Six wives of one King day 3

Day 3 Windsor and Windsor castle today in a day of glorious sunshine. The little issue with good sunshine is that it does tend to bring out the tourist in a place like this, but your reporter has all this in hand. We already had our entry tickets so no queuing to get into the castle in the first place and when inside everybody goes straight to the State Apartments first. We headed in the other direction and were the very first to go into St Georges chapel where the organist was still practicing and to be there all alone hearing that music is an experience that gives you goose pimples even after witnessing evensong last night. St Georges has great architecture and finished by Henry VIII, he is buried in the quire in a vault under a plain black marble slab with his favourite wife Jane Seymour, hardly an end befitting England’s greatest Monarch. There are many other Sovereigns buried here including our present Queens Mother and Father. After St Georges Chapel we were ideally placed to witness close up the changing of the guard on the parade square. This time it was the Coldstream Guards. Just to make a point here they are real soldiers and the ceremonial guard is part of their rotation duties, they probably will be off to Afghanistan next. The State apartments is where everybody wants to see but they all queue up to see the Queen Mary’s dolls house first, ever the canny guide we walked right past them all through another door into the State rooms. The flow of visitors can be held up in places but some of the rooms are glorious and the repairs after the great fire are better that the original. So nearly two hours later we emerged blinking, into the bright sunlight. After some free time around the town we set off later in the day to Stow on the Wold in the heart of the Cotswolds to stay at the Royalist hotel, the oldest hotel in England( more about that later). I can honestly say that having dinner on a trapdoor in the ancient bar room is one of the most surreal experiences I have ever had. Why a trapdoor I hear you say, well it leads down to what was once a leper pit!!