When talking about Sweden all the time somehow comes to my mind IKEA, Volvo, Saab, ABBA, blond girls, nature and why not modesty. It looks that after visiting some of the royal residences the word modesty is not the most appropriate for this selected Swedish family.

Below you’ll find some pictures with the castles/palaces owned by the Swedish royal family and believe me you won’t find inside any IKEA decoration :grin: .

Drottningholm Palace

The Drottningholm Palace is on UNESCO´s World Heritage list. It is the most well-preserved royal castle built in the 1600s in Sweden and at the same time is representative of all European architecture for the period. The Palace is also the present Royal Family’s permanent residence. The rooms in the southern wing of the palace are reserved for this purpose. The rest of the palace and grounds are open to the public year round.

Gripsholm Castle

Gripsholm is known as Gustav Vasa’s castle, since he decided to build the castle.

At Gripsholm you can take a royal stroll around the romantic castle grounds or meet the royal deer at the Hjorthagen nature reserve. Gripsholm Castle is also home to the oldest national portrait gallery in the world. It is also one of the largest, with around 4500 pieces, primarily oil paintings. The earliest portraits date from the late 15th century and the collection includes contemporary works.

Despite these nicely decorated locations, in Sweden there other nice destination like Vaxholm. Vaxholm is, despite its small population, for historical reasons normally still referred to as a city. According to Statistics Sweden, however, only localities with more than 10,000 inhabitants are counted as cities. The name Vaxholm comes from Vaxholm Castle, which was constructed for defense purposes, by King Gustav Vasa.