Today it was Windsor Castle and Oxford,it is now officially the summer season so the changing of the guard took place in the quadrangle at Windsor rather than the guardroom area.
Being the first through the doors does have a great advantage in that there are very few other tourists there to push and shove and get in the way when you are trying to read the information notes by the paintings. and there are some great paintings of the Tudors to look at, HenryVIII, Elizabeth as a teenager and Mary all in the same room.
Outside in the street we saw the guards march past the Henry VIII gate. Opposit us on the other side of the road were a group of 6 year old school kids in red uniforms all lined up waiting and when they heard the band about 100 yards away many of them started marching on the spot. It really isn't fair on the guardsman to have teenagers making fun of them because they can't respond but the one today had his own back on a group of very giddy girls and a few boys. He suddenly stood to attention with the loudest stamp like a pistol shot and marched off, he scared the girls to death and they ran away, good on him.
On to Oxford by train and a walk around this ancient University city. We took in Magdalen College, where Cardinal Wolsey was a student. ChristChurch College that he also original endowed. Passing through St Mary's church where Amy Robsart is buried ( Did she fall or was she pushed down those stairs?) and pausing momentarily at the memorial to Hugh Latimer, Thomas Cranmer and Thomas Ridley, martyrs burned at the stake by Queen Mary, we went to the Ashmoleon Museum to see the few Tudor Artifacts on disply.
The Oxford Colleges really haven't got it right at all. Magdalen has a tapestry that commemorates the event of the Bethrothal of Prince Arthur and Catherine of Aragon. St Johns College has a rare original painting of Anne of Cleves. Both are not in the general public view. I wrote, I phoned, and tried to get to see these rare historical treasures with all the reasons and offering to pay extra all to no avail. Why keep these treasures if no one is allowed to see them only in books. I'll keep trying and get to see them eventually and make a report.
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