WELCOME

    Welcome to Windsor Castle, the oldest and largest occupied castle in the world. Windsor is one the official residences (住所) of the Queen, who sometimes stays here.

    Audio tours

    Free audio tours are available on leaving the Admission Centre at the start of your visit. There is a descriptive audio tour for blind and poor-sighted visitors.

    Guided tours

    Visitors can explore the history of the Castle through a tour of the Precincts with an expert guide. Tours depart at regular intervals throughout the day from the Courtyard and finish at the entrance to the State Apartments.

    Visitors with children

    For those visiting with children, a special family tour and various activities are offered during school holidays and at weekends. Please note that, for safety reasons, pushchairs are not permitted in the State Apartments. However, baby carriers are available to borrow.

    St George's Chapel

    Visitors arriving at the Castle after 15:00 from March to October are advised to visit St George's Chapel first, before it closes.

    Shopping

    Shops offer a wide range of souvenirs designed for the Royal Collection, including books, postcards, china, jewellery, and children's toys. Please ask at the Middle Ward shop about our home delivery service.

    Refreshments

    Bottled water can be purchased from the Courtyard and Middle Ward shops. From April to September ice cream is also available, Visitors wishing to leave the Castle for refreshments in the town may obtain re-entry permits from the castle shops. Eating and drinking are not permitted in the State Apartments or St George's Chapel.

    Photography and mobile phones

    Non-commercial photography and filming are welcomed in the Castle. Photography, video recording and filming are not permitted inside the State Apartments or St George's Chapel. Mobile phone must be switched off inside the State Apartments and St George's Chapel in consideration of other visitors.

    Security

    As Windsor Castle is a working royal palace, visitors and their belongings should get through airport-style security checks. For safety and security reasons a one-way system operates along the visitor route.

    Computer programmer David Jones earns $35.000 a year designing new computer games, yet he cannot find a bank ready to let him have a credit card. Instead he has been told to wait another two years until he is 18. The 16-year-old works for a small firm in Liverpool where the problem of most young people of his age is finding a job. David's firm releases two new games for the fast growing computer market each month.

    But David's biggest headache is what to do with his money. Even though he earns a lot he cannot drive a car, take out a mortgage（抵押贷款）, or get credit cards. David got his job with the Liverpool-based company four months ago, a year after leaving school with six O-levels and working for a time in a computer shop. “I got the job because the people who run the firm knew I had already written some programs”, he said. David spends some of his money on records and clothes and gives his mother 50 pounds a week. But most of his spare time is spent working.

    “Unfortunately, computing was not part of our studies at school”, he said “But I had been studying it in books and magazines for four years in my spare time. I knew what I wanted to do and never considered staying on at school. Most people in this business are fairly young, anyway.” David added, “I would like to earn a million and I suppose early retirement is a possibility. You never know when the market might disappear.”

Surviving Hurricane Sandy(飓风桑迪)

    Natalie Doan, 14, has always felt lucky to live in Rockaway, New York. Living just a few blocks from the beach, Natalie can see the ocean and hear the wave from her house. “It's the ocean that makes Rockaway so special, ” she says.

    On October 29, 2012, that ocean turned fierce. That night, Hurricane Sandy attacked the East Coast, and Rockaway was hit especially hard. Fortunately, Natalie's family escaped to Brooklyn shortly before the city's bridge closed.

    When they returned to Rockaway the next day, they found their neighborhood in ruins. Many of Natalie's friends had lost their homes and were living far away. All around her, people were suffering, especially the elderly. Natalie's school was so damaged that she had to temporarily(临时地，暂时地) attend a school in Brooklyn.

    In the following few days, the men and women helping Rockaway recover inspired Natalie. Volunteers came with carloads of donated clothing and toys. Neighbors devoted their spare time to helping others rebuild. Teenagers climbed dozens of flights of stairs to deliver water and food to elderly people trapped in powerless high-rise buildings.

    “My mom tells me that I can't control what happens to me,” Natalie says. “but I can always choose how I deal with it. ”

    Natalie's choice was to help.

    She created a website page matching survivors in need with donors who wanted to help. Natalie posted introduction about a boy named Patrick, who lost his baseball card collecting when his house burned down. Within days, Patrick's collection was replaced.

    In the coming months, her website page helped lots of kids: Christopher, who received a new basketball; Charlie, who got a new keyboard. Natalie also worked with other organizations to bring much-need supplies to Rockaway. Her efforts made her a famous person. Last April, she was invited to the White House and honored as a Hurricane Sandy Champion of Change.

