7 floors full of pure magic. There I bought some exclusive playmobils; a beefeater and a King’s Guard.
After the visit we decided to have a hot chocolate in a Pret a Manger shop and take a short break. The next destination was Chinatown, for a walk and dinner.
From here we walk to Chinatown. The first area of London known as Chinatown was in the Limehouse area of the East End. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Chinese population of London was concentrated in this area. Businesses were established there catering to the Chinese sailors who frequented Docklands.
The area was known for the stories of slums and opium dens that were then legal. After World War II, the growing popularity of Chinese cuisine and the influx of immigrants from Hong Kong led to the opening of an increasing number of Chinese restaurants elsewhere.
Today’s Chinatown began to be established in the 1970s. The first restaurants opened on Lisle Street, parallel to Gerrard Street, and gradually more opened. Today the area has more than 80 restaurants, supermarkets, casinos and souvenir shops.
It’s not that there were no people there, it must have been the entire population of London packed in. The restaurants had impressive queues so we didn’t try the Chinese food.
We decided to go to the underground and, if we could find something, to have dinner. We did so at a pizzeria opposite the tube entrance to Tottenham Court Road station. It’s called Berberè Pizzeria and the pizzas were amazing. The service was spectacular and the price was very good. Two pizzas, two drinks and a small jar of crust dipper, £34.43 (€41.43).
Now, after dinner, we go to the hotel to rest. Tomorrow will be a new day.
Find your ideal hotel at the best price in London with Agoda:
*It helps us to maintain the blog
16th February
We got up early today. For a change, we had breakfast in a coffee shop opposite the hotel. It’s called Yapix Coffee & Wine House. An instagramer place, where they invite you to upload your photos of the food, but the truth is that it was very good, although it wasn’t cheap. The whole thing cost us £22.70 (€27.31).
After breakfast we set off for the underground station. It was going to be a short trip, to the next stop after ours: North Greenwich. There we were going to take the Uber Boat to travel along part of the River Thames.
We took a fairly long ride, all the way to Battersea Power Station Pier. The trip took about 1 hour and 15 minutes and we could see from another perspective all the monuments that are on the banks of the river. The cost of the trip was £10.80 (€12.86).
The reason I made the long walk was because I was very curious and wanted to visit Battersea Power Station. It is a decommissioned coal-fired power station on the south bank of the River Thames at Nine Elms.
It was built by the London Power Company to a design by Leonard Pearce, chief engineer of the LPC, and CS Allott & Son Engineers. The station is one of the largest brick buildings in the world and is notable for its original Art Deco interior decoration.
The exterior of the building is actually quite impressive for its size.
The station actually consists of two parts, Battersea A Power Station built between 1929 and 1935; and Battersea B Power Station built between 1937 and 1941. Although the latter phase was interrupted by the Second World War and completed in 1955. This resulted in the iconic image of the 4 giant chimneys.
Battersea A was closed in 1975 and Battersea B a few years later. In 1980 the entire structure was declared a Grade II listed monument. It remained empty until 2014, being in virtual ruins. Various plans were made to bring the building into use, but none were successful.
In 2012 Malaysian companies S P Setia and Sime Darby took over the building and in 2022 opened a shopping and leisure centre on the premises.
The shops are the same as in the other shopping centres, but the interior industrial structure has been relatively preserved and I loved it.
From here we set off across Chelsea Bridge. The original bridge was built in 1858 and was then called Victoria Bridge and was a toll bridge. In 1877 it was purchased by the Metropolitan Board of Works and tolls were abolished in 1879.
Curiosity: The bridge was structurally unsafe, leading the authorities to rename it Chelsea Bridge to avoid the association of the royal family with a possible collapse.
The current bridge was opened in 1937 after the old one was demolished.
From the bridge there are curious views of Battersea Park and its London Peace Pagoda, a Buddhist stupa built in 1985. It was a gift from the Japanese Buddhist order Nipponzan-Myohoji.
Curiosity: in these grounds, in 1929, the Duke of Wellington, then Prime Minister, fought a duel with the Earl of Winchelsea in Battersea Fields.
On the other side of the bridge we got on a bus, for the sake of travelling on top as tourists. We had a good tour of Belgravia, passing numerous luxury shops, the kind that security would never let me into.
We got off next to Marble Arch, which unfortunately was completely covered by restoration.
Marble Arch is a triumphal arch designed by John Nash in 1827 as the State entrance to the Court of Honour at Buckingham Palace. In 1851, on the initiative of the architect and town planner Decimus Burton, a former pupil of John Nash, the arch was moved to its present site. This was done in order to allow the extension of Buckingham Palace to proceed.
Here we decided to recharge our batteries by buying something to eat in a nearby supermarket. While we were getting our strength back we went straight to Hyde Park.
