It was a day of absolute perfect timing, but the perfect timing started well before today. When we booked the Viking cruise around the British Isles, one of the tours we wanted to take was to Highclere Castle, the real-life place where fictional Downton Abbey was set. However, Viking didn’t offer that tour on our sailing because it’s usually closed this time of year.
But I looked into it and discovered that Highclere held a fair or fete or something on the weekend that we’d disembark the ship, then remain open just two days after that. We’d be in London both of those days, so it was doable. We really lucked out with that timing!
So today was the day and we set off early to the tube station to make our way to Paddington railway station, where we’d buy a ticket for the 8:30 train.

But it wasn’t the 8:30 train, it was the 8:00 train, which gave us some padding at the other end. We’d be arriving close to 9am instead of our original 9:40 and our tickets to Highclere were for 10:00am. The trains were clean and comfortable and the ride was very smooth. Before long, we were at Newbury station, way out in the boonies and got a cab to Highclere, about 15 minutes away. We arrived well before 10am, so we explored the grounds a bit and enjoyed the gorgeous views.

Of course, there was the obligatory selfie shot.

We went around to the back of the castle where the outbuildings are and noticed that the staff had a much less grand view of the place when they entered.

The outbuildings would’ve been stables, a coach house, probably storage, etc. Now they’re a gift shop, public toilets, and a small café.

Although our tickets said 10am, we decided to go around to the front and wait until time to enter before tour busses and more cars showed up. We were really glad to see the grounds before they were covered in people. Perfect timing!
Even better… when we got to the front, the door was already open and we got in several minutes before 10am, so there was no crowd at all!

Sadly, there is no photography allowed inside. I was disappointed, but I absolutely get it. There are things in this home that date back to antiquity. There are 16th century tapestries on the walls of one room acting as wallpaper. There is a massive collection of art, originals, irreplaceable. Most of it would be damaged by flash photography. And because the average tourist falls into one of two categories (1. “I paid a lot for this trip, I’ll do what I want.” or 2. “I don’t know how to disable the flash on my camera, sorry.”), they can’t rely on a “no flash photography” rule to be adhered to. So it’s a simple “no photography” rule, more easily enforced. Sad, but I’d have done the same thing. You can google for pics taken by professionals and there are lots of those. Or you can re-watch Downton Abbey because that’s exactly how it looks in real life.

But the photo ban leaves me with not much to show you aside from the outside of the house. Luckily, that’s still really nice!

And not having crowds allowed us to see the castle at our leisure, without feeling pushed along, and still see it all in a couple of hours. We headed down to the cellars to see the Egyptian exhibit as well. (If you didn’t know, the 5th Earl of Carnarvon and his partner discovered King Tut’s tomb. Some of his earlier finds and some replicas of the Tut treasures are displayed in the cellars at Highclere).

Something else you might not know. The 5th Earl’s father (the 4th Earl, duh) had talks with John A. Macdonald for several weeks before hosting a whole delegation from Canada including Macdonald, Sir George Etienne Cartier and Alexander Tilloch Galt. From the Maritimes there was Charles Tupper and Leonard Tilley. The purpose was for the Canadian delegation to discuss Canada’s articles of Confederation and to compel the 4th Earl of Carnarvon, who was the Colonial Secretary in the British cabinet, to be on board with Canada uniting and becoming a self-ruling Dominion. Those discussions happened right here at Highclere.

We finished up our tours and grabbed a quick bite from the coach house, then headed back up to the car park to call for a taxi. Again, we timed our visit really well, as we saw through the windows on the way out that the rooms were all full of people. The car park, which had but just a handful of cars when we arrived was filling up as well.

And if our timing luck hadn’t been good enough already, we weren’t in the taxi more than a couple of minutes when the skies opened up and the rains fell. Back at the Newbury station, though, it seemed that our timing luck had run out. The trains run every hour or so in the middle of the afternoon and we’d just missed one. The railway attendant told us that there was a train to Reading leaving in a couple of minutes and we could take that to Reading, then switch trains back to Paddington. So we did. We arrived at Reading Station and headed over the bridge to get from our arrival platform to the departure platform.

I checked the boards: there were trains about every 15 minutes, but the next train left in just 2 minutes! We literally hopped on board just before it left. In fact, we were moving out of the station before we had even found our seats. Even better: it was an express train, so it went straight to Paddington without stopping. Before long, we were back on the Underground and I swear, every time we needed to get on a tube train, there was one right there and we’d just hop on. It was almost freaky.

Dinner was at a pub I found, right around the corner from us. It was founded in 1749.

Rob and I both had a “proper British fish and chips” and I followed mine with a sticky toffee pudding. It was all excellent.

And then we all went back to the hotel and collapsed. It was a really long, tiring day, but it was absolutely worth it. Good food, good friends, good scenery, and good memories.

Last two days in London…

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