It’s not often you get to feel like you’re in a fairytale. Our class took a trip to Windsor palace for the day for a tour of the castle & time at the royal horse races!
We left London and used our rail pass given to us from Millennium Tours to get to Windsor. It’s only about a 30 minute train ride until we stepped into the town of Windsor.
I did not realize that there was a whole town of Windsor, I thought it was just the castle. There were restaurants, cute shops and people who lived there.
The castle was fascinating. I love how the royal family still uses it for important events, dinners and holidays. It was very neat to see a castle that is still in use today. There were so many beautiful rooms, details and things to look at. Like most royal places we visited in London, I could not take photos, but I can remember the images in my head very well.
When doing a tour of Windsor Castle, I highly recommend doing the free listening guide with it. You will get a headset and a little radio player that will lead you around the castle. Listening to the history and details about the Castle made everything so much more interesting and informational.
After the Castle, we had the unique opportunity to go to the Windsor horse races. One of the ways to get to the Windsor Horse races, and I think the most fun way, is by river taxi. When we were walking down the windy and hilly streets to the river, we noticed everyone is all dressed up for the horse races. My friends and I did not realize how big of a deal this way and how fancy the event was. So we ran back up the hill to one of the stores in town and got dresses. Once we felt more presentable, we caught the river taxi over to the horse races.
The Horse races reminded me a lot of the Kentucky Derby. It was smaller scale because they have the races more frequently, but the races were intense, everyone was dressed up and there was a lot of activity. There were tons of food and drink vendors and a lot more to do than just the races. We spent a good amount of time there looking around and cheering on the underdog in the races. We would have stayed longer but it started to rain pretty hard and we were not prepared for that.
If I can recommend anything, it is to venture outside of London, even if it’s only thirty minutes or so, to places like Windsor. Windsor was a very different vibe than London but still brought in the culture and fascination of London and the Royal Family. Windsor was one of my favorite days of the trip because of the cute town, the spectacular Castle, and the bonus of seeing the horse races.
