Fiona MacLeod on finally seeing the State Rooms after years of walking past the gates without ever going in
I’ve lived in London for the better part of two decades and somehow never actually been inside Buckingham Palace, always assuming the Summer Opening was one of those tourist things I could do “any time,” which of course meant I never did it at all until this week, when a visiting friend finally forced my hand.
The Queue, Which Wasn’t As Bad As I’d Braced For
I’d built this up in my head as some kind of endurance test, but the timed entry system actually moved us through fairly briskly, and we were inside within about twenty minutes of arriving, which felt like a genuine miracle for anything involving central London and August tourist numbers.
The State Rooms Themselves
Genuinely more overwhelming than I expected, room after room of the kind of grandeur that photographs simply don’t capture properly, chandeliers that seem to go on forever, and works by artists including Rembrandt and Rubens casually hanging on walls as though that’s an entirely normal thing to walk past.
The Throne Room, Specifically
This is the room that actually stopped me in my tracks, more than any other single space in the whole tour, something about standing in a room used for official ceremonies for centuries that made the whole visit feel considerably more significant than I’d anticipated going in.
My Visiting Friend’s Reaction
Genuinely emotional, in a way that reminded me why people travel considerable distances specifically for this experience, and watching her reaction genuinely made me feel slightly embarrassed I’d lived here so long without ever properly seeing it myself.
Whether I’d Recommend It
Completely, and specifically to fellow Londoners who’ve made the same mistake I did of assuming it’ll always be there to do later. Book the multimedia guide, give yourself the full two to three hours, and don’t rush the Throne Room, whatever else you do that day.