Day 3A Royal Wedding Tues May 15

Finally we're here! It's a beautiful day, cool and sunny. There were bicycles at the hotel and a map for the 45-minute ride to Windsor but after seeing the hill the castle was on, we opted for a taxi. It was a pretty ride from the hotel to the town and we were glad we hadn't tried to walk or ride bikes. Here's a typical home along the route.

For 10 pounds, he took us right to the High Street, where we could see lots of television equipment getting loaded into places as they set booths up. 

See the round tower of the Castle at the top of the hill? We liked all the streamers: many places had both UK's Union Jack and USA's Stars and Stripes.  We were hungry and looking for some breakfast but there were all kinds of people crowding the street and excitement in the air. Turns out it was time for the daily changing of the guard. But there were people already camped out here (on Tuesday!) that you saw during the princes' walkabout on Friday and during the wedding.  I decided to buy one of these flags, which ended up making a good blanket to sit on Saturday.

Saw the guards change while grabbing a ham and cheese croissant in Lillibet's.

Then we walked up the hill and got into the queueing line to visit the castle.

 There were metal detectors and we met people from all over the world in line. Picked up the free audio guide, where Prince Charles welcomes you to the castle and started our way up the hill. This is a bad picture of Laurie but I loved the painting of the Queen with her great grandchildren on the wall where we waited in line. Now she has Louis and hopefully Harry and Meghan will add more someday.

Here are trucks and tents from television studios all over the world setting up. We saw one Brit (Sir David?) interviewing 2 Portuguese journalists and vice versa -- it was surreal. See the photo of all the cabling we saw on the castle walls as we walked up this hill? At the top was a barred gate where you could look across to the State, Private, and Guest apartments. That's where Meghan and Harry departed from on Saturday night in the vintage Jaguar convertible.

Here's a better picture of Laurie as we walked towards the State Apartments. This is near where we saw our first "stuffed corgi" displayed in somebody's window.

Note that the Queen's standard is not flying, so she is not there today -- believe she was in Buckingham Palace. This truly is a medieval castle: note the slits for firing arrows and the notches in the walls. You don't realize how thick those walls really are until you see the arrow windows from the inside. They're about 4 ft thick!

Here's something that intrigued me along the moat wall -- the spring in this beautifully planted garden would have been the water source that kept inhabitants alive during a siege.

It was too cool for ice cream but I was charmed by this.