Hyde Park is the largest park in central London at 140 hectares. It was created by Henry VIII in 1536, when he took the land from Westminster Abbey and used it as a hunting ground. It was opened to the public in 1637.
In the early 18th century, under the leadership of Queen Caroline, major improvements were made. At this time it became a regular venue for duels between members of the nobility.
In the 19th century the park hosted the Great Exhibition of 1851, for which the Crystal Palace, designed by Joseph Paxton, was erected.
We begin our visit at the north-east corner of the park, where Speakers’ Corner is held on Sunday mornings. Since 1872 it has been a place of free speech and debate. Protests have been held here by the Chartists, the Reform League, the Suffragettes and the Stop the War Coalition.
Here we spent a little while listening to some conspiracy theorists but then continued our walk through the park. It’s quite a pleasant place to stroll around, walk the little dog, and there were even kids playing football.
Strolling, strolling, strolling we came to The Old Police House. It is an active police station built in the 1870’s. Directly opposite is a privately owned house. It is something I found very curious. I don’t know if anyone lives in it.
We continue on our way and arrive at The Serpentine, a recreational lake built in 1730. Although the entire body of water is often referred to as the Serpentine, the name strictly speaking refers only to the eastern half of the lake. The Serpentine Bridge marks the boundary between Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. To the east of the bridge is The Serpentine and to the west is The Long Water.
Adjacent to the bridge is the Serpentine North Gallery which, together with the South Gallery, forms the Serpentine Galleries, an art exhibition space.
Originally called The Magazine, it was built in 1805 and was originally a powder magazine. It remained in military use as workshops and warehouses until 1963, when it was transferred to the Ministry of Building and Works.
From 2010, it became an art gallery, with a renovation project led by Zaha Hadid.
We cross the bridge and enter Kensington Gardens, formerly the private gardens of Kensington Palace. Originally part of Hyde Park, it was separated in 1728 at the request of Queen Caroline.
Kensington Gardens opened to the public in 1841.
Just across the bridge, on the right is the Serpentine Gallery, the southern building. We continue north and soon come across Queen Caroline’s Temple. It was built in 1734 by William Kent for Queen Caroline.
It later became a gamekeeper’s dwelling, but in 1976 it was returned to use as a summer house.
Nearby is the Peter Pan Statue. It was commissioned by Barrie and made by Sir George Frampton in 1912.
The statue stands on the spot where Peter Pan lands in Barrie’s 1902 book ‘The Little White Bird’ after flying out of his nursery.
A little further north are the Italian Gardens. The Italian Gardens were built in the 1870s to a design by James Pennethorne. They are believed to have been a gift from Prince Albert to his beloved Queen Victoria.
We make our way to the central part of the gardens to visit Kensington Palace. Kensington Palace has been the residence of the British royal family since the 17th century. It is now the official London residence of several royals. Among them are the Prince and Princess of Wales, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and the Duke and Duchess of Kent.
It was originally a two-storey Jacobean mansion built by Sir George Coppin in 1605 in the village of Kensington.
In 1689 King William III and his wife Mary II bought the property and hired Sir Christopher Wren to enlarge it.
With our usual good fortune, the exterior façade was covered by building work, but the interior can be visited.
From here we head to the southern end of the gardens, where we find the spectacular Albert Memorial, a large monument dedicated to Prince Albert. It was commissioned by Queen Victoria in memory of her beloved husband, who died in 1861.
Designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, it takes the form of an ornate 54-metre-high canopy or pavilion over the high altar of a church. It houses a south-facing statue of the prince. The monument was unveiled in July 1872 by Queen Victoria, and the statue of Albert was ceremonially “seated” in 1876.
Directly opposite is the Royal Albert Hall, a concert hall opened in 1871 by Queen Victoria. Throughout its history, the hall has played host to people from a variety of walks of life, including suffragette meetings, speeches by Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle and Albert Einstein. It has also hosted exhibition bouts by Muhammad Ali and concerts by regular performers such as Eric Clapton and Shirley Bassey.
The hall was originally to be called the Central Hall of Arts and Sciences. Queen Victoria changed it to its current name when she laid the foundation stone in 1867. She did so in memory of her husband, Prince Albert, who had died six years earlier.
It was getting to be time for lunch. It was going to have to be something quick as we had tickets for the Natural History Museum at 3pm. We went to an Asian food chain called Wasabi. The food was nothing to write home about but it wasn’t overpriced, but not cheap either. Two sushi platters, two drinks and an onigiri £31.25 (37€).
That’s as far as this entry goes. We don’t want it to be too long so we’ll continue in the next one.
See you soon…
Discover the best activities and tours in London with Civitatis:
*It helps us to maintain the blog