Balmoral Castle is actually one of Scotland’s most popular vacation destinations – it includes extensive gardens, gift shops, and even cafes. This royal estate is in Royal Deeside, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and was built in 1852 after the house that used to stand on the property was deemed too small for the royal family.
It appears to be a true castle, with a huge stone keep, towers, parapets, and other classic features. The location is open during the summer months, and in just 2014 alone it attracted around seventy thousand tourists. It also hosts an annual RunBalmoral, a three-day running festival that raises money for a number of charities.
Llwynywermod
Go ahead and try to pronounce that one correctly. We’ll wait. While this farmhouse seems a bit modest as far as royal homes go, it sits inside a 192-acre landscape. It has a huge garden, which makes it the perfect place for King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consol, to visit if they need some quiet time in the countryside.
Just like Highgrove House, King Charles renovated Llwynywermod with sustainability in mind. It’s insulated with sheep’s wool (very Welsh of you, Charlie), and is heated with a wood chip boiler. It also features low-energy lights and a reed-bed sewage system. The royal couple is proud of a completely organic farm, and joke that their sheep are both lawn mowers and fertilizers.
Buckingham Palace
It’s the big one. There are few places as ritzy as Buckingham Palace, located in the City of Westminster. It has served as the official residence of the Queen of England since 1837 when Queen Victoria took the throne. Its seven hundred and seventy-five rooms are decked out in a lavish 19th-century interior design.
It’s open for ten weeks each year during the summer, and on selected dates during spring and winter. There’s plenty for tourists to see, including London’s largest garden. Estimates range wildly, but reports claim the palace is worth anywhere from two billion dollars to five billion dollars.
Amalienborg
Amalienborg is the home of the Danish royal family, located in Copenhagen, Denmark. It is, in fact, four identical classical palace façades with rococo interiors around an octagonal courtyard. It was originally built for four noble families, but when Christiansborg Palace burned in 1794, the royal family bought the palaces and moved in. Various monarchs, along with their families have resided in the four different palaces. The palaces took ten years to complete.
They are Christian VII's Palace, (originally Moltke's Palace), Christian VIII's Palace (Levetzau's Palace), Frederick VIII's Palace (Brockdorff's Palace) and Christian IX's Palace (Schack's Palace). In the center of the square in the middle of the palaces is a huge equestrian statue of Amalienborg's founder, King Frederick V.
The Duchy of Lancaster
Perhaps topping the list as the largest property, The Duchy of Lancaster is a private, 45,550-acre estate owned by the royal family. The property is “an ancient body responsible for managing an investment portfolio of land, property, and financial investments” according to Duchyoflancaster.co.uk. “The Duchy’s main purpose is to provide income for the Sovereign as Duke of Lancaster, although the Sovereign is not entitled to any of the capital assets of the Duchy.”
The late Queen Elizabeth was technically the Duke, and not the Duchess because Queen Victoria believed that “Duchess” was a “courtesy title for the consort of a Duke.”