A Day at Windsor Castle

On Tuesday, we took our first "tourist" trip in England. It was the only day of the week that was forecast as sunny, so we decided to take advantage of the very un-English weather and go see Windsor Castle. It's only about a half an hour's drive from Emily's parents' new home (in the town of "High Wycombe"). Now that they're neighbors with the Queen, I'm sure they can expect to receive invitations to all of her parties (or at least a friendly "welcome-to-the-neighborhood" barbeque).

When we arrived at the castle, we were informed by the man at the ticket office that tickets were half price that day. His reason: "The state apartments are closed today. The queen is in residence." I asked what the occasion was. Looking a little surprised at my ignorance, he peered over his glasses at me and replied: "Order of the Garter was yesterday. It was in all the papers. I'm sure you must have seen it." All I could manage in response was a half-mumbled excuse about not having received our paper that morning. As I collected our reduced-rate tickets, all I could think about was the possible origins of such a curiously named organization: "Order of the Garter." Was it something to do with the Queen's underwear? Perhaps a reference to traditional wedding reception games? The free audio self-tour provided few clues into the origin of the name. I'd be interested to hear your guesses in our comments section below.



Even though the queen's apartment was off limits, we still enjoyed wandering around the castle grounds (and I kept wondering: "is she up there in one of those windows, watching to see if I step on her geraniums?"). Our favorite parts of the day included: the lovely garden in the castle's moat, viewing the castle's enormous doll house (complete with working electricity and plumbing), and looking at the queen's collection of fine china.

You can't enjoy a trip to Windsor without the audio commentary

I think the part I enjoyed the most was our visit to St. George's Chapel (the church within the castle). While we were there, the organist was practicing. It was great fun to just sit in that beautiful old building and listen to the organ music. Those of you who attended our wedding may remember that we chose to include an organ in the musical portion (thanks, Fred McNair for playing, by the way!). It's one of my (Brad's) favorite instruments, and the pipe organ in that old stone chapel was so inspiring that I decided to take a video. It gets cut off a bit abruptly, as a member of chapel staff came and scolded me: "No pictures!"






If you'd like to comment, we'd love to hear from you. For those of you who enjoy the challenge of a writing prompt: feel free to speculate on the origins of the name "order of the garter."