What this article covers: How Europe’s royal palaces compare in size, age and public access, from Versailles and Buckingham Palace to the working royal residences and ancient royal sites of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Who this is for: Travellers planning visits to Europe’s palaces, readers trying to settle size and status questions between Versailles, Buckingham Palace, Schönbrunn and Madrid, and anyone curious about where Ireland fits into the royal map of Europe.
Key takeaway: The Royal Palace of Madrid holds the largest built floor area of any royal residence in Europe, while Versailles is far larger once its gardens are counted. The more useful distinction for a traveller is not size at all, but whether a palace is retired or still working.
Expert insight: “The question we get asked most about palaces is which one is biggest, but the answer that actually changes your day out is whether the building is still in use. At Hillsborough Castle, you can walk through rooms that hosted a state visit the week before, and that is a completely different experience from touring Versailles.” Ciaran Connolly, Founder of ConnollyCove.
Quick facts:
- The Royal Palace of Madrid covers roughly 135,000 square metres of floor space, more than any other royal residence in Europe.
- Buckingham Palace has 775 rooms and has been the London residence of the British sovereign since 1837.
- Hillsborough Castle in County Down is the official Northern Ireland residence of the King, and has been managed by Historic Royal Palaces since 2014.
Royal Palaces of Europe
Royal palaces of Europe range from the mirrored halls of Versailles to a Georgian country house in County Down that still hosts the British monarch today. Some were built to declare absolute power. Others grew, room by room, into working homes for government and ceremony that continue to function centuries later.
This guide covers the grand set pieces most visitors already know, Versailles, Buckingham Palace, Schönbrunn and the Royal Palace of Madrid, alongside a part of the story that rarely makes the list: the royal residences of Ireland and Northern Ireland, and the ancient Gaelic royal sites that predate all of them. ConnollyCove is an Ireland-based travel and culture platform that has covered Irish heritage and British royal history side by side for years, and our guide to the architectural evolution of Irish fortresses traces how a Norman keep becomes a Georgian seat of government. The overlap between the two stories runs deeper than most palace guides let on.
Table of Contents
Europe’s Royal Palaces Compared by Size
The Royal Palace of Madrid is the largest royal palace in Europe by built floor area, at roughly 135,000 square metres. Versailles is the largest royal site overall, once its 800 hectares of gardens are counted, and it has around 2,300 rooms to Buckingham Palace’s 775.
A side-by-side comparison makes the scale differences clearer than description alone.
| Palace | Country | Built / Established | Size | Style |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palace of Versailles | France | Hunting lodge from the 1620s, expanded from 1661 | ~2,300 rooms, 800-hectare gardens | Baroque |
| Buckingham Palace | United Kingdom | Royal residence since 1837 | 775 rooms | Neoclassical |
| Royal Palace of Madrid | Spain | Rebuilt from 1738 | ~135,000 sq m floor area | Baroque / Neoclassical |
| Schönbrunn Palace | Austria | Built 1696 to 1712 | 1,441 rooms | Rococo / Baroque |
| Winter Palace | Russia | Built 1732 to 1762 | ~1,500 rooms | Elizabethan Baroque |
| Dublin Castle | Ireland | Founded in 1204, rebuilt in the 17th century | Government complex, State Apartments | Medieval / Georgian |
| Hillsborough Castle | Northern Ireland | Built from the 1770s | Georgian country house, working royal residence | Georgian |
Versailles vs Buckingham Palace: which is bigger?
Versailles is considerably bigger. It has roughly three times the room count of Buckingham Palace and sits in an estate of around 800 hectares, while Buckingham Palace occupies a comparatively compact site in central London with a 39-acre garden behind it. The two buildings serve different purposes, which explains the gap: Versailles was designed to house an entire royal court, while Buckingham Palace has always been a working residence in a crowded capital.
Versailles vs Schönbrunn and the Winter Palace
Schönbrunn holds 1,441 rooms and the Winter Palace around 1,500, so both sit well below Versailles on room count and far below it on grounds. What Schönbrunn has that Versailles does not is a compact, walkable estate with a zoo, a maze and a hilltop Gloriette inside the same ticketed park. The Winter Palace, built for the Russian imperial court in St Petersburg, now functions as the main building of the Hermitage Museum, so a visit there is more like an art gallery day rather than a palace tour.
Royal Palace of Madrid vs Versailles
Madrid wins on floor area, Versailles on total footprint. The Spanish palace packs its 135,000 square metres into a single dense block above the Manzanares valley, and it still hosts state ceremonies for the Spanish royal family. Versailles spreads across an estate of formal gardens, canals and the smaller Trianon palaces, none of which counts as built floor space but all of which takes a full day to see properly.
