Windsor Castle - Plan a Visit

Windsor Castle State and Semi-State Apartments

 Guests arrive for a State banquet at in St. George's Hall, Windsor Castle. The table can be set for 160 guests. Staff use rulers to measure each place setting so that the table will look neat in photographs or from the galleries above.

ROTA/Getty ImagesWaterloo Chamber, just before the State Apartments, was created to honor the forces who defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo. The paintings of the heads of state and peace negotiators of the time, were all painted from life by a single artist, Sir Thomas Lawrence. The Indian carpet, woven for Queen Victoria's Jubilee, is thought to be the largest seamless carpet in existence. During the 1992 fire at Windsor, it took 50 soldiers to roll it up and carry it to safety. This sequence of rooms was created for Charles II and Catherine of Braganza between 1675 and 1678 and reflects the baroque tastes of the times. They are always open to the public and display some of the greatest treasures of the Royal Collection.

Highlights: The King's Drawing Room:Paintings by Rubens and Van Dyke and a remarkable musical clock. The King's Bedchamber:Charles II never slept in this bed, used for the courtly ceremonies of levée and couchée - wakey wakeys and nighty nights before the King actually retired to a smaller room nearby. The King's Dressing Room: Some of the most important Northern Renaissance paintings in the Royal Collection, including Breughel's painting the Massacre of the Innocents and a wonderful portrait of a lady in green by Bronzino. The Queen's Drawing Room: Among the paintings look for the famous Portrait of Charles I in three positions by Van Dyke. The King's Dining Room: Created for Charles II's private entertaining, it is dark and masculine, covered in rococco decoration and wood carvings by Grinling Gibbons. The Queen's Ballroom: Among the collection of Van Dykes, look for the portrait of the five eldest children of Charles I, the King beheaded in 1649. St. George's Hall: Often used for state banquets, this room is 185 feet long and can hold a table that seats 160. The ceiling you see is a new hammerbeam roof, constructed of green oak after the 1992 fire using medieval carpentry methods. The shields are coats of arms of the Garter Knights. Look for the plain white ones - marking the Order of the Garter Knights disgraced by crime or treason. The Lantern Lobby: Formerly a private chapel, this is where it is believed the 1992 fire began. Today it is used to display gilded silver objects from the Royal Collection. A suit of Henry VIII's armor against a wall gives some idea of the old king's size. Walk around it to see the profile view.This sequence of ornate rooms was created to suit the extravagant tastes of George IV, creator of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. They are used by the Queen for formal and informal entertaining and are sometimes closed to the public.

The rooms were badly damaged in the 1992 fire but most of the contents, removed earlier during rewiring, survived. The glittering gilded ceilings are remarkable restorations. In some cases, elaborate parquet flooring that had been charred was saved by simply turning over the individual pieces of wood.

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London to Swansea

Details of how to get from London to Swansea by various forms of transportation. Use these information resources to plan your journey.
Read more about London and Swansea. UK Travel Tip The cheapest train fares are those designated "Advance" - how far in advance depends upon the journey as most rail companies offer advance fares on a first come first served basis. Advance tickets are usually sold as one-way or "single" tickets. Whether or not you buy advance tickets, always compare the "single" ticket price to the round trip or "return" price as it is often cheaper to buy two single tickets rather than one round trip ticket.

Trains leave hourly for Swansea Station from London Paddington Station. The trip takes about 3 hours, with advance round trip fares starting at £25.

UK Travel Tip National Express offers a limited number of "funfare" promotional tickets that are very cheap (£6.50 for a £39.00 fare, for example). These can only be purchased on line and they are usually posted on the website a month to a few weeks before the trip. It is worth checking the website to see if "funfare" tickets are available for your chosen journey.

National Express run at least 10 journeys a day to Swansea Bus Station from London Victoria Coach Station . The journey takes 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 hours (longer trips stop in Cardiff first) and costs just over £36. Tickets can be booked online and there is usually a 50pence booking fee.

Swansea is 187 miles west of London via the M4 and A483 roads. It takes 3 hours 40 minutes to drive. Keep in mind that gasoline, called petrol in the UK, is sold by the liter (a little more than a quart) and the price is usually more than $1 a quart.

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Best Antique Shopping UK

Tetbury is at the heart of royal territory in the Cotswolds. Highgrove, the home of Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales is in the countryside outside the town. Garden tours of the Highgrove can be booked in advance. Princess Anne, the Princess Royal, lives nearby as well.

The town first made its fortunes in the Cotwolds wool trade and can boast a 1300 year history. A number of interesting landmarks and buildings dot Tetbury's historic center, in particular its striking, 350 year old market hall. Other local attractions include Chavenage, an Elizabethan house open to the public, and the Westonbirt Arboretum, keepers of more than 18,000 named specimen trees.

