What’s Buckingham Palace like? Inside the British royals’ State Rooms, as tours open for the first time since 2019
- We visit the 19 splendid State Rooms where the British royal family meets and entertains official visitors, in the West Wing of the palace
- A special display in the Ball Supper Room celebrates the queen’s 70th year on the throne, featuring portraits taken by an official royal photographer
Walking up the red-carpeted, gold-leafed, double-pronged Grand Staircase, it’s hard not to entertain thoughts of “You shall go to the ball!”
I’m at London’s Buckingham Palace to visit the State Rooms, which are open to the public this summer, until October 2, for the first time since 2019.
The State Rooms, where the British royal family meets and entertains official visitors, lie deep beyond the famous facade, in the West Wing of the palace.
Entry for the paying public, which costs £30 (US$36) per adult, with concessions available, is not through the front gates but at the side, on Buckingham Palace Road, although once through “airport-style security” (where the staff are much more polite than at any airport I’ve ever been to) we access the same grand rooms as the dignitaries.
But first we’re given a few rules: no gum chewing (“you can’t imagine where we find it”), no photographs of the State Rooms – and no toilet stops until the end of the tour.
