The final day - Bray and Windsor Castle

Originally when we booked the holiday, Tuesday 22nd July was to be the day we started our journey home, on QF10 departing around 10pm.  However, sometime in May Qantas made major changes to its schedule and QF10 switched to departing at 1pm.  As we expected to have plenty to do from our Winchester base, we opted to switch our flight home to the following day, a decision aided by Andrew being able to book two rooms at the Hilton Doubletree near Heathrow Airport with points for the additional final night.

On the morning of the 22nd we packed our luggage in a car for the final time , said goodbye to Winchester, which had provided an excellent base, and headed north for the third time in five days up the M3; this time to Heathrow.  On arrival we quickly checked in, moved our luggage into the rooms, and then headed back out in the car to find somewhere to eat.

Our destination for lunch was Bray, a small village not too far from Heathrow and Windsor, famous for being the home to Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck restaurant.  Elle had been very open over many years about her dream dinner being at the Fat Duck, and Andrew tried very hard to make this happen but was unsuccessful (bookings can only be done online, 2 months in advance, and places go within seconds of the system opening them up).  Despite this, we decided to visit the village of Bray to see the Fat Duck and to get lunch somewhere else.

Once we found Bray (the UK car didn't have GPS) we parked the car and walked the length of the main street, admiring the lovely whitewashed brick old buildings.

 Despite the small size of the village, and knowing the Fat Duck was on the main street, it wasn't immediately obvious where it was.  However, eventually we spotted a small menu on a wall, so we were able to take some photos.

We then sought out a place to eat, and could only find two options.  Fortunately we chose well, with the Crown Hotel, which we later found out was owned by Heston Blumenthal (So Andrew can say that he took Elle to a Heston restaurant!), and was excellent. The old hotel has a very traditional English feel, with low internal roof heights, exposed wooden rafters, and hand pumped beers.  Noting the children they offered us the option to eat in the rear garden which was an excellent choice.  The kids could play around before eating and we could all enjoy the glorious warm blue sky day.

The fish and chips and mini burger were popular, but the highlight was the Elle’s Eton Mess, which she had to share with everybody.

After lunch we drove to Windsor, found a great park near the town centre, and walked up to Windsor Castle.  Although a relatively quick visit, we managed to see all the highlights and walked around most of the accessible areas.

One of the highlights was the magnificent St Georges Chapel, in which we spent 30-45 minutes, taking in all of the key features (including the many royal tombs, e.g Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, George VI and Elizabeth the Queen Mother)..

Another was the State Apartments, featuring the Queen Mary's dollhouse.  While walking past glass cabinets of memorabilia, Andrew was amazed to see the gun shot that killed Lord Nelson (connecting well to his uniform with gun shot hole from the Naval Museum in Greenwich).

After being the last to leave the castle at 5pm closing time, we walked the nearby streets of Windsor and did a small amount of shopping in the many tourist shops.

After dropping Elle and the kids back at the hotel, Andrew drove the hire car to the nearby AVIS airport drop off point.  This normally routine task then took a turn for the worse, and raised stress levels to red.  On successive mornings in Winchester, we returned to our car and noted modest damage had occurred overnight.  One was very minor vertical scratch, the other a much more noticeable 6-8cm scrape, over two door panels.  As per usual practice, Andrew reported these upon check-in, expecting a response of ‘thanks for letting us know, they are minor, don’t worry’.  Instead the check-in person indicated that all damage had to be recorded, and an estimate of repair cost charged to the customer.  The number quoted was £1000 (A$1600)!!  This was a distressing end to the holiday, but fortunately 3-4 weeks later, after we contacted customer service to request a fairer outcome, AVIS dropped the entire charge, providing excellent holiday closure karma.