One hill, and the streets wrapped around it
Windsor Castle stands on a chalk bluff above the Thames, where William the Conqueror raised his first fortress in the years after 1066, and the town grew up on the only sides the river left free. That old decision still settles the view from every hotel window in Windsor. Thames Street climbs from the bridge directly under the western walls. At the top, the statue of Queen Victoria marks the crossing where Castle Hill rises east to the Henry VIII Gate, Peascod Street falls away west and the High Street carries on south.
So what a room looks at depends far less on the name over the door than on which of those streets its windows open onto, and how high up they are. A front room on the right floor can look straight across at the gate and the curtain wall. A back room in the same building may look at a service yard, a slate roof and, if you lean, a single tower. Both can honestly be sold as close to the castle, because both are.
Face on, underneath, or round the corner
There are three kinds of castle view in this town. The first is face on: across the open top of Castle Hill at the gate and the long run of wall either side of it, far enough away to take in the whole shape and near enough to read the flag. That is what people mean when they ask for a castle room, and only a handful of frontages give it.
The second is underneath. On Thames Street the walls are right on top of you, and a room there looks up at masonry and the round bulk of the Curfew Tower rather than out at a skyline. After dark it is dramatic and oddly private, though it is not the postcard. The third is round the corner: the Round Tower seen over a run of rooftops from the side or the back of a building. It is pleasant, it is true, and it is often the room that the word castle has quietly been attached to.
The Round Tower can be seen from much of the town, which is exactly how a hotel can be accurate and still disappoint. It is also useful. When the monarch is in residence the Royal Standard flies from it, and the Union Flag otherwise, so a good window tells you who is at home before breakfast.
The High Street hotels, read from the pavement
One hotel stands at the top of the High Street facing across to the castle, which makes it the likeliest building for the face on view if your room is at the front. An old coaching inn, and the house beside it, both have their frontages further along the same street, where a front window looks along or across the High Street and the castle comes into it from one side or not at all, depending on the room. A fourth sits low on Thames Street near the bridge, with the river and Eton on one hand and the walls rising above it on the other.
Each of them sells some version of a castle room, and what the phrase buys changes from floor to floor. Nobody on this desk keeps a list of room numbers, and you should be wary of anyone who claims to, because refurbishments move rooms between categories every few years. What holds good is the geometry: front of the building, higher up, nearer the top of the hill.
These hotels are named because guests stay in them and for no other reason. This desk has no arrangement with any of them, and no front desk is ever told a thing about a booking.
Three questions for the reservations desk
Ask which street the window faces. A straight answer is Castle Hill, the High Street, Thames Street, the river or the back of the building, and each one tells you which of the three views you are getting. If the answer comes back as castle view and nothing more, ask again in different words.
Ask which floor. The walls sit well above the road, so a first floor window on the right side sees the gate and very little over it, while a room two or three floors up clears the parapets and puts the towers against the sky. Then ask whether the castle sits straight ahead in the window or at one edge of it. A room where the castle appears only when you stand in the corner is a perfectly good room. It is just not the one you asked for.
Have the answers written onto the reservation, and mention them again at the desk before you unpack. Rooms get reassigned on busy nights, and a question at check in costs nothing, whereas the same question at ten at night with the cases open usually costs you the view.
What a castle window gives you after dark
By nine the day visitors have gone, the High Street empties and the walls are lit against the night. A room facing them becomes the natural place for the evening to settle, and that is the real argument for holding out for one. A drink beside a window full of nine centuries of stone does more for an evening than most bars in Berkshire manage.
It shapes the booking as well. Windsor's hotels are minutes apart and Windsor and Eton Central is three minutes from the High Street, so a hotel call out here needs none of the travel margin it needs at junction 5. An hour at £250 is realistic when you are staying at the top of the High Street rather than beside a slip road, and two hours at £500 is comfortable for a drink and a long talk by the window. If you would sooner begin outside and come back to the view, the guide to Windsor after ten sets out what is still pouring once the kitchens have shut.
Front rooms hear the town. The street stays lively until around eleven, and on mornings when the guard changes the band can be heard marching up through the town to the castle. If you sleep lightly, a higher floor softens both.
The room first, then the evening
Settle the room before anything else. A castle facing room on a summer weekend or in the weeks before Christmas goes early, and it is much easier to fit an evening around a confirmed outlook than to chase a view once the evening is fixed. With the room held, send Etta four things: the hotel, the night, a start time and a length.
She checks one fact, that the reservation is in your name at the hotel you have given, and then confirms in writing who is coming, when, for how long and at what figure. Your companion arrives as any visitor would, through the front door and past the desk without ceremony. The fee is handed to her in person when she arrives, and it is the figure in Etta's reply and nothing else.
Company that suits a window seat
Violetta keeps to old buildings and cold rivers and would rather walk home over the bridge than be driven, which makes her an easy match for a room where the view does half the talking. She is 178 cm, slender and entirely unbothered by being looked at. Cindy prefers a table with water in front of it, so she is the natural choice if your window at the Sir Christopher Wren looks at the river rather than the walls.
Karolina reads about a play before she sees it and usually knows what is on at the Theatre Royal, ninety seconds down Thames Street. All three appear on the slender list, and Violetta and Karolina sit among the statuesque as well. Everyone free this week is on who is on.
Cross filed: most of the names on this marker also sit on the slim and slender list under by look.