Reportedly, the Wales family of five—the Prince and Princess of Wales and their three children Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis—are headed to Balmoral this week to join King Charles at the royal family’s traditional end-of-summer retreat. According to The Sun, the estate in Scotland is where the family goes to “let their hair down” away from the public—but what does that entail, exactly, especially for the kids?
According to Princess Eugenie—one of Queen Elizabeth’s eight grandchildren, and someone who has spent many a summer at Balmoral—a typical day involves “walks, picnics, and a lot of dogs.” Since the days of Queen Victoria, The Sun reports, royals have found peace there, and love a barbeque “surrounded by the breathtaking landscape of the 52,000-acre Scottish estate,” the outlet reports. The royals are also keen to take horseback rides along the property.
Activities are abundant and Balmoral has a number of sports to offer, including hunting grouse and fly-fishing, which are much-loved group activities for the family. And you don’t even have to be outdoors to enjoy nature’s creatures, apparently—Balmoral is full of bats, “and the Queen used to help servants catch them with nets,” The Sun reports. “The ballroom of the large Aberdeenshire estate is believed to be home to a colony of pipistrelle bats that nest in the rafters.”
That’s not a joke, but a lot of jokes are played there, including a great many pranks; in particular Louis has so much fun at Balmoral (this place was made for him) that, as Catherine told Australia’s Governor General David Hurley, he was afraid that he wouldn’t be able to play games at the retreat now that his great-grandmother has passed away. “The younger one is now asking questions like, ‘Do you think we can still play these games when we go to Balmoral and things like that, ‘cause she’s not going to be there?’” Hurley said Catherine told him.
One famous family prank, by the way, was started by the late Prince Philip. William tells the story: “Instead of, like, a mustard pot, we’d have a mustard tube, a squeezy mustard tube,” he said. “And then he’d squish your hands together to fire the mustard onto the ceiling. He used to get in a lot of trouble from my grandmother for covering most of the places we had lunch and things with mustard on the ceiling.”
As you can imagine, the family has a great many chefs to prepare their meals for them, but they also have been known to indulge in takeout while there, too. Her late Majesty apparently loved local fish and chips while at Balmoral: “A footman is dispatched to get it from the local town of Ballater,” a source told The Sun. King Charles and William, for their part, love pizza or Chinese food. William also enjoys the chain Nando’s and told its cofounder Robert Brozin that he was its “biggest fan” after being introduced to it by a police protection officer. Naturally, tea is a big part of life at Balmoral, and Charles once told a guest at a party in Scotland “In our family, everything stops for tea. I have never known a family so addicted to it.”
Sometimes when William and Catherine are at Balmoral, they stay at the Tam-Na-Ghar cottage, concealed within the grounds of the estate. It was given to William as a gift by his late great-grandmother, the Queen Mother, in 2002, shortly before she passed away that year. The cottage has three bedrooms and holds fond memories for William and Catherine—the couple, while newly dating and students at the University of St. Andrews, used to sneak away there for time alone.
Early on in their romance, the late Queen gave Catherine permission to bring her camera along, “and some of the family’s most treasured snaps have been taken there by Kate,” The Sun reports. An example is a photo of Her late Majesty surrounded by some of her great-grandchildren, released to commemorate what would have been her 97th birthday this past April.
Balmoral is a place of great peace, but also great sadness—it was here that William and his younger brother Prince Harry were staying with their father, Charles, when they learned of their mother Princess Diana’s death in a car accident on August 31, 1997. Per People, “The princes were inseparable, solid for one another,” royal photographer Arthur Edwards said of the bond between Charles and his sons. Edwards was behind the lens of the now-iconic photos of the three exploring the River Dee with their dogs that month, just before Diana died. “They looked so relaxed, having fun together on that summer holiday in Balmoral when I took those photos,” he said.
It’s at Balmoral that royals have as normal of an existence as they might ever get, and the late Queen even helped her staff with washing dishes after meals. “When they are out having their barbeques, which they love to do out in the grounds of Balmoral—it’s a massive estate, the most beautiful grounds—where they literally set up a barbeque,” royal author Juliet Rieden said. “And afterward, the Queen does the washing up.” Former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was so stunned witnessing the Queen doing the dishes with her bare hands that she is said to have sent her a pair of rubber gloves.
Speaking of normality, Hello reports that last year the Wales family of five arrived in Scotland via a commercial flight, and a fellow passenger said of Catherine “[Kate] got up halfway through the flight to get her daughter’s iPad,” the passenger said. “And yes, she was stunning, even gave me a smile while looking back at the row behind her to talk to her son.” Hello reports that the royals all have monogrammed luggage, but Catherine “has a more eclectic mix of bags and suit carriers,” the outlet reports.
Of course, this year will be bittersweet at Balmoral, as it is where Her late Majesty passed away last September at 96 years old. Still, family time is so important—and a chance for the family to get away from it all.
