Royal tour: Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle offer royal fans virtual tour
A VIRTUAL tour of the elegant interior of Buckingham Palace is available online as the coronavirus puts a stop to physical tours.
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The tour, which is available on the Royal Collection Trust website, makes use of special cameras that can provide a 360-degree view of their surroundings. Users can then click and drag the image to have a look around the room from the camera’s position
But users may find the picture quality is good enough to zoom in quite far and inspect objects themselves.
It is not known whether any members of the Royal Family will be seen during the virtual tours, but six rooms from Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle are available to be viewed right now for free.
From Buckingham Palace are the Throne Room, the Grand Staircase, and the White Drawing Room.
There are icons next to certain objects of interest that you can click which will display information about that object.
For example, the statue in the Grand Staircase tour shows Greek hero Perseus, standing over the body of Medusa. It is a copy of Cellini’s bronze from 1545 – the original which currently stands in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence.
The Royal Collection Trust website shows the remaining three rooms to explore.
Users can view three rooms from Windsor Castle’s ceremonial route.
These are the Waterloo Chamber, Crimson Drawing Room, and the State Banquet.
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Again, users will find that they can click on icons next to objects of interest to learn more about them.
In the Waterloo Chamber, for example, viewers can click on a few of the dozens of portraits hung up around the room.
One shows Charles, Archduke of Austria, shown wearing an Austrian army uniform and holding a sword.
While not all of the painting have additional information, the quality of the photos is good enough that viewers can zoom in fairly close for a good look.
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Not all of the rooms are available to view virtually, however, such as the Grand Reception Room or the Queen’s Drawing Room.
But for those who are lucky enough to have a virtual-reality headset, there is even a video recording of an actual tour of Buckingham Palace.
It still works without a headset – thanks again to 360-degree camera – and users can still click around, but the viewing quality is affected without one.
The virtual tour might not be quite the same as being there, but considering the Queen herself is in isolation due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it is something that royal fans will have to make do with for now.
Queen Elizabeth II is currently isolating with her husband Prince Philip at Windsor Castle.
It is not known when Her Majesty will return to Buckingham Palace at the moment.
But it is reported that the Queen is enjoying her time away.
A source close to the Queen told Vanity Fair that she is spending more time with Philip than usual and is frequently horse riding.
And regarding her return, another source told Vanity Fair that: “There’s a keenness to get back to doing the sort of work she has always done. She very much believes in being seen.”