The castle is the easy part. The ticket is not.
Which Alhambra ticket actually reaches the Nasrid Palaces. Whether Neuschwanstein is a day out of Munich or a wasted one. Reviews of the castle, fortress and palace tours you can book.
The Alhambra, Edinburgh Castle, Peles: the five that decide the trip.
The castle bookings a whole week gets planned around. What each one costs, how long it takes and what the people who walked it say.
01GranadaGranada: Alhambra & Nasrid Palaces Tour with TicketsThe Nasrid Palaces slot is the ticket everyone means when they say “Alhambra”. It is capped by the half hour and it goes first.
02From LondonStonehenge, Windsor Castle, and Bath from LondonWindsor, Stonehenge and Bath in one coach day. Long, but it takes the three things off the list at once.
03BucharestBucharest: Dracula’s Castle, Peles Castle, & Brasov Old TownBran, Peles and the Brasov old town in twelve hours. The drive is half the day and the Carpathians make that fine.
04EdinburghEdinburgh Castle: Guided Walking Tour with Entry TicketThe castle is on a volcanic plug above the city and the guided hour explains why anyone bothered.
05From MunichFrom Munich: Neuschwanstein & Linderhof Castle Full-Day TripNeuschwanstein and Linderhof together. The timed entry is the whole reason to take the organised version.
The castles that run on timed slots, not queues.
Most forts you can walk up to on the morning. These release a fixed number of entries per half hour, and the Nasrid Palaces routinely go months out. Book them first, then hang the rest of the week off them.
- 01Granada: Alhambra and Nasrid Palaces Entry TicketThe Nasrid Palaces are capped by the half hour
- 02Neuschwanstein Castle Tour from MunichOne timed entry, and the coach holds it for you
- 03Seville: Alcázar, Cathedral & Giralda Skip-the-Line TourSeville caps the Alcazar, and the queue outside is the alternative
- 04Edinburgh: Edinburgh Castle Guided History Tour with TicketsAugust hands the esplanade over to the Tattoo
- 05Prague: Castle Tour with Local Guide and Entry TicketThe grounds are free, the halls are not, and they shut early
Spain: three Moorish palaces, and a castle on every second hill.
Every castle tour in Spain →
Granada, Seville and Cordoba hold the three great Moorish palaces and the Alhambra is the one that sells out. Segovia and Toledo sit an hour from Madrid, and Andalusia keeps a hilltop fort in almost every direction you drive.
Alhambra, Alcazar, Aljaferia
The three Moorish courts, plus the Bourbon palaces in Madrid and La Granja. These are the tickets to buy before anything else.
The hour that explains the tilework
Almost every Spanish palace guide bundles priority entry, which is usually the real reason to take one.
Segovia, Toledo, the Alhambra by coach
The Alcazar of Segovia and the walls of Toledo in one run from Madrid, or Granada from the coast.
Eight countries that keep a castle worth flying for.
Andalusian palaces, Scottish crags, Rajasthani forts, Transylvanian keeps, the Loire chateaux and the Bohemian hilltops. Each list is priced, with the timed-entry ones flagged.
Forts and citadels: the walls built for a fight, not a court.
Agra and Amber in Rajasthan, the Cairo Citadel over the desert haze, the sea walls at Dubrovnik, the bastions above Brasov. Bigger than the palaces, usually cheaper to enter, and better to walk.
- 1Full Day Taj Mahal, Agra Fort & Baby Taj Tour from Delhi by Carfrom $62
- 2Fort Sumter Admission and Self-Guided Tour with Roundtrip Ferryfrom $43
- 3Carcassonne: Castle and Ramparts Entry Ticketfrom $15
The castle tours more people book than any others.
Every castle review on the site →The Alcazar ticket, the Nasrid slot, the Windsor coach and the Transylvania run. What earns each of them the top of the list.
1
Seville: Royal Alcázar Entry Ticket
Enter Seville’s Royal Alcázar through the online-ticket line at Puerta del León and explore at your own pace. See Moorish and Christian architecture, the Palace of King Pedro, expansive gardens, tiled rooms, and Game of Thrones filming locations. This is an entry ticket, not a guided tour.
