Ladies at Downton Abbey

Eat your Heart Out fans of Downton Abbey.

Highclere Castle, aka Downton Abbey, is open to the public 60 days a year.  Tickets for 2016 have been sold out since very early in the year.  Other days are reserved for special events which tend to be fundraisers, and of course the current owners, Lord and Lady Carnarvon live at the castle full time. We will be touring the grounds, gardens, gift shop, tearooms, and of course the castle interiors at Highclere.

Monday will be our earliest day of the week, with our departure from the hotel by black cab to Paddington Station, where we board a 7am train direct train from Paddington Station to Newbury Station with travel time of 47 minutes to our destination. 

But remember,  the day before (Sunday) is a shopping day without any evening plans, so "early to bed, early to rise" will be our goal.  I reserved seats for our outgoing journey, booth style seating with a table for 4 in Coach B. On the return journey we have airline style reserved seating, Coach D. The train has food & beverages for purchase both directions. I'll ask the hotel to prepare a continental breakfast 'to go' for us so we can dine on the train.






The Flower Pot Cafe in Newbury opens at 8:30am and is nearby the train station. Cozy inside. Rated #1 for breakfast of 9 Newbury cafes. Many more restaurants.


Highclere Castle is 5 miles south of town and a taxi will take us to our destination.  Since the grounds don't open until 9am, and we arrive to Newbury about 8am, we shall take the opportunity to have a cup of tea or java in town.before arriving to Highclere.





When visiting HIghclere Castle you have either morning (10:30am-1pm) tickets or afternoon (1:30pm-3pm) tickets.  We have MORNING tickets. Once on the grounds, we can tour outside of the castle (grounds and gardens) and the gift shop or tea room as much as we like before and after the time inside the castle. I expect we will queue for entry around 10am.  Inside, no photographs are allowed. You can spend as much time as you wish in each room, but once leaving, you do not back-track to visit the rooms. Stairs are required to access the second floor for access to the bedrooms. Our tickets include the opportunity to view the Tutankhamun exhibit also inside...hopefully you are reading Lady Almina, The Real Countess of Highclere Castle, to understand this connection.

  



Upon leaving the castle, we can choose to have lunch back in Newbury before departing back to London at 4:49pm.  
Although there are 36 trains daily to Newbury, I chose this departure because it is the only afternoon departure with NO change of trains during the journey. Travel back to Paddington Station is 1 hour.