Note: Clarence House is currently not open to visitors, and no annoucements have been made about a future reopening. 

The reigning monarch dictates who lives at which palace, and Queen Elizabeth II herself lived at this four-story mansion, a part of St James’s Palace, before she took the throne. Her mother dwelled here for nearly half a century until her 2002 death at age 101, and now it’s chez Charles and Camilla. Charles, having a keener sense of public relations than any royal before him, decided to open the house, where royals have lived since 1827, during the summer when the family is away. You won’t get to poke around the royal family's medicine cabinet, though; you can only see the ground floor. Clarence is more like a grand town house than a king’s mansion, and that reflects the Windsors’ homey, cluttered style, heavy on horse paintings and light on gilding and glitter.