The Windsors at Windsor Great Park

We are lucky to live close to Windsor Great Park, a 2,020 hectare (that's just under 500 acres) park that is part of the Crown Estate.  I was a little skeptical at first, because one of the highlights is a manmade lake called Virginia Water Lake. Nature is different over here, though.  Every square inch of this island has been inhabited for thousands of years, so a green, open space with lots of plants and animals is what passes for a natural area.

The kids and I spent a couple of sunny days exploring there in our first couple of weeks here, and the kids were just thrilled to have such a huge space where they can run and yell.  It turns out the British are generally quiet, and we are just downright loud.  Add to that the fact that the kids aren't used to living in apartment where the neighbors hear you when you scream, cry, or dump an entire bin of Legos on the floor.  We find ourselves shushing the kids frequently, so going to a place where running and shouting are acceptable, even if not exactly appreciated, was a relief.

The park has some Roman ruins (carted in from somewhere else, but still pretty), the previously mentioned lake, which is full of swans, geese, ducks, and moorhens, a playground, some monuments, a botanical garden, a polo field, and much more.  The kids like to:

Play on the playground

Climb the massive trees

Watch the birds

Eat snacks purchased from the park's food cart

We've had two memorable adventures at Windsor Great Park in the past couple of days. On Saturday, wanting to do something close to home instead of rushing off by car or train on a gray, drizzly day, we headed for the Savill Gardens at the Park. Savill Gardens is sort of like Kew on a much smaller scale, with plants from around the world, but more for the sake of beauty than the study of botany.  

Chilean rhubarb (Gunnera tinctoria) is everywhere.  It looks like a forest of rhubarb on steroids (about 5 feet tall).

Pretty walkway over a pond

Through the trees to the Hidden Garden (note the pretty flowers behind them)

Rodgersia aesculifolia, a perennial from Asia

The Queen's Diamond Jubilee logo made out of succulent plants.  Note the Union Jack in the middle, the number 60 above that, and the diamonds to either side.  The logo was hand drawn and meant to look sketchy, rather than straight, so this is a pretty good representation.

The Charybdis fountain, a whirlpool.  Remember The Odyssey?

The Queen's Golden Jubilee Garden

Adorable little Sempervivum arachnoideum, a rock garden plant with the weird common name of cobweb houseleek

There is a massive rose garden with rose varieties named after lots of royals, like 'Princess Anne' and 'Princess of Wales', as well as this 'William Shakespeare' variety.

'Grace'

We had a lovely morning, despite the off-and-on drizzle.  I could go on and on and share tons more pictures, but that wouldn't leave me any room to share our big exciting adventure yesterday.

For a week in June, the Royal Ascot horse races are held, and the queen attends the races every day.  She travels to the races from her home at Windsor Castle, via Windsor Great Park and on to Ascot. We were told that if you visit the park during race week, you can see the queen ride through the park in her carriage on the way to the races. Yesterday was the first day of the Royal Ascot races, so Erik took a long lunch, and we took a picnic to the park to sit along the procession route and wait for a glimpse of the queen.

The English take their picnics very seriously.  They bring tables and chairs, multiple courses of food, real plates, cutlery, and glasses, table cloths, and sometimes flowers.  Compared to these folks, our Nutella and jam sandwiches eaten on a picnic blanket seemed pretty pathetic.

These patriotic people even brought union jack bunting to string up on the rope separating them from the procession route.

We had to wait a good long while for the royal family's arrival, but we enjoyed seeing many royal friends and distant relations riding through in horse-drawn carriages, with all the women in fancy dresses and floppy hats and all the men in top hats and coats with tails.  It really felt like something out of a movie.

And then finally, the moment we had been waiting for.  The royal family drove up in their Bentleys, got out of the cars just up the road from us, and switched over to their horse-drawn carriages. 

The procession was led by guards.

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip!

Charles and Camilla

Princess Beatrice

The procession passed us by in about a minute, but it was thrilling to see the queen up close, probably just 10 feet away from us.  If only Kate and William had been in attendance...