Return to Windsor, England

An annual work conference for my husband in Windsor gave us the opportunity to return to the area for a second summer in a row. This is the only repeat trip we’ve made so far since we’ve lived in Europe. We included another two-night stay at Legoland, two nights in Bracknell with a day in Windsor in order to see and do new things, and then an additional few days in Canterbury before returning home.

I will post about Legoland, Avebury Henge and Stone Circles, and Canterbury separately. Here I just wanted to share some new pictures and information about Bracknell and Windsor.

Aside from our stay in Legoland, we spent two nights at the Coppid Beach Hotel, outside of Windsor in Bracknell.  Our first choice in Bracknell, the Stirrups Country House Hotel, was full. (Bracknell is a better location for us to stay than within Windsor-proper for my husband’s conference.)

The service at Coppid Beach was great and the room accommodations were spacious and suitable for our family. This place must have been really something nice when it was originally built and decorated, I am guessing sometime in the 1980s based on the fish tanks, pink hues, and gold embellishments. Unfortunately, the design and decorations don’t appear to have been updated since then. But I can look past that and appreciate that it had a pool, a wellness center, and a big, roomy suite for us.

We had a great dinner one night at Peacock Farm in Bracknell. The restaurant is set in an elegantly restored barn and has a more casual outdoor dining space with a playground for kids.

On our last visit to Windsor, we visited the castle, so we did not do that again this time. This time, we wanted to see more of the town, so we just did some walking and then a boat tour. Unfortunately, it started raining soon after we arrived, so it wasn’t the best day to sight-see, but we had a few moments of sun between showers.

We enjoyed a nice, traditional English pub lunch at The George Inn, just over the Thames in Eton. Then, a quick, rain-soaked run across the High Street/Thames Street bridge got us to the Windsor Promenade where we could pick up our boat tour.

We took a French Brothers boat tour on the River Thames. I was looking forward to this. What I had seen of the Thames previously was pretty, so I was eager to see more, plus I looked forward to seeing Windsor Castle from the water. (Nearby, I saw another service, John Logie Motor Boats, offering self-drive boat rentals. Maybe we’ll do that the next time we visit Windsor!)

We opted for the 40-minute tour instead of the 2-hour tour. We weren’t sure we wanted to commit to two hours, but 40 minutes felt pretty short. I wish there was an offering in between! Still, we enjoyed it, especially since it gave us brief respite from the rain. Although, as luck would have it, the rain stopped and the sun came out for the 40 minutes we spent on the boat. Unfortunately, the boat was all buttoned up for the rain, so it was tough to get clear pictures.

Another stroke of luck for us that day was that somehow, we were the only customers on our boat at our tour time. We had it completely to ourselves! The rain had been pretty dreadful, so everyone else was probably smartly staying inside with a cup of hot tea.

For me, the highlights of the boat tour were seeing the Royal Windsor Racecourse, the Boveney Lock and Weir, and of course, Windsor Castle. We also passed some lovely parks and homes and learned the fun celebrity fact that singer Natalie Imbruglia lived nearby for a short period of time.

After the boat tour, the rain returned so we ended our day in Windsor and headed on to Canterbury.