My Fitbit said 17 031 (about 30 minutes of solid walking away from my goal) and my mom’s phone was 18 217. I suspect mine is lower because of all the jacket carrying and picture taking which doesn't leave my Fitbit arm free to swing.
The heat really got to us today. My phone said it was 24°C but the sun felt like it was on it’s highest setting! UGH plus the crowds…. SO MANY PEOPLE… our energy was drained pretty quickly today.
Today we went to Windsor, but before getting on the train, we peaked in around the corner from the train station over to the Lindo Wing of St Mary’s Hospital to see if there was any Royal Baby Sussex Buzz. People were camping out and had signs up for Kate’s 2nd baby, but today zilch.
Windsor was so crowded and the line up to buy tickets was longer than I have ever seen it (this was my 4th visit) almost to the train station!! I asked one of the guards if the lines get shorter in the afternoon, and he said they might or might not, but that this line was only about 30 minutes long. He said on Saturday it was 3 hours!!! Needless to say, we got in line. We also caught a glimpse at some of the ceremony of The Changing of the Guards while we waited so that helped pass the time.
The castle was nice, but when it comes to the interiors, for me it's : Seen one, Seem them all. Ok, this one does have a certain caché because it’s still in use, but overall a 30 minute wait is barely acceptable. The grounds and castle views are way more interesting, but you can’t explore them without a ticket anyway so you might as well do it all.
No photos allowed inside, I usually complain about this, but in a way it’s not a bad idea in a venue like this because it keeps the crowds moving. Princess Eugene’s wedding dress was on display, that was an interesting addition.
After the castle we had fish and chips at the Duchess of Cambridge pub...
.... and then the idea was to walk down The Long Walk to rebuild our appetites and have high tea.
The heat put a monkey wrench in those plans… the sun was so hot and direct and STRONG that the walk would have been impossible. We didn’t even last 3 minutes. Instead, we walked along the shade of the trees; it was such an incredible difference!!
We even we spotted (with extra zoom) Harry & Meghan’s house:
It was a nice walk, but I don’t think we walked for even 30 minutes before we just decided to go for tea – neither one of us really hungry enough if we were honest, but we were too hot to keep walking and we wanted to "do tea" so we sucked it up and stuffed our faces.
We tried to stroll around again after tea but it was so hot and so crowded and so hot, and so hot, and so hot that we gave up. We were fed up. We decided we’d seen it all, had no regrets and headed back to London.
I had the idea of swinging by Harrods on the way back to the hotel so my mom could see the Food Halls (we missed out on that plan yesterday). They were nice, but my mind wasn’t blown like the last time. It was just alright and my mom didn't enjoy Harrods overall. Turns out they are working on some of the rooms in the Food Hall and the nicest one with the most decorations was off limits, too bad, I was disappointed.
I thought we could have a drink or a light meal at Demoiselle, a restaurant in the food hall I really liked, but it was gone too. Instead, we ended up an a little corner resto right at the top of the Egyptian Escalators. It was good…. minus the poison cloud of perfume.
After this, we walked back to the hotel and the weather was GREAT. The clouds came out to protect us from the fireball in the sky and it was the most pleasant walk we had all day.
At the hotel, we had a refreshing night cap at the hotel bar (Aperol Spritz yet AGAIN, I'm addicted) and called it a day.
Good night!
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