In the center of the Burmese city of Mandalay, ringed by a vast square moat and miles of towering brick walls, lies the last royal palace of the kings of

When night falls over the city of Mysore in southern India, something magical happens. Along the outlines of a great palace, tens of thousands of light bulbs blaze into life,

Not far from the serene halls of the Kyoto Imperial Palace stands a very different kind of residence, one built not for a reigning emperor but for the military ruler

On the western edge of Munich, a palace stretches its pale wings so far across the landscape that you cannot take it in with a single glance. Nymphenburg, the “Nymph’s

On the southern bank of the river Arno in Florence, its vast rusticated facade rising like a cliff of golden stone above a sloping piazza, stands one of the most

On the banks of the river Neva in St Petersburg, its long green-and-white facade stretching in imperial splendour along the water and the great square before it, stands the palace

Above the rooftops and the winding river of Prague, on a long ridge crowned by the soaring spires of a great cathedral, spreads one of the most extraordinary royal complexes

In the center of Abu Dhabi, surrounded now by the glass towers of a modern metropolis, stands a low white fort that is the oldest and most important building in

On the edge of Turin, at the foot of the Alps in the region of Piedmont, stands one of the grandest and most spectacular of all the palaces of Italy.

In the middle of Copenhagen, surrounded by the oldest and best-loved park in the Danish capital, stands a fairy-tale castle of red brick and copper-green spires that seems to have