    Today, the scars(创痕)of destruction are still seen in Rockaway, but hope is in the air. The streets are clear, and many homes have been rebuilt. “I can't imagine living anywhere but Rockaway, ” Natalie declares. “My neighborhood will be back, even stronger than before. ”

    On a recent afternoon, some 60 years after they graduated from grammar school, Kathleen Rys, 72, and her sister Lorraine O'Kelly, 70, sat down and had a meal with a classmate, Bruce Smit, 71 for the first time.

    In the 1950s, Lorraine and Kathleen Rys' family moved from Chicago to Monee. As new kids at Monee Elementary School, they soon found themselves on the outs with other students.

    "I would be with the other guys and see Kathleen walking down the hallway, her head down, holding her books, walking slowly. And all of us guys would be flat against the wall until she passed. Then we'd burst into laughter. How rude is that? It's just crazy." said Smit, a doctor whose wife, Tammy, organized the meeting.

    The women said none of the teachers cared about it. "We just kept it to ourselves. " Lorraine said.

    Over the years, Tammy Smit said, "Bruce would just start to cry at times. He'd wonder what happened to the sisters, if they landed OK." One day a few weeks ago, Tammy took to the internet and found Mary O'Kelly, Lorraine's daughter, and offered to set up a meeting. The idea of revisiting the pain was not well- received by Kathleen, who had never married, let alone gone on a date. It took some convincing, but Lorraine finally got Kathleen to agree to meet with Bruce.

    Bruce broke into tears. "I'm so ashamed, so embarrassed," he said. "But I'm so happy you're still here and that I can finally apologize. " He said he hopes his apology will encourage others to seek forgiveness for the pain they make on others. Lorraine said, "This is a beautiful thing. It's just wonderful that a person from 60 years ago can ask for forgiveness. It's like a miracle to us. It's a healing to us."

    I started reading Shakespeare when I was nine, after my grandfather, an actor, sent me a copy of Romeo and Juliet. The story and the language attracted me. I found out about Shakespeare Globe Centre New Zealand (SGCNZ) and started volunteering for them when I was about 10. When I was 13, I managed to run a film project with SGCNZ.

    I'm home-educated and a part-time correspondence student (函授生) as well. We have a drama group made up of quite a few people who are also home-educated .I've also joined Wellington Young Actors, a youth theatre company. There are many similarities and differences between being home-educated and attending a five-day programme. I love hearing other students' reactions when meeting them and share my different ways of experiencing the world with them. While explaining the way I learn can be a challenge, I love helping people to understand there isn't just one way of learning.

    Being home-educated has offered me the freedom to have an individualized education and to pursue my passions. My education has always been about making those focuses but I do lots of the same things as people who attend five-day programs do. Shakespeare is a great approach to lots of things around English, history and the arts. I think something you learn when you perform is connection. You have to have a connection with your fellow actors, with the audience and with Shakespeare. I learn this from actually being on stage and from taking part in different Shakespeare festival programs.

    I believe it's the emotion in Shakespeare that makes it relevant today. You can be reading something that was written 400 years ago and be able to see parts of your life in the work as it shows you how to understand the world and explore a lot of different ideas.

    Janet Guthrie and Danica Patrick, first female Indy competitor and winner

    No complaints about woman drivers. Janet Guthrie, an space engineer who was training to be an astronaut, turned to car racing when she was cut from the space program for not having completed her doctors degree. In 1977, Guthrie became the first female Indy 500 competitor. She didn't take the lead, but Danica Patrick did. In 2005 and in 2008, Patrick became the first woman ever to win an Indy Car Series.

    Raymonde de Laroche, first female licensed pilot

    A former actress who'd been born Elise Raymonde Deroche in Paris in 1882, Raymonde de Laroche was inspired to take up flying after seeing the Wright Brothers flight demonstrations in 1907 in France. Though she wasn't the first female pilot, de Laroche was the first woman to earn a pilot's license in 1910.

    Gertrude Ederle, first woman to swim across the English Channel

    On August 6. 1926. Gertrude Caroline Ederle became the first woman to swim across the English Channel. Ederle, who lived to be 98 and died in 2003, was also an Olympic swim champion and five-time world record-holder in five swimming events

    Kathrine Switzer, Nina Kuscik and Joan Benoit, first major female marathoners.

    In 1967, 20-year-old Kathrine Switzer became the first woman to run in the Boston Marathon, even though race officials had tried to stop her. Nina Kuscik became the first woman to officially win the Boston Marathon, 1972. In 1984, American Joan Benoit became the first winner of the Women's Olympic Marathon, finishing 400 meters ahead of Norway's Grete Waitz.