Wednesday 7 May 2008

Saturday 3 May 2008

Monday, March 31st

Well, there's not much to tell for our last day at Windsor. We enjoyed a delicious breakfast at our B&B, then walked though town to the castle. It was another quiet day. We got in on our passes from the day before (still couldn't believe it!) and went straight to St. George's Chapel for a look around with our audio guides. It was a bit noisy in there as a tv crew from New Zealand was setting up lights and cameras for the special memorial service for Sir Edmund Hillary which was to be in the next day or two.
Since we had time, we re-looked though the State Rooms and came out just in time to watch the changing of the guard. I actually got a better look at it through these photos than I did in person. Tall people certainly had the advantage here.
Birds of prey are kept at the castle to scare off the pigeons. I'm sure they do more than just frighten them when the tourists aren't around!
It sure was nice to experience spring for a couple of days. There's a duck near the middle of this photo enjoying himself as well.

We left Windsor Castle with just enough time for me to go pick up that teapot which I was certain would fit in my carry-on (it did), buy a few snacks at the Mark & Spencer's, and speed walk back to the B&B to grab our bags and catch our cab. In hindsight we wished we had alotted more time for Windsor, but were happy to have seen what we did anyway.

Our drive to Heathrow Airport was the calmest car service ride I have ever taken. In New York & Venice I had really feared pedestrian lives would be lost, but there were no such concerns this morning. We had a pleasant chat with our driver and enjoyed the rolling green scenery for the 15 or so minutes it took to get to the airport. Thankfully we had nothing to do with the nightmare-ish new Terminal 5, and passed the rest of our very long day of travel un-eventfully.