Windsor Castle

Windsor is a good 1/2 day trip. You can get a train at Paddington (you may have to change trains at Slough, but that's not difficult). Windsor is one of my favorite castles. We usually try to arrive around 11:00, have an early lunch and often return to London around 3:00 or 4:00. Usually we will "do" Windsor (the town, we don't visit the castle on each trip) on our theatre days so we get back into London in time to rest, wash up, eat dinner and get to the theatre by 7:00 or 7:30.

Steve - thanks for the quick reply! & by the way - thanks for responding to my oh so very many questions as we embark on our first Europe trip. Much appreciated.

That does look rather easy. We're staying in Kensington right on Gloucester road, so I think I'll be able to manage it. I had thought I was going to need to hire a tour/transport to get us there & back.

It is very possible, the best way would be to go by train from Paddington Station. There are several every hour, it's a 35 minute train ride. There is a change in Slough which takes a few minutes. Once you get to Windsor it's a 3 minute walk to the castle. When you walk up to the main road you will be facing the castle. After touring the castle, when you exit the castle turn to your right, walk to the road turn to your left and follow the road to Windsor Great Park. You can get a fantastic view of the Royal resdence from the park, also in the park in the Long Walk which is the private road for the Royal family to use to enter and exit the castle.

If you take the bus to Windsor it would be about an hour and half trip.

You could also do it as a stop on the way to Bath if Bath is a destination. In September, I left my hotel on Gloucester in London early in the morning, trained down to Windsor arriving about 9:00AM, toured Windsor for about 3 hours and headed to Bath. Bath's about another hour from Windsor. Just a thought; not sure how much time you have.