It was really interesting. We booked online and arrived from Victoria station just a few minutes late, but after picking up the tickets we still got in on time which was good. You go in the side entrance, but you get to see the entrance that royals and dignitaries use as you enter. Then you get to go through State Rooms, rooms which were built by Queen Victoria, banquet rooms, State Rooms, drawing rooms... many official rooms. They had all the usual furniture, my favourite of which was a gorgeous antique piano which was built especially for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert because they were both great musicians and used to play piano together. There was even a two-handed arrangement of a Mendelssohn composition which was arranged especially for them to play. Very cool.
Lots of the rooms were also filled with artworks. This year the State Rooms ‘theme’ was the art charities Prince Charles supports. There are three of them and because of that, there was an exhibition which features artworks from the different charities. They were great, but I think we were hoping to see more of the palace. There were even a couple of paintings by Charles himself of Balmoral, which I particularly liked.
It took us about an hour to go through the State Rooms and then we emerged into the bright sunshine of the gardens. There is a cafe at the end of the tour, where we got icecream made from cows at Windsor... It was delicious!
We took a wander through the gardens which were really lovely, and of course browsed the gift shop on the way out! We also converted our ticket into a year pass, but I don’t think we need to go again this year. As long as we go next year before August, we get next years for free!
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