Where and when: Balmoral, Scotland, May 2024
Being a fan of all things Royal, a visit to Balmoral Castle has long been on my bucket list. So, when we were in the Cairngorms on pur recent trip to Scotland the chance of a visit to the castle was too good to miss.
Balmoral Castle is the Scottish home of the Royal Family. It was purchased for Queen Victoria by Prince Albert in 1852.
With a normal visitor ticket, you can explore the palace gardens and the ballroom.
There is an expansive vegetable garden, with a large greenhouse. This part of Scotland gets Frost every month of the year, except for July. However it also gets 18 hours of daylight in midsummer, making it up for the cold weather.
Balmoral, unlike other royal residences, is a private home owned by the monarch. So it is a lot smaller and doesn’t have state apartments, throne rooms like the Windsor Castle or Buckingham Palace. The private rooms were not open to visitors when we went in May 2022, but is has since been opened for a limited number of visits in the summer.
The ballroom was open for visitors with a normal ticket. When we went, it hosted an exhibition of paintings done by King Charles the III.
The garden cottage, dating back to 1895, is said to have been used by Queen Victoria to have breakfast, and attend to her correspondence.
The visit took about 1.5 hours in total. There is also a cafe and a giftshop on site (although the prices are on the high side).
Diary of a Tourist 
Frost every month but July?! Ooh, that makes Minnesota seem positively balmy! (Then again, let’s compare them in January – haha.)
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