Castles · Tour

Royal Palace Madrid and the Palatine Stradivarius Collection

Most tours of the Royal Palace sell the rooms. This one includes the instruments. The palace holds a collection of musical instruments, and among them the Palatine Stradivarius, a set that belongs to Patrimonio Nacional and has no equivalent anywhere. Violins made by Antonio Stradivari for the Spanish crown, kept together for three centuries, in a palace rather than a museum. Guides pass the case without stopping more often than not, and it is the single most valuable thing in the building. The rest of the route covers the largest royal palace in western Europe with a certified guide and the entry queue skipped: the paintings, the sculpture and the upholstery, which in a building of this date is not a minor category but the reason half the rooms look the way they do. The state rooms and the art collections are open to visitors, which is not true of every royal residence still in official use. One booking condition: a minimum of four people is needed for the tour to run. The meeting point is the Naturanda tourism office at Plaza de España 9.