In what I concur is a somewhat unexpected and unlikely state of affairs I've visited no less than 3 royal palaces this year. I must just quickly dispell the myth that I've suddenly become some sort of ardent royalist - in fact I inadvertantly corrected the Queen around this time last year when she got UCL and King's mixed up (she didn't look too miffed, just mildly confused, as she moved on to talk to someone a little less revolutionary.) I just realised it's something I'd never done which was on our doorstep, and was cajoled by some visiting relatives.

First off was Windsor Castle. This attracts, I discovered, a particular brand of visitor: foreign, earnest, and educated, at least to the extent that they know that the queen doesn't generally live in Buckingham Palace; the kind of tourist who doesn't pronounce said palace with a sounded "h", who knows that Windsor is outside of London, and have enough about them to venture there. And Windsor Castle is probably the most inviting of the three that I've visited. A genuine place of residence - if a somewhat elaborate one - with a bit of a buzz to it. People live here; stuff happens; even if you think that stuff is a bit outdated and ultimately obselete. It also employs one of the most elaborate queuing systems I've ever encountered, living up to and inded surpassing our national stereotype as if to reassure the tourists who have made such an effort to get here. Edward politely ushers you into the first queue, and Elizabeth politely yet firmly takes your postcode so that you can include gift aid with your purchase (British visitors are few and far between and Liz was on a mission) before shooing you gently into the next queue, where your bags are scanned airport-style just in case you have plans to blow up her Maj, at which point you join a final queue where your ticket is torn and you are sent upon your way. The tours, should you wish to join one, are conducted as though by some eminent historian of the 1970s. Not for Windsor Castle this modern nonsense of dressing up in period costume and cracking jokes about Henry VIII's wives. This isn't the Tower, you know, and they do things properly here. Reminding me rather of a public school, frequent signs tell me not to go on the grass, and somewhat pointless chains stop me from going less than 4 feet from what are people's front doors (it strikes me that if your front door leads directly into the grounds of a tourist attraction you should expect people to come and peer in at you - that's like saying if you should have the right to live in Soho without people pissing on your doorstep at 3am.) As a matter of comparison, their shop is considerably more tasteful (or, at any rate, less tasteless) than the others, and their ice cream not inconsiderably cheaper.

And now we come to Buckingham Palace. I have a bit of a bugbear about Buckingham Palace because it turned both me and more recently one of my mates down for work at its much-lauded "State Rooms Opening", presumably proving the fact that its sifters have been trained to spot a republican at 50 paces. Buckingham Palace is rather different to Windsor. First of all, you can feel the resentment in the air that you're even there at all. Shelling out your £9.50 you're aware that you should be feeling a sense of great priviledge at being let in. With the forced smiles honed by years of the right sort of upbringing, Hermione and George, who can't be any older than nineteen, show you benevolently into the first room. Adidas-clad families shuffle gratefully through, ready to gawp at how the other half live. I find this all just a tad uncomfortable. The only thing that makes me feel a little better is that the other half evidently live in a world of camp opulence that would make Elton John blush. A sort of cross between a 1970s hotel and Liberace's living room, Buckingham Palace is stuffed full of chandaliers and gold-encrusted wall decoration, huge scarlet curtains complete with Brothel-inspired golden tassels, and countless unidentifiable items made from silver. It also has quite possibly the tackiest giftshop I have ever seen. Housed in what is basically an ornate portakabin, which you know is designed to be whipped away the minute the last wretched commoner crosses the threshold back into the real worls come September, it's complete with the sort of tatt that I fear is being sold without the slightest hint of irony. Plastic fridge magnets in the shape of Buckingham Palace (a snip at £5.99 each), garish plastic crowns, innumerable teatowels and of course an array of Duchy Original products (Charlie's been struggling in the likes of Waitrose since the crunch.) In the excitement of it all a four-year-old we've brought with us (he's a relative, I've not kidnapped him from somewhere) almost nicks a fake crown. Part of me thinks it would have been a triumph if he's succeeded, but they'd probably have detained him somehow under the terrorism act and treated him to a spot of waterboarding, so I'm glad Hermione's Army missed it. On the way out we almost have an ice cream (also Duchy, apparently, made with real vanilla pods!) but it's another £5 and frankly I'd prefer Mr Whippy any day.

And finally, Sandringham. I don't warm to Sandringham when I'm told that the current royal family kept it for the shooting and Balmoral for the hunting, when the rest of the world are considering if they should pick the property with the parking space instead of the one near the bus stop. It does, in its favour, have beautiful grounds - fabulous woodland that goes on for miles. It also has a series of somewhat unpreposessing huts at its entrance that put me in mind of Center Parks, complete with a huge and incongruous wooden squirrel that looks like it ought to be in a US theme park. The gift shop is a little more upmarket the Buckingham Palace - here you can buy a stuffed corgi ("Oh! Margaret! It's £10! That's practically free!" as we heard one delighted customer exclaim) and garishly pink, Sandringham-branded coconut ice. Made in Harrogate.

Again Sandringham attracts its own unique brands of visitors - this time in the shape of women who look a bit like Penelope Keith, all wear green jackets and are flanked by bounding golden retievers and the like. F and I, who are dressed like normal people and don't answer one another with the phrase "Oh, ra-ther!" before barking orders at our accompanying hounds. As we leave a coach deposits a group of women of a certain age all carrying walking poles (though while they would need these in Norfolk, which Noel Coward rightly observed is very flat, is beyond me.) We leave, with some chocolate and, of course, sone coconut ice, Who could resist?