Windsor Castle Royal Tattoo

This is Windsor Castle (or here, if you prefer Wikipedia links

Windsor Castle

Home to the Queen of England on weekends and the grounds on which the 2008 Windsor Castle Royal Tattoo is being held for the next few evenings. The program is on the sight and will be broadcast on the BBC, Sunday 11 May.

What is not mentioned is that there is a 7 May performance, tickets open to the military. Beverly reminded me this morning that we had tickets for this evenings performance.

The post is picture heavy. I limited the size of the pictures in the post. You can click on them if you want bigger. Almost all were taken with the telephoto lens on my Cannon EOS without benefit of flash. They are posted in performance order. (Commentary to be added when I am awake).

When we arrived, this lot was out on the field, practicing and milling around. Remember them.

rehersal

At the start, for the benefit of visualizing several pre-recorded clips and closeups of the field, we had the wide screen panel over the band’s stage.

Band and big screen

Enter the horse artillery

Enter the horse artillery

performing maneuvers

horse artillery, teams pulling a couple of tons.

while pulling cannons that weigh a couple of tons.

pulling cannon

prior to firing all eight.

cannon firing

There were also the mounted Horse Guards.

A firefight complete with smoke and more smoke (flashs, bangs, booms and an aircraft sound track).


more firefightambulance responding

The midpoint did not feature Zambonies.
Not a Zambonie
Instead moving on through several groups to Cossacks
Cossacks
The Musical Ride, complete with the drum horse
Drum horse with musical ride

And massed pipe bands
pipers

Massed pipers
Joining at the end with
End formation

and the same blokes you saw out there earlier, only now dressed up.
Guards and pipers

finishing together with the pipers

combined

For this is what it was all about
Troops

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4 Responses to Windsor Castle Royal Tattoo

  1. Ruth says:

    Awesome! I was in Edinborough in2000 during the big Tattoo…but no tickets left for me. Boo hoo.

  2. Raven says:

    I’ve always wanted to attend a Tattoo. There is something very emotional about this kind of display, there is nothing quite like it. Even for someone like me who does not consider herself particularly patriotic, the RCMP musical ride brings tears to my eyes. I imagine the Tattoo must be a hundred times as powerful.

  3. Carmen says:

    Exciting! Hey, there is a little white dog-troop there in the bottom photo – would it be a mascot or a service dog?

  4. amandaj says:

    Are you a pipe lover? I am – they always get me! The whole thing looks awesome. The closest I have come to a tattoo is on the television.

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