Unfortunately we had to leave London this morning. Although I was sad to go, I was excited to see more of the United Kingdom and also hopeful that the next place we visited had less sirens. I ate some hotel breakfast and got on the bus to Windsor. Today was the day to visit the Windsor Castle, which was pretty exciting after the birth of the little royal baby Archie. When we got there we also found out that the Queen was in the castle, which was pretty exciting.
We got an excellent guided tour of the outside of the castle and then took an audio tour of the inside. It was interesting to see the inside of a castle that I’ve seen so many pictures of from the outside. Something interesting that I learned on the audio tour was that the King had two bedrooms, one where he actually slept and one where the public would come to watch the ceremony of him waking up and going to sleep every morning and night. I thought this was absolutely bizarre and thought that there was no way I could fall asleep if random people were watching me do it every night.
After the tour I got some ice cream made with the milk of the royal cows. Royal milk if you will. It was actually really good and even if it was really gimmicky it was worth it. I met up with my friend and went shopping for a bit and then stopped to get something to eat. We went to the Duchess of Cambridge Pub, which is named after Kate Middleton, where I got grilled goat cheese that was very delicious. After a bit more shopping, we boarded the bus and went to the hotel in Stratford-Upon-Avon.
This hotel apparently was not concerned with accessibility for those with mobility issues because my roommate and I had to drag our luggage up a set of stairs and then back down to get to our hotel room. I can’t imagine how difficult getting to the rooms could be if you had mobility issues that didn’t show up in the form of a wheelchair or something that allowed you to get a first floor room. Needless to say we were a little exhausted after our trek to the rooms.
We had a bit of a break, a group meeting, and then our group dinner. I had cheese tarts with potatoes and salad as my entree and it was absolutely delicious, as was the ice cream we had for dessert. We walked back to the hotel room to discover that I had to call to get a blanket and sheet for my pullout couch bed for the night before I could finally head to bed. Fortunately we were only in this hotel for one night because I was excited to move on from this dysfunctional room.