June 8th
Today was one of those “transit” days where the focus of the day was getting from one country to another without really any sightseeing. We slept well in Amiens and checked out around 9am, for the hour and a half drive back to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Everything went smoothly with finding our way through the traffic maze in the airport to the rental car return, but we had an anxious moment when the EuRopcar lady inspected a slight scrape on the car and wanted to see Neil’s photos of the area to check if we were responsible. All good though and she wrote “no damage” on the return document – phew!
By the time we negotiated checkin and security we had about an hour and a half to wait until we boarded, the plane left on time and despite the short (40 min) flight we were served a small sandwich and coffee. Before long we were flying over London on the approach to Heathrow, trying to spot landmarks from the window.
We whizzed through immigration, the arrival system with the new engates is such a huge improvement on the old systems. Once we collected our bags we found the Hertz counter where a sign advised us to head to Bus stop 2 for the shuttle to the Hertz lot on the northern perimeter road. Then things ground to a halt for a while. There were a couple of people waiting and the (Aussie chap) in front said the Hertz van was on its way and he’d been told it would be about ten minutes, but it was more like 25 minutes before we finally saw the shuttle. But we were finally on our way and collected a rather nice Lexus for our road trip. It’s an upgrade from what we ordered , a bit more expensive , but a hybrid so we should save on petrol cost. We will see!
The drive through busy traffic to Windsor was a little hair raising but we eventually pulled into the grounds of the De Vere Beaumont Estate at around 4 pm. It’s a fairly grand hotel which does a big business in events and weddings etc, lots of fancy ballrooms and lovely grounds , but our room is not much bigger than a shoebox! 😂
We went for a stroll around the grounds before stopping in the bar for a drink. Dinner at the 1705 Restaurant was delicious, I had one of the tastiest risottos that I’ve had for a long time!
June 9th
There’s nothing quite like a good English Breakfast! Such a good start to the day. The hotel has been very busy over the weekend, there was a big function going on in the grounds near our window last night but it didn’t disturb our sleep. But the breakfast room is huge and coped well with the many guests.
last night I’d purchase 9.30 am tickets for Windsor Castle, which is only a ten minute drive away. We left around 8.30 thinking it would give us time to have a look around Windsor first but in what is becoming a habit for us , we approached town to find roadblocks and roads full of cyclists. We’d stumbled on the Royal Windsor Triathlon which was taking over some of the streets in the town. ( I say a habit because we stumbled on similar cycling events in both Florence and Rome! )
So I needed to do some rapid re navigation to find our way through the maze to one of the car parks in the town. It was already pretty full with triathlon participants and viewers but Neil’s good luck came good and found us a spot. We walked past the gardenpark which was the staging area for the cycle section and it gave us an idea of the size of the event, I’ve never seen so many bicycles !
The next trick was negotiating our way to the castle, dodging cyclists as we tried to cross roads. But we made it to the castle entrance with only about a ten minute wait. I’m glad we left early!
We collected our audio guides and walked through the entrance area to the lower ward of the castle.
We made our way up the north terrace where we needed to queue again for a while until the State apartments open. I’m not sure what the reasoning is for having them open a half hour after the rest of the castle? The walk through the state apartments was an eye opener, such incredibly grand rooms as fabulous paintings, some of which were familiar. It’s just frustrating that you’re not allowed to take photos inside!
back out into the grounds we walked past the Quad and down the paths to the lower section of the castle and St Georges Chapel. Unfortunately on Sundays it’s not open to tourists, but we admired the exterior and also the guards as they marched past.
After leaving the castle we went for a stroll through the town, down to the Long Walk. It was occupied today with runners from the triathlon, they had to make a few laps up and down and Into the town and some of them were looking pretty puffed! We browsed in some souvenir shops and admired the cute old pubs.
By now, our three hours of prepaid parking was coming to an end so we headed back to the car to drive across southern London to our next Royal castle of the day, Hampton Court Palace. Neil’s luck held good once again and we nabbed a spot in a full car park. We did come a cropper with the pay and display though, as this one required coins or paying with an app. I had the app on my phone already and we duly paid our fee only to realise that the payment had been registered to the rental car we’d had in Vancouver last year! There was no way to change it in the app so we had to pay it again for our new car, frustrating!
We walked down the road to the grand castle entrance , and queued to buy our tickets. Another audio guide collected and we started our tour in the Henry VIII apartments. It was nice that they allow you to take photos inside here but the interiors are definitely not as grand and colourful and lush as Windsor palace.
In the gardens we walked down to the Long Walk and admired the view of the back of the castle , despite part of it being covered with the inevitable scaffolding. We stopped in at the Tilyard cafe for lunch and then wandered through the rose garden on our way out.
once again our parking time was running down so we headed back to the car and made our way through lots of weekend traffic to the hotel. Neil has been working while I’ve caught up with my blog. Through the window I can see the staff setting up for another function in the gazebo in the garden. It’s turned chillier today so I’m not sure they will enjoy it as much as the crowd there yesterday.
We think we will just have dinner in the bar tonight. Tomorrow we collect Erin and set out for our road trip!