Windsor Castle is one of the Queen’s official residences, and has been inhabited for over 900 years. Just past St. George’s gate there is a pictorial history of the Castle and its construction. One of the most interesting parts was the display showing the reconstruction of Windsor Castle after the fire in November 1992. The fire began in the Lantern Gallery of the Castle. Windsor Castle’s restoration was completed exactly five years later on November 20, 1997, the 50th wedding anniversary of Queen Elizabeth and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh. There are numerous pictures presented showing the Queen and other members of the Royal Family at various public events. My particular favorite was a picture of actor Sean Connery being knighted by the Queen at a ceremony held at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in July 2000.

I’d specifically gone to Windsor to see the special Jubilee photography exhibit, "Queen and Camera: A Golden Jubilee Celebration in Photograhs". This exhibit ranges from portraits and family groups, as well as press and documentary images from the past 50 years of the Queen’s reign. Many of these photographs have not been displayed publicly before. They are from the Royal Photograph Collection, which is housed at Windsor Castle. The picture most meaningful to me was one of Queen Elizabeth with Haile Selasie, former Emperor of Ethiopia, as my great-aunt, from whom I get my middle name, once had a private audience with Haile Selasie.

Photographer John Swanell, when photographing the Queen for some Jubilee photographs, said that he had "worked out that over the 50 years she has been on the throne, Her Majesty has probably had her photograph taken more than 40 million times, if one includes family portraits and all the press photographs taken at her official engagements, not to mention the numerous pictures by members of the public and tourists!" I suspect this would make her perhaps the most photographed personage on the planet.

After viewing the exhibit, I toured the State Apartments. Past the China Museum, I ascended the Grand Staircase, flanked on each side by a statue of a knight in armor mounted on a black horse. At the top of the staircase, there is a room with guns and swords displayed in cases and on the walls clear to the ceiling. Against one wall there is also a breathe-taking marble statue of Queen Victoria with a dog at her feet. It looks so life-like I expected the dog to jump up and lick my hand. Next I continued to the Waterloo Chamber, with tones of predominantly red and gold. A long table (I counted 56 chairs) is placed in the center of the room.

The Royal Station at Windsor is almost right next to the castle, a huge stone fortress which stands on a hill and towers over the entire area. We arrived at Windsor from London on a clear spring day, and walked uphill to the castle (the Queen was in residence that day - the Union Jack was flying above the castle). Within the solid stone walls of Windsor, we first visited the absolutely adorable Queen Mary’s Doll’s House . Six feet high, and a faultless replica of an actual house, the Doll’s House was so exquisitely perfect it made me wish I were a little girl again! Everything, down to the minutest detail, was there: handpainted china, glassware, delicately embroidered linen, tooled leather books, furniture - all miniature, and all perfect.

After ogling at the Doll’s House, we went on a long, slow stroll through the rest of the Castle, through the stunning English Gothic St George’s Chapel and the State Apartments - the bedrooms, the dining rooms, audience rooms, closets, dressing rooms and reception rooms. The treasures in the State Apartments are unbelievable - china (including Ming vases and Sèvres china), solid gold utensils, loads and loads of weapons (there are swords and guns filling more than two rooms, including the bullet which killed Lord Nelson at Trafalgar), armour, coats of arms (again, one complete room), tributes, prizes from various parts of the British Empire, crowns, an ivory throne, paintings galore, (there are originals here by Rembrandt, Van Dyck, etc) and much, much more.

And the rooms, of course, are themselves quite spectacularly decorated - they’re sumptuously gilded, painted, carved, and tapestry-draped. Quite opulent - the Reception Room , for instance, though a rich cream in color, is so heavily gilded that it seems almost totally gold; and the walls and ceiling of the dining room are, every inch of them, painted with mythological figures in all the colors of the rainbow. All this richness is really rather overwhelming, and after a brief interlude at the guard-post outside where we (like all self-respecting tourists) got ourselves photographed with a poker-faced guard, we came out of the castle and strolled down to the Thames to feed bread to the swans.

Windsor Castle began its life as a wooden keep built by William the Conqueror. Henry II tore down the wooden buildings and rebuilt the castle in stone and during George IV times the castle was upgraded again. The Round Tower was constructed in 1170 and heightened 30ft by George IV. The moat below the tower has never held the water, as its chalky soil is highly porous.