Most of our time was spent touring the public rooms in the area of the castle formerly used by kings and queens past (with no interior photography allowed, alas). The rooms were . . . rather unusual. The private rooms, such as the king and queen’s bedrooms, were quite small, which makes sense when you think of the difficulty of heating even the smallest spaces centuries ago. The larger reception and banquet rooms were cluttered with furniture – all of it beautiful but many pieces quite faded and threadbare. I can only imagine that they really are antiques that once belonged to former rulers. No one could ever use them again but they can’t be tossed or even refurbished because they are chairs! Used by James II! Therefore precious! Etc.

The walls of all these rooms were fascinatingly decorated. In the private rooms valuable paintings covered every inch of wall space. My favorite was a very rare painting of young Queen Elizabeth I – I’d only ever seen portraits from when she was far older.

In quite a few of the public rooms, however, weapons took center stage. I have never seen a greater array of swords, daggers, spears, muskets, and pistols in my life. Not only were all these weapons displayed prominently on the walls all the way up to the soaring ceilings, they were arranged into artful patterns and swirling rosettes. Yes: rosettes made out of 17th-century pistols. Wild! Some of the swords displayed truly exquisite worksmanship, as did the suits of armor lining the halls. One room proudly showed off tributes and spoils from centuries past: a Turkish robe, an Incan crown, a carved African staff, bejeweled trinkets from around the world. And more weapons, of course.

Afterward we wandered along to the church within the walls, St. George’s chapel. It is quite a shock to absently look down and realize you are standing above the remains of Henry VIII and his third wife Jane Seymour. My degree is in History; clearly I know quite a bit about history and have read a great deal on various famous figures. Yet they never seem real in books, real in the sense that these were people going about their daily lives, existing in their time period much like anyone else in the world. But to visit the place where Henry VIII and Elizabeth I and Victoria all lived in their turn, to wander the same halls and parapets they did—that is what makes history real to me.