I hope you guys aren't getting sick of these London posts! I last left off on our first day spent in London--the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, the Eye, a city bus tour, yada, yada, yada. We spent our second (and final) day outside of London. We signed up for a coach bus tour that took us to three different locations and lasted the entire day. I think we boarded our bus by 9:00 and returned back to London at 19:30. Yup...it was a long day.
The first stop was Windsor Castle, which is the largest inhabited castle in the world, the longest occupied castle in Europe, and a functioning royal home. One of Britain's major tourist attractions, Windsor Castle is frequently used by the Queen as a royal palace as well as her weekend home. The castle is an important ceremonial location and is often used for state banquets and other official engagements. We were told by our tour guide that the Queen was spending a lot of time at Windsor Castle to escape the hubbub of the Olympics Games (at that time, the city was still preparing for it) and that we'd know she was at Windsor Castle if we saw her flag atop the castle's Round Tower.
Some of these photos are out of order and I couldn't get some of them to move into the right spot!
There is a nice little garden area in what used to be the moat. Apparently, the moat kept drying up, so some king (remember how I told you I'm not a good tour listener? that's where Wikipedia comes in handy for you, hence the link to Windsor Castle above) turned the moat into a garden for the queen. Pretty, huh?
On the way into the castle, we walked through the Windsor Royal Shopping Center, where there were some pretty cool shops and a really great place that we had lunch at.
There wasn't anything particularly fancy about this castle and let's face it, we
were tired from the bus ride and extremely hungry. We just wanted to get our pictures and get out of there. When we first got to London and toured the Tower, we saw all kinds of guardsmen in uniforms adorned with the letters E and R. Similarly, the gates and buildings had the letters on them too. We knew they had something to do with the royal family, but didn't know exactly what they stood for. So we asked around. We asked two British women and would you believe that they didn't even know? Finally, someone told us that they stood for "Elizabeth Regina," regina being the Latin word for Queen. So it means Queen Elizabeth. And how fitting because...
You see that flag? The Queen was in the house! We didn't get to see her though. You would have thought the place would have been a little bit busier with her there in terms of security and everything, but not really. It was pretty quiet except for all us tourists!
The lights had cute little crowns on them. Loved them!
Loved seeing the guards at their posts. See how he's left a light white line on the ground? That has to get tiresome and boring. But that's coming from someone with no stamina.
After that, we rode another two hours to Bath, England to see the Roman Baths. If you want to experience being two places at once, this is the place to be. I mean, you're basically in Rome, in England! The Roman Baths is just that--a complex once used by Romans for public bathing during the Roman occupation of Britain (under the rule of Emperor Claudius; apparently in 43 A.D.). I was so intrigued by the place--not just the Roman Baths, but the city itself. If I ever go back to England, I think I'm going to stay in Bath!
Typical European city...open square, live music, dominating cathedral--beautiful.
The Roman Baths staff thought of everything! Free backpacks to lug our heavy kids up and down those stairs. If only the places in Rome did this!
View of the baths from above.
Just hanging out with the locals!
Just....wow!
I'll never forget this trip and the wonderful time we had with our friends. I definitely want to go back to England once more before we PCS.
Tomorrow, we start our summer leave! For the next two weeks, our little family will be spending every waking moment together. Unfortunately, the clock is ticking until Malu's deployment, but we won't be thinking about that over the next 5 days because we'll be soaking up some more sun in BARCELONA!
Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we travel. I hate flying these days!
Talk to you guys soon!