The Grand Icons and Their Histories
Versailles and Buckingham Palace anchor almost every list of Europe’s royal palaces, and for good reason: both still shape how people picture monarchy today.
The Palace of Versailles started life as a hunting lodge for Louis XIII in the 1620s before Louis XIV expanded it from 1661 into the seat of French royal power. Its Hall of Mirrors, lined with 357 mirrors facing the garden windows, hosted the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. The surrounding gardens and the Trianon palaces show a different, more private side of the same court. That combination of scale and theatre was the point: the palace was an instrument of royal authority as much as a home, designed to keep the French nobility close and occupied.
Buckingham Palace has served as the working London residence of the British sovereign since Queen Victoria’s accession in 1837. Its State Rooms open to visitors for a few weeks each summer while the King is away. The Changing of the Guard outside remains one of the most reliable free spectacles in London.
Two other palaces deserve equal billing. Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, the Habsburg family’s summer residence, sits behind a Rococo facade that UNESCO now protects as a World Heritage Site. The Royal Palace of Madrid still hosts state ceremonies for the Spanish royal family today, which is why parts of it close without much warning.
Palace or Castle? What the Difference Actually Means
A castle was built primarily for defence. A palace was built for residence and display. The confusion comes from the names, which stuck long after the buildings changed purpose, and Ireland offers some of the clearest examples anywhere in Europe.
Hillsborough Castle was never fortified. It is a Georgian country house that acquired the word “castle” through custom rather than architecture. Dublin Castle genuinely began as a defensive Norman structure in 1204, then had a Georgian palace grafted onto it across the 17th and 18th centuries, so it is both things at once, depending on which courtyard you are standing in. Neuschwanstein, meanwhile, looks more castle-like than either, but it was built in the 1860s as a private retreat with no defensive function whatsoever.
Three questions sort most buildings quickly. Was it built to withstand attack? Was it built to house a ruling household? Was it built to impress? Fortification answers the first, and only the first. Our guide to the legendary castles of Ireland works through the same distinction across dozens of Irish sites, many of which have swapped categories more than once.
Royal Residences of Ireland and Northern Ireland
Hillsborough Castle in County Down is the only active official royal residence on the island of Ireland. Dublin Castle and Áras an Uachtaráin are former seats of British royal authority now serving the Irish State, and the story of how that transition happened is one most European palace guides skip entirely.
Hillsborough Castle: the working royal residence
Hillsborough Castle is a Georgian country house built from the 1770s by Wills Hill, first Marquess of Downshire, as a family home. Since 2014, it has been managed by Historic Royal Palaces, the same charity behind Hampton Court and the Tower of London, and it remains the official Northern Ireland residence of the King and the working base of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
That working status shapes a visit. The State Rooms, including the Throne Room, open around state business rather than the other way round, and the gardens run to over 100 acres of walled garden, woodland and water features. We have covered Hillsborough Castle and its gardens in more depth, including what to expect from a full day there. Travellers comparing Georgian houses in Northern Ireland might also look at Castle Coole in County Fermanagh, which shows the same period ambition without the royal function.
Dublin Castle: from Norman fortress to viceregal seat
Dublin Castle served as the seat of British administration in Ireland for over 700 years, until 1922. Founded as a Norman fortress in 1204, it gained its Georgian State Apartments from the late 17th century onward, and those rooms housed the Lord Lieutenant, the monarch’s representative in Ireland.
The handover in January 1922 to the Provisional Government marked the end of that role. The State Apartments now host Ireland’s presidential inaugurations and state visits rather than royal garden parties, and the Office of Public Works runs it as a visitor site. When you visit, the two architectural identities are easy to read: the Record Tower is medieval, the courtyard beyond it is Georgian, and the gap between them is 500 years of shifting power.
Áras an Uachtaráin: the Viceregal Lodge that became the President’s house
Áras an Uachtaráin in Dublin’s Phoenix Park was built in the 18th century as a park ranger’s lodge, then grew into the Viceregal Lodge, the summer residence of the Lord Lieutenant. It received royal visitors during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Since 1938, it has been the official residence of the President of Ireland.
The OPW runs free guided tours of the State Rooms on most Saturdays, first-come, first-served, which makes it one of the more accessible presidential residences in Europe. The name is pronounced roughly “Ah-ras on Ook-tar-awn” and translates as “house of the president”.
Classiebawn Castle: the Mountbatten connection
A third, quieter site connects the Crown to Ireland in a different way. Classiebawn Castle, overlooking the Atlantic in County Sligo, was the Mountbatten family’s Irish home and the site of a 1979 attack that killed Lord Mountbatten, a close relative of the King. It is privately owned and not open to the public, but the headland at Mullaghmore below it is, and the house is visible from the coast road.
