Grand Palace in Bangkok listed as world’s 3rd most visited palace
The Grand Palace is a place you have to visit in Bangkok. It has recently been identified as the 3rd most visited palace in the world. With 8 million annual tourists, it ranks behind the palace of the Forbidden City in Beijing (15 million visitors) and the Louvre Palace in Paris (9.5 million).
Travel + Leisure magazine listed the top 10 most visited palaces in the world. The list was recently featured on the CNN website in an article entitled “most visited castles in the world”
The Grand Palace in Bangkok was the official residence of Thai kings from 1782 to 1925 and has many buildings, halls and pavilions set around lawns and manicured gardens. His neighbor, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha (Wat Phra Kaew) is considered as one of the holiest places in Thailand. Its Buddha was carved from a single block of jade and its of pure gold clothes are changed during a royal ceremony, three times a year, to reflect the Thai seasons.
This is more thanks to Wat Phra Kaew than Grand Palace itself that the place ranked so good in the list as the visit of the two monuments is coupled and it is impossible for the public to enter the palace. Only a visit from the outside is possible. Visitors come more for the temple which is the most luxurious temple in Thailand than for the Grand Palace.
If King of Thailand does not live in the Grand Palace any more, royal offices are still used and state visits and royal ceremonies like King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s Birthday are organized every year in the palace.
Follow in the ranking, the Château de Versailles, the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, the Winter Palace (Hermitage Museum) in St. Petersburg, the Tower of London, the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, the Alhambra Generalife in Granada and Shuri Castle in Okinawa.
