Stockholm Royal Palace

Royalty and palaces seem to pique the curiosity of many people and this is not so surprising since even from childhood, we are fed fairy tales where princess, princes, kings and queens usually play the most prominent characters. Although monarchies have lost their political power over the centuries, that in no way lessens the interesting qualities that the royal blooded have for us. And so, it can only be expected that the Kungliga Slottet or the Stockholm Royal Palace in Sweden’s national capital city is one of the most well-visited tourist landmarks that the city has to offer.

Where else would you expect to find the Royal Palace of Stockholm than in the oldest part of the city which is called Gamla Stan or Old Town. From far of, the Stockholm Royal Palace seems like a series of intricate golden brown boxes placed aside the coast where the glinting surface of the water reflects the shiny, decorated faced of the building. Upon closer examination however, you would be surprised at the intricacy of detail and the level of craftsmanship it took to make the Stockholm Royal Palace look the way it does now.

With over 600 rooms within it, the Stockholm Royal Palace is considered as one of the largest palaces there is in all of Europe. However, this grandiose and ancient residential construction did not look the way it does when it was first built.

The Lake Malaren’s shore which is where the present Stockholm Royal Palace now stands was a rather difficult area to defend from the invading enemy forces and so, a sort of fortress was built in the 13^th century. Over the decades, the fortress also functioned as a palace. By later part of the 16 century, the reconstruction of this palace was started and it would soon rise to be a proud example of renaissance architecture.

Soon after however, just a century or so, the palace was again rebuilt, this time with Baroque architectural style and sensibilities in mind. Although reconstructed due to a devastating war even before the reconstruction was being done, the Stockholm Royal Palace soon turned out as the magnificent building it is known today.