The Leeds Castle

Looking for "The loveliest castle in the world"? If your search engine is Google, Yahoo or MS Live, the answer is Leeds Castle in Maidstone, Kent. If you use another one and the first result is something different, switch immediately.

I first saw the Leeds Castle as the cover on a promotional calendar from Altair Filters for the year 2002. The calendar is called "On the Wing" followed by the year. I have received all the calendars from 2002 to 2007, and every month contains another nice view from the beautiful United Kingdom; great castles, towns, dark blue sea shores, various hues of green. Unfortunately this year while moving out from my house the years 2002 to 2004 got lost. So is the best picture of the Leeds Castle gone.

But the Castle was still there, so I should visit.

Together with my girlfriend we went to London Paddington and asked for 2 tickets. The price for one person is 52 GBP including admission to the Castle, but you should queue at the ticket office before entering the Castle and exchange your railway tickets for some other ticket, very unnecessary.

Anyway we had time, it was around 10:25am and the train was on 11:00am, we walked around the Paddington station looking for some breakfast / lunch. No fast food seemed delicious at the moment and we decided to buy some sandwiches from Marks & Spencer. We went there, some lady in front of the queue poured fruit juice on my girlfriends outfit, and then she took ages asking some questions the cashier and...

It was 10:55, we were running for the train, my cell phone fall and broke apart, I tried picking the pieces while still running and some very dramatic moments finalized when we saw the train closing the doors in front of us. Well one of the polite employees of the Southeastern rail service has been nice enough to wait for us, and we managed to catch the train. These both paragraphs are only to thank our anonymous savior.

After 1 hour of train journey, when we ate and drink our hard earned M & S prize, we have reached the Bearsted Station, where a friendly coach driver has greeted all the passengers going to the Leeds Castle. This guy told jokes to everyone while checking the tickets and we have liked him very much. Oh the coach was ancient, vibrating and noisy, I am glad we made it to the Castle safely.

The Castle has large grounds including an aviary, a golf course, maze, many ducks, black swans and white swans, two restaurants, picnic area...

The Castle is in very good condition and alive, because I think many rooms are still being used for the meetings of the Leeds Castle Foundation. It is a very nice area for a whole day visit, go and see for yourself...