after a fantastic breakfast at chalon house we are off to richmond station (just a five minute walk, really), wait a little bit for the train to windsor & eaton riverside ("avoid delays" on the displays at the station), and then hop on board (no dilly-dallying around here: the station controller signals the departure of the train before the doors of the train have opened to let passengers off even, very eager to avoid delays, that bloke). the train ride — once we've left twickenham behind — takes us through beautiful green country side…half and an hour later we arrive at "windsor ER".

on leaving the station we turn left then right and then after about 100m follow the road up to the castle (almost as seen on television ) it's a bit past 11:00 and we seem to have just missed a parade coming down from the castle: we catch a glimpse of the red frocks disappearing into windsor on the other side of the hill. at the entrance we queue for  tickets, get them, then queue for the security x-raying and are finally inside windsor castle!

it's a rather nice castle, grand but not arrogant. we follow the winding castle road past the gate through which foreign guests of states and banquet guests get to drive (we failed to announce our coming, so have to follow the normal tourist route ). we particularly like the garden in the former inner moat of the castle — while looking at it we overhear an american gentleman explaining to his daughter that "honey, this is all real! real stones! look at that!" —we are glad that they realize that this is not euro disney and that in case anyone with larger ears than usual should appear on the scene that it's not mickey mouse in a funny disguise…

we follow the lane through a gate to visit the state appartments and queen's doll-house: it's a 45min wait, but, hey, we do as the english are wont to do when they see a queue, we join it as well.  luckily it's really just a 30min wait until we get to have a peek at the royal stuff. the doll house is rather fascinating, not least because of the miniatures inside but also because it gives you some idea of how the upper classes lived in the early 1900s.

the state apartments are equally interesting, particularly the reconstructed rooms that fell victim to the 1992 fire. finally we emerge from the belly of windsor castle into a downpour of rain — good thing we brought that large umbrella with us

we conclude our tour with a visit to st george's chapel (rather crowded affair that but still managing to maintain a church atmosphere)…and as the queen is not in (and probably would not have invited us for tea anyhow) we decide to go to that little tea-room recommend by anne, our b&b landlady (we do find a nice tea-room-cum-antiques-shop but later worked out that anne had probably recommend a different one further down the road).