Experience the best of Windsor & Eton

Windsor Castle stands on a chalk ridge above the Thames and has been a royal residence for nearly a thousand years, making it the largest inhabited castle in the world. St George's Chapel, inside its walls, is a late-Gothic church with a fan-vaulted roof, the burial place of many monarchs and the setting for royal weddings. The Long Walk, a straight avenue of more than four kilometres, leads south from the castle into Windsor Great Park.

A bridge over the river joins Windsor to Eton, where the College, founded by Henry VI in 1440, stands at the end of a high street of antique shops and bookshops. Windsor Great Park holds Virginia Water, a lake with a ruined Roman-style colonnade, and the Savill Garden. Downstream lie the meadows of Runnymede, where Magna Carta was sealed in 1215.

Riverbank walks, swans, rowing boats and pubs beside the water give the two towns a calm, English feel, and afternoon tea and Sunday roasts are the usual meals. The park turns copper and gold in autumn, and the towns are at their liveliest on summer weekends, when boats fill the water.