[Traveling with Kids] England 2019 - Oxford and Windsor

Once we left the Cotswolds we drove through Oxford and then to Windsor before dropping the car off at the airport so we could make our way to London.

The kids were fantastic in the car, Séamus fell asleep and the girls had fun looking out the windows and playing on their kindles.  We arrived at Oxford, had a bit of difficulty figuring out exactly where to go, but after some driving around and searching on our phones we figured it out.  We parked in a random spot on campus and since Séamus was sleeping we tagged teamed a quick walk around with the girls...and so we wouldn't get ticketed or towed since we weren't too sure if we were in an actual parking spot or not 😂.  I would love to be able to tell you what each of these pictures are...but I have zero idea.  I think one of them is the library? I didn't to much (okay okay any) research on Oxford, so pictures without any explanation is what you're going to get.  If you do happen to know what any of this is, please leave a comment so that I can know too!

After our quick stop in Oxford, we drove on to Windsor Castle.  There was some sort of procession happening so the roads were backed up and we were basically stuck in the same spot for a good 15 minutes. Whatever it was finally was over and we were off to find a parking spot.  We passed several parking lots on the way to the one that Thomas chose as our destination, so we stubbornly stuck to it and once we entered we got the very last parking spot at the very back of the lot and then all of the pay stations were out of order, except for the one at the very front and wouldn't you know it....it was a Pay and Display 😆.  Thomas took off to pay for the parking, while I willingly stayed back at the car with the kids eating snacks, drinking water, breastfeeding Séamus, and trying as hard as I could to stay cool in the very very hot sun.

Thomas made it back and then we started off on our way.  Windsor Castle is on a hill, so we started the trek up, stopped in at McDonald's for the bathroom when we realized that we forgot our tickets in the car 😩, Thomas graciously offered to run back and retrieve them while I stayed with the kids and got them some chicken nuggets, because we basic.  Reunited once again and we made our way to the gates!  Thomas's parents also caught up with us so we were all able to check out the castle together.  I have to be honest and it wasn't quite as I remembered it from 20 years ago, but it was still magnificent and a great tourist spot.

Finnley wanted to walk most of the time, Ellie wanted to ride in the stroller and Séamus was our wild child. I managed to get him to snooze a bit in the Ergo and then when he woke up, Finnley had met her match and needed to be carried, so I flipped my carrier around and girlfriend enjoyed the thrills of the back carry and we didn't have to worry about her knocking into anything.

Before we made it into the Castle we all took a break, sat on the grass (who have I become??), and ate Ice Cream.  Another snafu,  Thomas ordered the Ice Cream and there was a miscommunication of sorts and instead of coming back with 3 ice cream cones he had 6 😂😂😂😂 None of us complained and we decided that was lunch!  Finnley confiscated my phone and had a blast taking all the pictures!

I loved the wafer cookie they included too!

a beautiful Magnolia in full bloom 😍

Once we finished our tour of the Castle...no pictures allowed, we made our way back to the airport to drop off the car.  It was quite the fiasco (as clearly our day was) and we learned quite a bit about how careful one needs to be when booking a car in England.  The company we went through required you to select your insurance when making your reservation, however if you're booking from the US they don't actually let you select one and then when you arrive they charge you double because you didn't include it in your booking.  So what we learned is that you need to either book from the UK or the EU website so you don't get swindled.  Quite the ordeal, I'll tell you that.  (I will have you know that our car rental in Ireland went as smoothly as possible, we rented a GPS too but it didn't work on the first day so we just used our phones and when we returned the car a week later and told them about the GPS they took it off our bill with no problems)

I thought this was a cool tunnel going into the airport so there you go!

Stay tuned because our 5 days in London is coming up and I can't wait to share all of it with you!

Previous Posts:
Ireland post ONE
Ireland post TWO
Ireland post THREE
England post ONE
England post TWO


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♥ Ashley