This thriving market town is also the capital of the Cotswolds when it comes to antiques, with about 20 antique stores and antiques centers in which to browse and buy.

Where: Tetbury is aboout 105 miles from London in the heart of the Gloucestershire Cotswolds. It's at least a two and a half hour drive from central London on the M4 and local roads, so if you are planning to shop till you drop and visit a few sights as well, staying in the area makes sense.

By Train: The nearest train station is Stroud, 11 miles away. Trains from London Paddington take an hour and a half. Plan on taking a taxi from the train station because local bus services require multiple changes and take forever. Parts of the Cotswolds are like the Los Angeles of England - you just need a car.

Food and Drink Tetbury is a busy market town in the midst of some fine agricultural country so there's plenty of fresh local food around in a variety of cafes, pubs and restaurants. Look for produce, prepared products and meats from "The Duchy", that's the Prince of Wales' own organic food business. The Duchy Home Farm is just down the road on the Highgrove estate.

Fans of The Fabulous Baker Brothers (cook book and television program) should stop in at Hobbs House Bakery to buy some bread and local produce. Tom and Henry Herbert are part of the five generations of Herberts who have run this family business. If you visit on the weekend, they run a bistro from 7p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights.

More information

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Bicester Outlet Village

Savings on UK and European designer brands

 Mulberry, a UK-based luxury leather goods designer known for its work with colored leathers, has a discount outlet store at Bicester Village.

©Ferne ArfinAll of the shops at Bicester Village offer at least 30 to 50 per cent off normal retail prices. But arrive at the change of the season, when shops are making room for next season's goods and savings of 70 to 90 per cent are not unheard of. I bought a skirt from a hugely famous designer that was reduced from £105 to £7.

In fact, savings can be so good that some companies are very shy about being photographed. That's probably understandable when you consider the end of season reductions. At Ralph Lauren in August 2007, I saw a gorgeous red coat reduced from around £4,000 to less than £500, a sweater reduced from about £6,000 to £500. In Studio Moda, a D&G skirt was reduced from £500 to £199 and at Burberry a classic duffel with their trademark lining fabric was reduced from £410 to £199. The center operates a Global Refund tax free shopping scheme so overseas visitors can save another 17.5 per cent in Value Added Tax (VAT) refunds.

The 100 plus shops sell apparel for men, women and children; shoes - ranging from utilitarian Clarks to totally frivolous Jimmy Choo, household goods and electronics. Many of the internationally familiar designer shops carry goods only available in Europe. Other shops are European or UK originals - Nicole Farhi, Ozwald Boateng, Gieves & Hawkes, Mulberry, Pringle of Scotland, Charles Tyrwhitt, Hackett.

There's also a good selection of the better UK high street brands - Monsoon, Reiss, The White Company, Jaeger, L.K. Bennett.

There's a full listing of shops on the Bicester Village website.

Next, how to find Bicester Village and other, essential information.

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York Minster Facts

Northern Europe's Biggest Gothic Cathedral - But Size Isn't Everything

 York Minster rises above the roof tops and Medieval Walls of York. The view is of the West Front.

©britainonviewYork Minster is one of England's most popular attractions, voted one of the UK's Seven Wonders by visitors in 2002. More than two million people pass through it annually from all over the world.

And no wonder. York Minster is truly awe inspiring. This architectural and artistic masterpiece took more than 250 years to build. It is filled with unique and fantastic carvings and the world's greatest collection of intact, Medieval stained glass windows.

Its size, as it happens, is also fantastic. Facts: Length - 525 feet (160 meters) Width - 249 feet (76 meters) Height to vault - 88.5 feet (27 meters) West towers - Nearly 184 feet each (56 meters) Lantern tower - 233 feet (71 meters)The lantern tower, by the way, at 16,000 metric tons. And here's a fantastic fact about that: it weighs about the same as 40 jumbo jets.

As Northern Europe's largest consecrated Medieval Gothic space, York Minster is also one of the world's largest Medieval Gothic Cathedrals. Only Chartres, south of Paris, is larger.

But size isn't everything. Among York Minster's other attractions are its unusual Chapter House and a history as a sacred place that extends back nearly 2000 years.

Essential Visitor Information for York Minster

Find a place to stay in York and get a great rate

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London Pub Theatres

London theatre is famous and most visitors have heard something about it. But few visitors take advantage of London's pub theatres. And yet this form of entertainment, one that many Londoners take for granted, is one of the most exciting kinds of live theater available in the UK capital.

The majority of London's pubs are hundreds of years old. The buildings once held upstairs breweries or had large numbers of rooms to rent to travelers. As those uses began to die out - especially during the 20th century - pub landlords looked around for new ways to earn money from their large amounts of empty space. Since pubs and theatre have always been closely associated in London, creating small, intimate theatre and cabaret spaces seemed natural.

