Where Can I See a Castle on My European Cruise?

St. Petersburg has many marvelous palaces or castles. Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, and the Romanov family have palaces all over the city. The Hermitage Museum was once a winter palace, and the estates of Catherine Palace and Peterhof are magnificent. If you love castles and well-manicured grounds, this is a great city to visit.

Baltic cruises to northern Europe and Russian waterways cruises include St. Petersburg as a port of call.

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Amalienborg Castle is the home of the Danish royal family. Christiansborg Castle was also one of the homes of the royal family, but hasn't been used in over 200 years. It is now a museum and government building.
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When your cruise ship is docked in Copenhagen, you might want to do a short driving tour into the Danish countryside and see three castles (or slots, as they are called in Denmark)--Frederiksborg Slot, Fredensborg Slot, and Kronborg Slot.

Frederiksborg is huge and a picture-perfect castle in a beautiful setting. It's often called the "Danish Versailles". Fredensborg Slot is still used by the Danish royal family as a summer residence. Kronborg Slot is perhaps the most interesting of the three Danish castles. Although Shakespeare never visited Kronborg, he renamed the castle Elsinore and made it the setting of his famous play, "Hamlet".
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Akershus is one of oldest buildings in Oslo, having been constructed in the 1300's. It's easy to find since it's right across from the cruise ship pier. Oslo also has another castle--the Royal Palace of Norway.
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Things to Do and See in Oslo
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The 1,000-year old Steen Castle is on banks of the Schelde River near where cruise ships dock in Antwerp.
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The Tower of London is now a museum and is one of London's most popular tourist attractions. You can see the Crown Jewels, many examples of armor and medieval weapons, and of course there's those Beefeaters and ravens. London has other castles, including Buckingham Palace.

Three ports near London--Southampton, Dover, and Harwich--are used as embarkation ports for cruises to northern Europe and the rest of the world.
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Although the Dublin castle is no longer the seat of English power in Ireland, the buildings that make up the 700-year-old castle grounds are still used for state functions. Dublin is a port of call on cruises to the British Isles and northern Europe.
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Many people may not think of Versailles as a castle, but it was certainly a royal residence. The baroque style is more ornate than like a fortress, but this grand building and its surrounding grounds are among the finest examples of a palace in the world.

Paris is an embarkation port for Seine River cruises and is also a port of call for ocean cruises docking in Normandy. The City of Lights is also a perfect add-on extension for other European cruises.
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The Alhambra Palace is an interesting mix of Moorish and European architecture. Originally built in the 1300's during the Nasrid Dynasty, the palace was modified by King Charles V in the 1600's.
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Toompea Castle is now the Estonian Parliament building.
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