Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, and Cleo

Posted by Andrew on Sep 21, 2010 | 2 comments

So remember when we told most of you how excited we were to be visiting so many places without having rent a car and drive in a foreign land? Well forget about all that. Today we rented a car and drove to Stonehenge and Windsor Castle. It was quite the adventure. We started the morning around 8:30 am with of course TomTom coffee, orange juice and Poilâne croissants (our favorite). I had a brief issue with the order when they got two coffees and one orange juice instead of one coffee and two orange juices and then forgot to give me change for my 20, but that was resolved pretty quickly. Then we picked up our Renault Clio from the local Eurocar rental place. Once we climbed the million stairs to the parking garage and found our car we discovered…bum bum bum, it was a manual transmission. Not a big deal because Andrew loves to drive a stickshift, but since the driver sits on the right-hand side of the car, the stickshift was on the left and this complicated things a bit. Not to mention the driving on the other side of the road thing, the suicidal pedestrian thing, and the different traffic rules in general thing. At least the clutch was still on the right side. Andrew thought he would practice driving in the parking structure and it was one time around and then we were off…well, off after the brief misplacement of the ticket that would get us out of the parking structure that is. The GPS that we got with the car was a lifesaver, but it was still a quiet and very tense drive out of town. Once we got on the highway it was much better. We sill felt like we were on the wrong side of the road, but we got used to it quickly. Once we became comfortable enough to start having a conversation again we named our car Cleo because it’s a Renault Clio. At the time we were heading West out of town.

We decided to do Stonehenge first which is about a two-hour drive. The guidebooks warn you that it is right off the highway, but I only half believed them. When we rounded the final turn, we peaked over a small hill and there it was. You could probably throw a rock from the highway and hit it so the guidebooks really weren’t kidding. We parked Cleo and crossed the parking lot to the entrance. As part of your entrance fee they give you an audio tour on a headset which was just wonderful. It gave us the history of the site and why it is so special. Andrew got some fabulous pictures as the sun slipped in and out of the clouds for a very dramatic effect. We spent about an hour and a half enjoying the site before grabbing some lunch and gift shop items and heading back toward Windsor Castle.

About 40 minute from London we reached Windsor Castle which we had to drive by a few times until we figured out where to park. (Hey, it’s hard to navigate those weird streets.) We arrived at just the right time, they weren’t closed yet, but most of the tourists had already left for the day. In case you have never seen it, Windsor Castle looks just as you imagine a castle would. Large imposing gray walls made of stone, towers, moats, etc. It was pretty breathtaking. We saw Queen Mary’s amazing dollhouse with working plumbing, St. George’s chapel, and the state rooms where the kings and queens of distant past entertained guests. St. George’s Chapel is the place where many of the actual Kings and Queens of England’s past are interred. The roof and choir are amazingly detailed. It was a shame they didn’t allow photographs, but we understood why. The whole place was so beautiful. We made sure to leave early enough so we didn’t need to drive in the city at night as daytime driving is hard enough. When we finally returned the car we were so relieved that we didn’t kill anyone. We celebrated by eating delicious Italian with Mickey and visiting this really cool wine bar that is half in an underground cellar. We also spent some time walking around taking “night shots” which I thought was some exotic alcoholic beverage, but was actually just Andrew just walking around again at night taking photos. Tomorrow we have to get up really early to leave for France. Au revior, Chelsie and Andrew