With the recent interest in the Royals due to the Coronation and the passing of Her Majesty, a trip to Windsor may be on your list. I am here to give you the low down on a day trip to Windsor!
Everything is surprisingly close together, I’d expected it to be really spread out but everything is within around a 5 – 10 minute walk!
Another thing that shocked me was how close you could get to the castle – you can drive right past it which astonished me.
We began our day by parking in the riverside car park – it was a Saturday and July so as expected it was pretty busy but there were still spaces available. There is lots of parking around Windsor, this car park is open air so great for anyone who doesn’t love multi-storeys. It only cost us £5.40 for the day too!
The car park is overlooked by the castle on one side and the Thames on the other. It’s very close to the bridge that links Eton and Windsor and it’s right in the middle of the action!
Planes fly really low over Winsdor which is really cool! The view from the car park is pretty spectactular.
We began by crossing the bridge over to Eton and began on the quieter side. Eton is so quaint! We had Eton Mess in Eton at the Prince George pub. It wasn’t the best Eton Mess I’ve ever had but it had to be done as we were there!
We then had a wander down the high street which is super quaint, it’s so lovely and like something out of a storybook… Speaking of storybooks, there’s a gorgeous antique bookshop about halfway up and it’s the stuff of dreams with books from the 1500s. I picked up a book about Lord Byron for £30 that was published in 1876!
We wandered up to Eton College which sadly was closed to the public but it was enough just to see the majesty of the building. It has so much history and was so beautiful to see!
We spotted a really funny drainpipe accessory too, it shows how much attention is paid to these things!
Back over the bridge to Windsor now and we stopped to admire the Thames. You could hire boats and also go on a big duck thing that gives you a tour. I’m not the biggest fan of water so we passed on that this time but it looked really cool!
We walked up the hill next to the castle, and there were loads of tat shops (more on that later!), plus a Mcdonalds – I just love the idea that the Royals sit in the castle and order a big mac from Maccys. It’s so weird that you see high street stuff on your right and then a castle RIGHT THERE on your right.
They’re doing some renovations to the castle so sadly some of it was covered in scaffolding but the impact is still so so dramatic. None of these pics are taken with zoom and are taken from street level to give you an idea of just how close you can get.
We walked a little further and went to see the start of the long walk and the gates of the castle. I’m quite a big fan of Queen Elizabeth II so it was quite poignant for me to see the entrance she went through on her final journey. We definitely plan to come back and go inside the castle, it was really reasonably priced at £30.
We didn’t walk down the long walk because it is LONG but it was so beautiful and really did stretch on for ages and ages.
After admiring the castle, we wandered back to the beautiful alleyways and I got overexcited in a tat shop. The one I chose to go in was right next to the castle and I’d expected to pay through the nose but actually it was really reasonably priced and the stuff I got was really high quality.
For everything pictured (except the book and plus something else that isn’t photographed, I only paid £35). Given the location, I absolutely expected to pay so much more than that.
With my haul safely tucked away, we took a stroll to the Windsor Royal Shopping Centre to see the Queen’s train. The shopping centre buildings are lovely, the shops are just shops and nothing overly exciting.
The Queen’s train is situation next to the Windsor and Eton Central trainline that does shuttle trains to Slough.
Once we’d admired the Queen’s train, we took a stroll back to the car via the ice cream shop on the edge of the Thames and had an ice cream overlooking the river. It was idyllic but the ice cream pictured cost £3.70 much to the outrage of my husband, haha.
Overall, I’d really recommend Winsdor and Eton, I feel like we only scratched the surface but it was so nice to immerse ourselves in the full on tourist experience.
It’s small enough to not feel overwhelming and you can see a lot in a day!
We were there for around 4 hours, I was dawdling and we had lots of stop offs. I really really recommend it for a day out. It was amazing and the most fun I’ve had in so so long.
BONUS: On the way home we stopped off at Diddly Squat Farm Shop as we’re quite big fans of Clarkson’s Farm and honestly it was not worth it.
It’s TINY and we queued for an hour (more fool us), and everything was really really expensive.
The landscape views were beautiful though and it was pretty cool to say we’ve been. But overall, don’t bother haha.
