We spent about a week in England and it was an absolute dream vacation driving around the English countryside and soaking up the sights in London. I am so glad we were able to make the trip happen and see all the amazing things that we did! Here is a rundown of what we did.

Windsor

We met up with Robert’s parents at the Heathrow airport, rented a van and headed west of the city to Windsor. Robert was our fearless leader and driving on the right side of the road (like when we were in Australia) must be like riding a bike because he picked it right back up.

I was really excited to go to Windsor to see the castle and the town because that was where Harry and Meghan were married in May. The town was really cute and still had all of it’s decorative bunting up from the wedding.

It was rainy and drizzly but we enjoyed wandering around the castle grounds, the state apartments, and St. George’s chapel (where the royal wedding was). Andrew and Alex even got to learn about knights and put on real knight helmets while in the castle! I may have secretly enjoyed pretending I was a princess walking down the isle in the chapel 😉

Castle Combe Village

In preparation for our trip, I checked out a lot of old Rick Steves PBS dvds about England and one of the episodes featured Castle Combe as one of the “prettiest villages in England” and I knew we had to see it! The houses were picturesque as well as the old church and the cobblestone streets. While there, we learned that the village was used in the filming of War Horse and several other movies that I can’t remember.

We stepped into a coffee shop and grabbed some baked things which made the rest of our stroll even more enjoyable. The boys got a kick out of how short the doors were and we had fun taking pictures in the red phone booth!

Bath

A friend recommended visiting Bath and it was well worth the trip. I felt like I had stepped back in time to a Jane Austen novel. We spent most of our time at a Roman Bath which was a place for public bathing built 2,000 years ago (crazy!).

We enjoyed walking around the town of Bath and looking at all of the old architecture, listening to an opera singer in front of Bath Abbey, and seeing the fun shops. We could have spent all day here!

Stonehenge

We drove from Bath to Stonehenge and walked through a field full of cows to see the stones. I’ll admit, I was pretty dissapointed. In my mind I thought the stones would be bigger but it was just a strange collection of rocks in the middle of a field. Maybe they are from neolithic people or maybe the UK is just trying to pull a fast one on tourists. Ha!

We also didn’t pay to get up closer to the stones so maybe that would have made them more impressive? At least we enjoyed our lovely stroll through a cow pasture 🙂

Dover

I think that our day in Dover was hands down everyone’s favorite place. We spent the morning at the Dover Castle climbing the tower, looking in all the rooms, learning about medieval castle life, watching a battle reenactment, laughing at a court jester, and soaking up the feeling of being at a real life castle (that wasn’t Disney themed!).

We parked in a field that had the most beautiful view of the castle and also of France in the distance!

We picked a great day to be there because the castle was full of people dressed up and teaching about the castle.

The view from the top of the tower was breathtaking and they were cooking in the castle kitchen and it smelled like Thanksgiving dinner! Sitting on the thrown was pretty fun too!

After the castle, we toured the underground World War II tunnels which was totally fascinating.

We spent the afternoon hiking and walking around the White Cliffs of Dover. The weather was perfect and I absolutely loved how peaceful and serene the cliffs were. Well, peaceful and serene once the boys went back to the van with grandma and grandpa and I didn’t have to worry about them plunging to their death into the English Channel.