Stockholm: Drottningholm Palace & Royal Castle Tour

Begin in Gamla Stan, Stockholm's medieval island city, with a guided visit to the Royal Palace (Kungliga Slottet). Built in the Italian Baroque style after the original Tre Kronor castle burned down in 1697, it has 609 rooms and remains the official residence of the Swedish monarch (though the royal family lives at Drottningholm). The guide covers the Hall of State, the Royal Chapel, the Treasury housing the Swedish Crown Jewels, and the Changing of the Guard ceremony.

Board the royal canal boat at Stadshuskajen for the 1-hour journey across Lake Mälaren to Drottningholm. This is the traditional approach to the palace — the route taken by foreign ambassadors presenting their credentials and by the royal family on formal occasions. The lake archipelago is spectacular in any season.

Guided tour of the palace state apartments. The guide traces the building's development from Tessin the Elder's original design (influenced by French Baroque) through Tessin the Younger's Versailles-inspired expansion and the subsequent redecorations by different Swedish queens. Highlights include Queen Hedvig Eleonora's State Bedroom, the Karl XI Gallery (Sweden's answer to Versailles's Hall of Mirrors), and the ceiling paintings by Johan Sylvius. The guide explains how the Swedish royal family lives alongside visiting tourists in one wing of the palace.

Visit the Drottningholm Court Theatre — the most extraordinary 18th-century theatre surviving anywhere in the world with its original stage machinery still intact and operational. Built in 1766, destroyed by fire and rebuilt in 1791, it still uses wooden wind machines, wave machines and cloud chariots from the original production. Then visit the Chinese Pavilion, a 1769 gift from King Adolf Fredrik to Queen Louisa Ulrika — Sweden's finest example of Rococo chinoiserie and an early example of European fascination with East Asian aesthetics.

Walk the formal Baroque garden laid out by Tessin the Elder between the palace and the lake — geometrically planted parterres, clipped linden avenues, and bronze statues looted from Prague during the Thirty Years War. Return by boat to Stockholm city centre.