St. Albans and Windsor Castle

Okay, so we are a little behind on this, but we will try to catch up this week.

We took off Saturday morning intending to do a quick stop in St. Albans and then head to Windsor Caste. We arrived in St. Albans and discovered a huge market. The market was pretty neat, less junk than many others we have been to, meaning not a track suit in site or any “trainers”. After browsing the market we ventured to St. Albans cathedral which has the oldest true nave in England.





At this point all the cathedrals are really starting to blend together. This one did have one very odd feature, the blue people:

After wandering through the cathedral, we headed back to town and saw the medieval Clock Tower, built between 1403 and 1412.

At this point we realized there was a lot to see here so Windsor Castle would have to wait a day. We left the town and then headed to the Verulamium Museum which displays’ Roman Britain. The museum was pretty cool; it had a lot of old coins and mosaics that they have discovered in the area. Also tombs, I didn’t think that part was so cool and was pretty gross.

Then off to the remains of the old Roman theater which was build around 130 AD. It was interesting to see that one column remains upright even today.

This is what it might have looked like in 130 AD.

Oh, I forgot to mention it was actually sunny for a change and we weren’t freezing cold.

After leaving St. Alban’s we drove to Letchworth Gardens, home of the first round-about in the UK.

Sunday morning we woke up and headed to Windsor Castle. It was a rough start to the day as we got to the parking lot and Jay realized that he left all the cash at home, so he had to find an ATM so we could pay to park. If you do ever drive to Windsor, take the park-in-ride into town, it is pretty expensive to park inside the city – around $15 for 5-6 hours!

Ok, a little history, Windsor Castle is the oldest and largest occupied castle in the world. The Queen spends weekends at the castle and this is also the place where people are knighted. It’s where Prince Edward and Miss Sophie Rhys-Jones were married in 1999. (We did some studying up on the royal family.)

Here is an overview of the castle:

The Queen was at the castle while we were there, you can tell by the flag that is flown:

We toured some of the staterooms, however no pictures were allowed. After viewing these rooms, you have a new appreciation of the Biltmore. The rooms were done in a similar fashion, but of course, with tax payer money. They had some extensive collections of guns and swords that were loaded down with diamonds.

Here is a picture of the gardens:

This is where the Queen stays:

It was awkward, people were walking up and posing with this guard, he didn’t blink, didn’t move, nothing. Here I am next to the guard, it seemed like I was closer than this picture shows:

Stay tuned for the next post, it was a busy weekend in Leeds, York and Nottingham, and yes our first football game.