You Can Now Tour Queen Elizabeth II’s Private Rooms in This Scottish Palace

• Holyroodhouse Palace will open Queen Elizabeth II’s private apartments to visitors for a limited tour.
• The 100-day experience celebrates the late monarch’s 100th birthday and offers rare access to royal rooms.
• Artworks, tapestries, and personal objects from the Royal Collection fill the spaces where Elizabeth and Philip stayed.

Queen Elizabeth II would have turned 100 this April. To celebrate, the Royal Collection Trust is letting commoners tour the late monarch’s private quarters at Holyroodhouse Palace in Edinburgh, the Royal Family’s official Scottish residence. The small group experience will run for just 100 days, from May 21 to September 10—and mark the first time visitors can traipse these storied chambers, which British royals have called home since Queen Victoria reigned two centuries ago.

Although officially erected around 1678, still decades before England and Scotland united, Holyroodhouse has a winding history dating back to the 12th century. While King George V installed central heating and modern kitchen appliances, his granddaughter Queen Elizabeth II left her mark by adding a public art gallery to stage rotating selections from the Royal Collection. This year’s tours, however, will focus on the palace’s east end, where she and Prince Philip resided while in town on business like Royal Week, an annual event honoring Scottish culture.

Artworks on view throughout these spaces hail from the Royal Collection, as well as the personal collections of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip—a known lover of contemporary Scottish art who also served as Patron of the Royal Scottish Academy of Art. The adventure begins in the Royal Breakfast Room, where he and the queen would dine surrounded by a suite of mid-17th century tapestries by Flemish craftsman Jacob Wauters. These scenes have draped the room in sylvan serenity since George V and Queen Mary had them installed in the 1920s.

Next, guests will enter the Dressing Room, where the Queen prepared for appearances. Here, the Royal Collection Trust will display three iconic ensembles the Queen wore in public, like the Karl Ludwig van Rehse tweed coat and crepe dress she wore to host the 8,000-person Garden Party during Royal Week 2017—thus offering an intimate addendum to Buckingham Palace’s hotly awaited exhibition, “Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style”.

Tours will conclude in the Sitting Room. Queen Elizabeth used this space both to work and watch her beloved horse racing on the room’s low-slung television. One can only imagine how the room’s placid paintings calmed her excited pulse. These include (1963) by late Scottish painter John Houston over the fireplace, and The Heart of Perthshire (1934-35), one of the vibrant landscapes that his legendary cohort David Young Cameron created during his final decade.

Although the Royal Collection Trust considers the Queen’s apartment “modestly decorated,” treasures abound—from delicately painted standing screens to precious Qing dynasty candlesticks shaped like elephants. Tickets to see the rooms are available to the public starting Thursday. Be quick—rumor has it this limited engagement will sell out fast.