Leeds Castle I'd planned to head off to Leeds Castle by myself on Saturday but by the end of Thursday night, I found myself being joined by a great group - Joel, Matt, Kel, Ray and Cath (Matt's parents who are here on holiday). We booked tickets with National Express which included bus trip and castle entry. So we were on a bus leaving Victoria bus station at 9am and at the castle at 10:30am. The castle itself didn't open until 11am but the grounds were so we spent the first half hour wandering in to the castle, taking in the beautiful grounds and lake that the castle is on. After numerous photos and stops to admire flowers and plants, we found ourselves lining up to get in the castle. Inside the castle was lovely. Unlike most of the castles I've visited where they are so luxurious and ostentatious, Leeds Castle had a distinct homely feel to it. This is perhaps because it is a working castle and most of the room are used by guests who come to stay. That's not to say it wasn't lovely - it was. It was just so nice to see these beautiful rooms and know that people sat on that chair or slept in that bed, as opposed to it being all for show. The castle has a long and interesting history and I would definitely recommend it to others to go visit. We'd been through the castle by lunchtime so we headed over to the restaurant for lunch, sitting outside on the deck in the sun with views of the castle and moat. As we finished lunch the sky started clouding over but we continued on, watching a birds of prey show before leaving Ray to continue watching the show while we decided to tackle the maze. My previous experience with a maze was in the cotswalds where it estimated 20 minutes was needed to get through it. We took 40. This time I headed off with Kel, deciding to not follow Matt. The aim was to get to the centre of the maze which was raised up higher and after many paths leading us back to the row next to this, Kel and I got smart and headed out and found the correct path to take us to the centre. We were the first there and celebrated, especially when we saw Matt stumbling around in circles. Cath was next and she joined us in laughing at Matt. Poor Joel managed to end up at the entrance twice so decided that it was sign and we could see him waiting for us outside. A very frustrated Matt was not impressed when he saw we'd all beaten him and Cath and I left Kel there trying to direct Matt through the maze. To get out of the maze, you followed a path that took you underground to a tiny grotto and then outside. By this time the sky was greyer so we decided we'd continue on and look at the aviary. As we were walking out of the aviary, the skies opened in one huge burst and we all ran for shelter. By this stage we only had 45 minutes till we had to get back on the bus so we browsed in the gift shop as the rain didn't let up. By 3:15 we were back on a bus heading back to London. All in all, it was another lovely day and I thoroughly enjoyed not only the castle, but the company also. I would definitely be recommending Leeds Castle as a great day out with plenty to do. We didn't even get to make it to the winery and do any taste testing like I'd hoped! So there was still more to do than we saw.