The modern pub theatre is a relatively new phenomenon that has a very old pedigree. The Internet Shakespeare, a web site sponsored by University of Victoria and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, describes inn-yard theatres, common in Shakespeare's day, but much older, as the first enclosed performance spaces.

From the early Middle Ages, actors and musicians traveled around the country in troupes, putting up in travelers' inns and taverns - the forerunners of pubs - when they stopped to perform. If an inn's landlord allowed them to put on shows in his coach yard, he could charge playgoers to enter the yard. He could charge the public even more to go up to the covered balconies or galleries, a common pub feature through the 18th century. (Check out the National Trust owned George Inn, London's last galleried pub, in Southwark, London). And of course he could sell food and ale.

By the Elizabethan era, the first purpose-built theatres using the galleried and enclosed yard model - like Shakespeare's Globe Theatre - were being built and the tavern theatre soon died out.

Westminster walking guide and London blogger Joanna Moncrieff informs us that the King's Head in Islington, founded by the late Dan Crawford in 1970, is most likely the first pub theatre since Shakespearean times. It established the model for the typical London pub theatre of today in a room above - or occasionally below the pub itself. Seating areas are small - often holding less than 100 people - and the space between the audience and the actors is miniscule. If the thought of an actor playing his heart out while staring you in the face from a distance of about four feet is more than you can handle, pub theatre may not be for you.

But if you relish the chance of seeing brand new or rarely performed plays, featuring actors whose talent may still be a bit raw, in spaces often no bigger than some people's living rooms, this is a kind of London theatre you should not miss. And you might even have a close encounter with a familiar face, or a star. Pub theatre audiences are full of actors, drama students, theatre aficionados, directors and casting agents hunting for new playwrighting and acting talent.

Check out what's on in pub theatres by picking up a listing magazine like Time Out at a news agent. Don't bother looking up the magazine online - you have to see the print version for the full listings. Usually, there's some kind of capsule description or review, but pub theatre tickets are generally under £20 so it's easy - and more-fun to take a chance. You may want to book your tickets in advance to collect before the show. If you can, it's a good idea to get your tickets in advance for the most popular shows. Otherwise, just show up on time on the night and get in the queue to buy a ticket. Be prepared to travel - there are only a few Central London Pub Theatres. The Finborough, the Kings Head and the Old Red Lion are among them. (See the list below) Because of the licensing laws in the UK, some smaller theatres pubs operate as clubs. You have to join them to see a play. You can usually join that sort of pub theatre for a few pounds, when you buy your ticket. Pub Theatre is not dinner theatre but some pubs that have theatres also serve food. If you'd like to eat, arrive early enough to have a meal in the pub before the play starts. The play itself will not be in the pub but in a room above it or in a basement. Order your interval (intermission) drinks before you go into the theatre, if you can, because the crush at the bar will be intense later on. When the play is about to begin, and when the interval is about to end, the pub landlord will ring a bell in the pub, giving you about five minutes notice to get to your seat.You can never tell, far in advance, what might be scheduled in London's pub theatres. As a start, check out these links to some of London's most popular pub theatres: Not all London's independent theatres are in pub. Some fill converted warehouses, rooms above cafes and other odd. Some, like The Almeida, The Donmar Warehouse and the Young Vic showcase stars alongside new writing and talent. Others are more experimental and potentially more exciting:

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The British Islands

Jersey - The Biggest Channel Island is a Little Bit of British France

 Mount Orgeuil, Jersey

www.britainonview.comJersey, the biggest Channel Island at about 47 square miles, is 87 miles south of the UK and is considered the Southernmost of the British Islands (the official designation - the "British Isles" being a literary and informal title). It is also just under 14 miles from France.

Jersey is a popular vacation destination, for its mild climate, long beaches washed by Gulf Stream waters, and unusual hybrid "franglais" culture. How this little bit of France became a Crown Dependency of the British monarch is a fluke of history.

The Channel Islands were a part of the Duchy of Normandy and among the possessions William the Conqueror brought with him when he became King of England in 1066. For about two hundred years, the islands, along with Normandy and England, were united but the islands were administered from Normandy. In 1204, King John of England lost Normandy to the King of France. To keep the loyalty of the strategically important Channel Islands, he decreed they could continue to be governed according to the laws they were used to - Norman law.

As a result, a separate system of government was created with the British Monarch ruling as the "Duke of Normandy". Although the systems have changed over time, Jersey retains its separate-ish status. It is not part of the EU - though it has an associate relationship to facilitate trade. It is not subject to the laws of the UK Parliament, though UK currency is legal tender and it depends upon the UK armed forces for defence. The official languages are English and French and there is a local patois that blends them both.

Oh, and one last oddity - to islanders, Queen Elizabeth II is still considered the Duke of Normandy and referred to, by the island legislature, as "Our Duke".

Jersey's main town is St. Helier.

Learn about visiting Jersey
Find a place to stay in Jersey

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