From · $23
Read our review →2
Granada: Alhambra & Nasrid Palaces Tour with Tickets
from $64
3
Stonehenge, Windsor Castle, and Bath from London
from $111
4
Bucharest: Dracula’s Castle, Peles Castle, & Brasov Old Town
from $40
5
Granada: Alhambra and Nasrid Palaces Entry Ticket
from $33
6
From Munich: Neuschwanstein & Linderhof Castle Full-Day Trip
from $94
7
Edinburgh Castle: Guided Walking Tour with Entry Ticket
from $49
8
Seville: Alcázar, Cathedral & Giralda Skip-the-Line Tour
from $64
What getting inside a castle actually costs.
Every review on the site, grouped by price. A surprising number of the great ones are the price of lunch.
Plain entry tickets, the smaller hill forts, and old-town walks that finish at the gate.
Guided entry with the timed slot included, and the full-day runs out of London, Munich and Bucharest.
Private guides, chauffeured chateau circuits, and the two-castle days that need a car of your own.
From London, Munich and Bucharest: the castle day trip does the work.
A coach at eight, a fortress by eleven, back for dinner. What each run costs, and how much of it is the drive.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · From Munich: Neuschwanstein & Linderhof Castle Full-Day Trip
From LondonWindsor, Stonehenge, sometimes Bath
Into the CarpathiansBran, Peles and Brasov in one
From BucharestThe Transylvania run, twelve hours
From MunichNeuschwanstein and Linderhof
From ParisVersailles and the Loire chateaux
From New DelhiAgra Fort with the Taj at sunrise
From DublinDunluce and the Causeway coast
All 123 castle day trips →
Britain keeps its castles on crags, and charges for the state rooms.
Edinburgh sits on a volcanic plug, Windsor is still a working royal house, and Eilean Donan is a bridge and a loch away from anywhere. The Irish ones come with a Causeway attached.
Every UK castle tour →
A castle ticket opens the gate. A guide tells you which room it happened in.
Plain entry gets you through the arch at Prague, Windsor or the Alcazar and leaves you to it, which is fine when the building does the talking. A guided slot usually costs twenty or thirty more and almost always skips the ticket line. Audio guides sit in between and cost the least of the three.
Three castles that break the shape entirely.
A fortress wedged into a cave mouth, a Bavarian fantasy built by a king who ran out of money, and a valley of hunting lodges with three hundred rooms apiece.
The castle built into a cave mouth
Predjama is grown into the cliff above a karst cavern, with a tunnel out the back the garrison used for supplies. Most visits pair it with the Postojna cave train an hour earlier.
- 1Ljubljana: Postojna Cave & Predjama Castle Tickets and Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 2,146 reviews
- 2Postojna Cave and Predjama Castle – Entrance Tickets Included★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 938 reviews
- 3Slovenia in One Day: Lake Bled, Postojna Cave and Predjama Castle★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 879 reviews
The fantasy that bankrupted a king
Ludwig II never finished it and never really lived in it. Entry is timed, the walk up is twenty minutes, and the photograph everyone wants is from the bridge above it.
- 1From Munich: Neuschwanstein & Linderhof Castle Full-Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 14,646 reviews
- 2Neuschwanstein Castle Tour from Munich★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 5,117 reviews
- 3From Munich: Neuschwanstein Castle Full-Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 3,977 reviews
Three hundred rooms and nobody home
Chambord, Chenonceau and Amboise are hunting lodges at royal scale, an hour or two apart. One day covers two properly; three is greedy.
- 1Loire Valley Castles Day Trip from Paris with Complementary Wine★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 3,907 reviews
- 2Chambord: Entry Ticket to the Castle★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 1,841 reviews
- 3From Paris: Loire Valley Castles Day Trip With Wine Tasting★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 1,727 reviews
Romania sells one castle and quietly owns four.
Bran gets the Dracula billing. Peles is the one people photograph, Corvin is the one that looks like the poster, and the Brasov old town underneath is what makes the twelve-hour day work.
Granada, Cordoba, Seville: three palaces inside five days.
Granada
Cordoba
Seville
Madrid
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Alhambra: complete private tour with official tour guide and tickets
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Granada: Alhambra and Nasrid Palaces Private Tour
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Granada: Combo Alhambra, Albaicín, and Sacromonte Tour
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Alfama and the Castle of Saint George – Small Group Tour
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Alexandria: Library, Amphitheater & Citadel Tour
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Seville: Royal Alcazar, Cathedral and Giralda Tower Tour
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Alcazar of Seville Exclusive Group, max. 9 travelers
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Seville: Skip-the-Line Royal Alcázar Guided Tour
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Alcazar & Cathedral of Seville Exclusive Group max. 9 guests
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Córdoba: Alcázar and Jewish Quarter 2-Hour Guided Tour
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