For today’s travelpost, we’re back in England, in Greater London… Windsor and Eton to be more precise.

A couple of years ago we spent a lovely week in the Peak District, a beautiful region in the English Midlands. On our last day, we wanted to visit Bakewell, a village not far from our holiday home. We would visit the village in the morning, have lunch and then make the trip to Folkestone to catch the shuttle to Calais.

Unfortunately it rained cats and dogs that morning. And after an entire week of sunshine, we didn’t feel like visiting Bakewell in the rain. As the weather forecast in the south of England looked more promising, we changed our plans and decided to leave as soon as possible and head towards Windsor. We knew we wouldn’t have time to visit the castle, but I had read that Windsor and the neighbouring village Eton were very charming to walk around in so off we went.

Driving more south, the rain disappeared and when we arrived in Windsor, the sun was breaking through. We arrived near lunchtime and decided to have lunch in a charming pub, ‘The Royal Oak’.

After a hearty lunch, we crossed the bridge and walked towards Eton. Unfortunately, we couldn’t visit the college (apparantly visits will be possible again later this year), but we were seriously impressed by all the fabulous buildings which belonged to the college.

High Street in Eton also houses several shops where you can buy Eton stuff (like college books, uniforms, sports uniforms,…). It was fun to walk around here, but we didn’t see any students as we visited Eton during the Easter holidays.

We strolled back towards the river Thames and crossed the bridge again, which took us to Windsor.

Windsor was really busy contrary to the peace and quiet of the Peak District, but it definitely is a lovely village. When you’re in London and you’ve got the time, you should definitely spend some time at Windsor! It has quirky streets and lovely nooks and corners and then of course there’s Windsor Castle!

If you want to visit the castle, I advise you to buy your tickets beforehand as there was quite a queue! The castle is nestled amidst the village which is an impressive sight. We also saw the beginning of the Long Walk, a 5 kilometre long walk between Windsor Castle and Windsor Great Park.  This walk is a tree-lined avenue and Red Deer are easily spotted!

Unfortunately it was time to head back to our car to drive to Folkestone. We only spend a couple of hours in Eton and Windsor, but that was enough for me to decide that I want to visit these villages again one day. They have so much to offer!

Have you already visited Windsor or Eton? What did you think? Let me know in the comments!

Love, Kathleen

Here you can read a travelpost about another trip we did during that holiday…