Before the Palaces: Ireland’s Ancient Royal Sites
Long before Versailles or Dublin Castle existed, Ireland had royal sites of a completely different kind. These were not palaces at all. They were open ceremonial grounds, earthwork enclosures and hilltops where kings were inaugurated through ritual association with the land rather than being crowned inside a building.
Six of these sites form a group known as the Royal Sites of Ireland, currently on Ireland’s tentative list for UNESCO World Heritage status.
| Royal site | County | Province | Associated ruler or figure | Key feature |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Teamhair (Hill of Tara) | Meath | High Kingship | Cormac mac Airt | Lia Fáil, the Stone of Destiny |
| Emain Macha (Navan Fort) | Armagh | Ulster | Conchobar mac Nessa | Iron Age ceremonial mound |
| Cruachan (Rathcroghan) | Roscommon | Connacht | Queen Medb | Oweynagat, the Cave of the Cats |
| Dún Ailinne (Knockaulin) | Kildare | Leinster | Kings of Leinster | Large hillfort enclosure |
| Rock of Cashel | Tipperary | Munster | Brian Boru | Limestone outcrop with Romanesque chapel |
| Hill of Uisneach | Westmeath | Symbolic centre | Associated with Lugh | Aill na Mireann, the Stone of Divisions |
“To understand Ireland’s ancient royal sites, you have to put aside the idea of a palace made of stone and gold. Tara and Uisneach were not built to keep people out. They were open ground where the people and the land were joined through ritual, and standing on Tara on a clear day you can still feel why that mattered.” Ciaran Connolly, Founder of ConnollyCove.
The Hill of Tara in County Meath is the best known, and the Tuatha Dé Danann are tied to it directly: the Lia Fáil that stands there is counted among their four legendary treasures. Navan Fort in County Armagh carries the Ulster Cycle stories, and the Rock of Cashel marks the seat of the Kings of Munster before it passed to the Church. For the wider mythological world these sites belong to, our guide to creatures of Celtic mythology covers the figures who appear in the same body of stories.
Local guides recommend sticking to the marked paths at Tara and Rathcroghan. The earthworks are shallow and erode quickly under foot traffic, and much of what survives is only legible from a distance.
The Royal Palaces Ireland Never Got
During the 19th century, the British government repeatedly considered establishing a permanent royal residence in the south of Ireland, but never did. The absence is as revealing as the buildings that exist.
Beyond the Big Names: Palaces Worth the Detour
Several smaller palaces reward the detour, even if they rarely top the roundup lists.
Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria was King Ludwig II’s personal fantasy, inspired by Wagner’s operas and built as a retreat rather than a seat of government. Its turrets did more to shape the modern idea of a fairytale castle than any building in this guide.
The Amalienburg, inside Munich’s Nymphenburg Palace Park, takes the opposite approach: a small Rococo hunting lodge with a Hall of Mirrors of its own, designed by François de Cuvilliés for Electress Maria Amalia. Further north, Drottningholm Palace remains the private residence of the Swedish royal family and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, set around a Baroque garden on an island outside Stockholm.
More Than Museums: The Palaces Still Doing Their Job
Most palace guides treat these buildings as museums with a ticket desk bolted on, but a good number are still doing their original job, and knowing which is which changes what you should expect on the day.
Buckingham Palace’s State Rooms are closed to visitors for most of the year because the King is using the building, not because of restoration work. The same is true at Hillsborough Castle, which hosts state visits between its public opening hours rather than sitting empty as a heritage set piece.
Versailles and Schönbrunn are fully retired from royal use, which is exactly why they can be toured wall to wall without disrupting anyone. Buckingham Palace, Hillsborough Castle and the Royal Palace of Madrid still combine both roles, opening selected rooms while the rest of the building continues as offices, private apartments or venues for state occasions. Dublin Castle sits between the two: no longer royal, but still a working government complex that happens to let visitors in.
A fully retired palace rewards a slow, thorough visit. A working one often means restricted access, seasonal closures, and the small thrill of walking through rooms still in active use.
Planning Your Own Royal Palace Trail
Timing and tickets matter more than most guides admit. Book timed entry online for Versailles and Schönbrunn, check the Royal Collection Trust before planning a trip around Buckingham Palace, and treat Hillsborough Castle as a half-day rather than an hour.
If you are building a route around Ireland’s royal sites, a workable three-day run starts in Dublin with Dublin Castle and a Saturday tour of Áras an Uachtaráin, heads north to the Hill of Tara in County Meath, then crosses into Northern Ireland for Hillsborough Castle and Navan Fort. Our guide to Belfast covers the city as a base for the northern leg, and travellers who want to stay somewhere in keeping with the theme can look at castle hotels across Ireland along the route.
