Photo blog: July 2009

People Around the Castle

I loved her dress.

Canadian kids.

He said that he has one shot and if he misses he can run away fast. I suspect one shot from this thing would be enough, and I bet he practices.

Henry VIII gate from inside the castle walls. Two American tourists. Photographer was a New Yorker.

Windsor Castle

First glimpse of the castle from the train.

Henry VIII gate from outside the castle.

Courtyard.

If you have a moat that won't (and had never since the Norman's built it) hold water, what to do with it? Maybe a rose garden.

I misnamed this church on the other blog. It is actually St George's.

This little living space is in the walls of the castle, right across from St George's. Certainly a gardener lives there, but I wonder if it might be THE ROYAL gardener.

Delighted to see that the Queen has switched to halogen.

From the train station.

We learned about this kind of diplomacy a few years ago when reading about how the Doge took his potential enemies around to see his shipbuilding abilities. From the scary orniments to the actual artilary captured from former enemies, the message is clear outside and even more clear inside when the first room you come to is full to the ceiling of swords and guns and other captured weaponry.

This particular massive cannon is currently aimed at the amusement park built right next door.

I was particularly interested in the one car that is different. It has "VIP" in large letters on the outside. I just wonder what could make that particular car VIP. It hardly seems wise to serve champaign on an amusement park ride.

Getting In

She's walking uphill to join me because there is nowhere to sit.

There is quite a queue outside the entrance.

And another one inside.

However, there were quite a few desks for selling admissions and the lines moved pretty fast.

This is the plebeian entrance.

Then uphill to the castle and palace.

How to Get to Windsor

The train goes through Maidenhead. I had a discussion with a local the other day about the names of towns in England. Though many of our towns are named after the originals in the UK, like Reading and Boston and Amsbury and Salisbury and Plymouth and on and on, we don't generally have towns with names like Maidenhead. I find by Googling that we did have a town named Maidenhead, but they changed it to Lawrenceville, New Jersey quite some time ago.