London Day 3

We started our day by walking from our hotel to Barbican.  Jordan had found a café for breakfast there called ”The Workshop Coffee Company”.  Interesting food and they produce their own coffee blends. 

From there we headed to Barbican tube or the train to Paddington……we were off to Windsor Castle. 

The train from Paddington takes approximately 15 minutes to Slough where you change to another (these trains leave every 20 minutes) for the five minute trip to Windsor Central/Eton.  At Windsor you find yourself in a little shopping/dining mecca which is quite a surprise.  The castle looms in the background and, although it’s hard to imagine HRH popping down to the village, I’m sure the younger royals do so regularly.

Armed with our “info handsets” we set off on our tour of Windsor Castle, which has been the home of monarchs for 900 years and is still considered to be “home” for Elizabeth.   The tour also covers the famous “Queen Mary’s Doll House” and the State Rooms, where you can see where the Queen to this day holds her special receptions.  The grandeur and opulence is extraordinary from the original masters adorning the walls to magnificent chandeliers in every room.

There is only so much grandeur we can handle for one day so we head back out to the village, which is now teeming with people, and settle on a Greek Restaurant for lunch.  A wedding is taking place while we dine and the array of guests in their ‘far too short and far too tight’ dresses is cause for a flurry of comments by surrounding diners and staff alike. 

We are soon back at Paddington station (our return tickets were GBP17.50 each and weren’t required once!)  Changing to the Central Line for Notting Hill the idea is to then board the Red Line for Holborn…..we hadn’t considered that today marks the biggest street party in Europe……the trains were cancelled and we were pushed along in a ‘mosh pit’ style crowd out of the station where we finally gave up any further idea of train travel and paid the GBP31 taxi ride back to the hotel.

We have a 6 o’clock reservation at The Wolseley….not very salubrious but an iconic eating spot in London.  We then venture across the road to the Ritz Hotel.  Another iconic hotel  spot but these days a very tired ‘mish mash’ of styles and the bright ‘baby pink’ bathrooms were a sight to behold!