Castles · Tour

Royal Palace of Madrid Fast Track: Crown Room, Armoury, Galleries

A fast-track ticket to the largest palace in Europe, with no group to keep up with and nobody setting the pace. Over 3,000 rooms, and the visitor route through them is long enough that people lose their bearings halfway. That is part of the point: the building was designed to be difficult to hold in the head, so that anyone crossing it arrived at the throne already impressed. The ticket covers the state galleries and the decorated rooms the Spanish monarchy lived in, along with the Crown Room, the weapons armoury and the painting galleries. The armoury is worth budgeting time for, because it is a separate building off the courtyard and the queue of visitors thins out sharply by the time it gets there. Without a guide you can stop for as long as you want in the rooms that hold you and walk straight through the ones that do not, which in a palace this size is a real advantage. Tickets are non-refundable once confirmed.