Windsor Palace

On Friday, Eric, Jim and I headed to Windsor Palace to meet the Queen~

Actually, she was there, as this flag attests~when the Royal Standard flies above the round tower the Queen is in residence. I believe that she spends most of her weekends at Windsor Castle.


Unfortunately, we weren't able to take pictures inside, but we really enjoyed seeing many of the treasures within.

We walked around the State Apartments, which are extensive suites of rooms at the heart of the palace. (There are 1,000 rooms at Windsor Castle, by the way!) We also saw the Semi State rooms, which are furnished with treasures from the Royal Collection including paintings by Rembrandt, Holbein, Rubens, Van Dyck and Lawrence, fine tapestries and porcelain, sculpture and armour. As you can imagine, it felt more like a museum~


After all the planes at Duxford, I teased Eric and Jim that now it was my turn! There were many treasures at Windsor that really interested me~

We saw Queen Mary's dolls' house (complete with electricity and plumbing, things like the tiny vacuum cleaner and lawn mower worked!) Many leading artisans and painters contributed to this doll house. They did their work on simply a much smaller scale. The paintings in the house are original works of art, simply very small. The tiny books in the library have real, complete stories in them. The wine cellar in the basement has tiny bottles with actual wine in them. Even the garden was designed by a famous garden designer, and it pulls out from the bottom drawer of the doll house.

Next, we saw two magnificent Jumeau dolls, 'France' and 'Marianne'. These dolls were given to the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret by the children of France in 1938. The dolls’ clothes were made by the leading Parisian couturiers of the day. (There was a necklace by Cartier for instance, furs, silks, shoes, etc. there were probably 15 outfits a piece for each doll, and each also had their own car~)

Then, it was a room filled with all the Royal wedding pictures~

And then, to cap off the feminine favorites, CHINA! Pieces from the many (I want to say 43 sets) of china that belong to the royal family. Very beautiful, all hand painted and unique custom pieces of china.

Speaking of china, in the picture below the wall to the right of the square tower belongs to St. George's Hall, a huge, long room where they can seat 160 people at one long table for major state dinners! Each place setting is laid out with a ruler--cutlery, plates and goblets each precisely lined up. Sounds impressive~



St. George's Chapel, also within the castle walls, which was absolutely breath-taking! 10 of the more recent monarch's are buried there, including Henry VIII.


Jim and Eric became friends with the chap below, the only thing is, he didn't say much.

If you haven't been to Windsor, and you are coming to visit, we would love to go again, let us know when you will be in town!