Hillsborough Castle and Gardens work well as a half-day trip from Belfast. If you are pairing it with an evening in the city, our round-up of things to do in Belfast for couples covers what to do afterwards.
Current Conditions and Seasonal Information
Best months. May and September give the best balance across the board: workable weather, thinner crowds, and gardens still in good condition. July and August bring cruise-ship-scale queues at Versailles and Buckingham Palace.
Seasonal access. Buckingham Palace’s State Rooms open only for a few weeks each summer. Hillsborough Castle’s castle tours and gardens run on different seasonal schedules, and the gardens peak between late spring and early autumn. Áras an Uachtaráin tours run on most Saturdays but are suspended around state occasions.
Weather. Ireland’s open royal sites are exposed. Tara, Uisneach and the Rock of Cashel are hilltops with no shelter, and the Rock in particular closes parts of the site in high winds or ice. Bring layers regardless of the month.
Booking. Versailles, Schönbrunn and Buckingham Palace all sell timed-entry tickets that regularly sell out in peak season. Áras an Uachtaráin tours are first-come, first-served on the day and cannot be booked ahead. For live opening hours and ticket prices at the Irish sites, check the Office of Public Works and Historic Royal Palaces directly rather than third-party listings.
Where to Go Next
Ireland and Northern Ireland’s royal history runs quietly alongside the grander story told at Versailles and Buckingham Palace, and it rewards a closer look. Explore ConnollyCove’s coverage of Ireland’s ancient ruins for more of the sites in the second half of this guide, or watch our video tours on the ConnollyCove YouTube channel to see several of these places before you plan a visit.
FAQs
What is the largest royal palace in Europe by floor area?
The Royal Palace of Madrid, at roughly 135,000 square metres, holds the record for built floor space among Europe’s royal residences. Versailles is larger overall once its 800-hectare gardens and outlying Trianon palaces are counted, but the Madrid palace packs more enclosed floor area into a single structure. It also remains in official use for state ceremonies, which is why sections of it are closed to visitors at short notice.
Is Versailles bigger than Buckingham Palace?
Yes, considerably. Versailles has roughly 2,300 rooms to Buckingham Palace’s 775, and the gap widens further once the 800 hectares of formal gardens, canals and Trianon buildings are included. Buckingham Palace is a large but comparatively compact residence on a central London site. The difference reflects purpose rather than ambition: Versailles was built to house an entire royal court, while Buckingham Palace was always a working residence in a crowded capital.
How does the Winter Palace compare to Versailles?
The Winter Palace in St Petersburg has around 1,500 rooms, well short of Versailles, and it sits on a dense urban site with no equivalent to the French gardens. What it has instead is the Hermitage collection, since the palace now serves as the museum’s main building. A visit there is closer to a day at a major art gallery than a palace tour, whereas Versailles is toured primarily as a historic royal residence.
What is the difference between a palace and a castle?
A castle was built primarily for defence, while a palace was built for residence and display. The names often outlast the function, which is where the confusion comes from. Hillsborough Castle in County Down keeps the word “castle” despite never having been fortified, and Neuschwanstein in Bavaria looks the part but was built in the 1860s as a private retreat. Dublin Castle is genuinely both: a Norman defensive foundation with a Georgian palace built onto it.
Does the King of England have a house in Ireland?
Not in the Republic of Ireland. Hillsborough Castle in County Down, Northern Ireland, serves as the official royal residence of the King when visiting, and it is managed by Historic Royal Palaces. In the Republic, there is no royal residence: Dublin Castle passed to the Irish State in 1922, and Áras an Uachtaráin, formerly the Viceregal Lodge, has been the home of the President of Ireland since 1938.
Is Dublin Castle still a royal residence?
No, and it has not been since 1922. It served as the seat of British administration in Ireland for over 700 years, housing the Lord Lieutenant as the monarch’s representative. Today, it is an Irish government complex managed by the Office of Public Works, used for presidential inaugurations and state visits, with the Georgian State Apartments open to visitors when not in official use.
Can you visit Hillsborough Castle?
Yes. It is open to the public for most of the year under Historic Royal Palaces, with separate options for the castle tour and the gardens. It is one of the few working royal residences outside London that welcomes visitors regularly, so access to the State Rooms can be restricted around state business. The gardens run to over 100 acres and are worth budgeting a couple of hours for on their own.
What is the best time of year to visit Europe’s royal palaces?
May and September usually offer the best balance of workable weather and thinner crowds. Peak summer brings the longest queues at Versailles and Buckingham Palace, and Buckingham Palace’s State Rooms only open for a few weeks in that window in the first place. For Ireland’s open-air royal sites, late spring through early autumn gives the driest conditions on exposed hilltops like Tara and the Rock of Cashel.
