One has the world's most famous balcony, the other is more than 1000 years old. Both are must-visits, but which one deserves the ultimate crown? Our duelling experts battle it out.
BUCKINGHAM PALACE
By Mal Chenu
This week's royal rumble gives us a chance to take a peek at how the other 0.00000000001 per cent live. Every regent needs a place to kip and these days, because we loyal subjects can drop in for a gander, we are able to compare the King and Queen's main regal residence with their weekender. Debates about which is the grander digs can be as passionate as a family feud and as questionable as a royal photo, but if you only visit one imperial accommodation this year, make it Buckingham Palace.
For a start, "Buck House" is in London, whereas the schlep to Windsor Castle in Berkshire takes an hour-and-a-half each way. So, after your royal visit, you can either partake in the capital's many nearby delights, or wander past Eton and see where the 0.00000000001 per cent is educated before heading back to civilisation.
Buckingham Palace boasts 775 rooms, including 19 staterooms, 52 royal and guest bedrooms, 188 staff bedrooms, almost 100 offices and 78 bathrooms, each of which has a royal flush. The Palace is also home to the most famous balcony in the world, a stately staple since Queen Victoria stepped out in 1851 to wave to the crowd, and where freshly coupled royal couples have an uncomfortable snog, usually with all the passion of a mismatched pair from Married at First Sight.
The Royal Standard is not just something Harry and Meghan couldn't live up to, it's actually the flag on the Palace that lets you know when HRH is home, so you don't have to wait at the front door wondering if he's on his way down to answer the door bell.
Tours of Buckingham Palace don't include the royal bedrooms, and they frown on you using the royal bathrooms, especially if you've just come from lunch at a Brick Lane curry house. Nevertheless, you can check out Charles's chair (aka the Throne Room) and see where he holds his balls.
Designed to be a day's march from London (or an hour's drive if you're not a Norman army), Windsor wins on location.
You'll have an audience with the State Rooms, with their fabulous gilt mouldings and old masters' paintings, as well as the Grand Hall, Grand Staircase and Guard Room, all marble and gold leaf and enormous chandeliers. Beyond that - if it's possible - there's the royal-portrait-lined State Dining Room, and the Music Room featuring lapis lazuli columns between arched floor-to-ceiling windows. Tours also include the Royal Mews, where they keep the cats, and a wander around a pretty decent backyard.
At 11am in the Palace forecourt you can see the Changing of the Guard, the world's most elaborate shift change. Also known as Guard Mounting, these MIMO (march-in-march-out) workers are accompanied by a full military band, and a pipe band, if you're lucky. They do a Guard Mounting at Windsor Castle a couple of times a week, too, but you get more bang for your Buck at the Palace.
WINDSOR CASTLE
By Amy Cooper
If royal residences float your moat, you'll agree with Aussie aristocrat Darryl Kerrigan that a real home is a castle.
Buck House is merely a palace, which regally speaking means a nice enough spot to live in, throw dinner parties for a few hundred of your closest mates, invite some peasants to a garden fete - basically anything Elton John can do at his place.
But a castle? Now that's proper royal.
A castle is more than a palace. It's a fortress; a siege-proof stronghold and royal refuge with turrets and towers, chapels, dungeons, crypts, secret passages, walls seven metres thick and vast cellars to stash 18,000 bottles of wine in case the French decide to invade again.
Windsor has all of this and the history to match. Built in the 11th century, it's nearly 1000 years old - 700 years older than Buckingham Palace. Before Buck House was even a blueprint, ancient Windsor had survived two 13th-century sieges, a 16th-century civil war, the madness of the medieval era and the torrid Tudors.
The world's oldest and largest inhabited castle has been home to 39 kings and queens, and 11 remain, permanently resting in St George's Chapel.
Every monarch left their mark over centuries of renovations, from William III's 14th-century Gothic makeover to Charles II's blinging baroque 17th-century State Apartments and George IV's gold-drenched Georgian additions. After a stroll through the castle's 1000 rooms, you'll know your heirs from your spares and be totally down with the crown.
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Designed to be a day's march from London (or an hour's drive if you're not a Norman army), Windsor wins on location. In bucolic Berkshire, amid Windsor Great Park's glorious green 20-square-kilometre swathe of meadows, forests and farms, you'll see why so many royals said: "How's the serenity?"
Queen Elizabeth II was the biggest fan and it's where she was laid to rest, in the 500-year-old St George's Chapel, beside her mum, dad and husband.
While Buck House is the postcard public face of royalty, Windsor is where their real lives unfold. The chapel's recent royal brides include Meghan Markle, Princess Eugenie and Queen Camilla, Prince Harry was christened there (apparently he wailed that day, too), and Prince Philip farewelled.
William and Kate live on the castle grounds, and you might bump into them in Windsor town buying an organic pie at Windsor Farm Shop or at their kids' favourite festive theme park, LaplandUK, at nearby Ascot.
The ultimate royal seal of approval? The family named themselves after their favourite castle, so it is, in every sense, the House of Windsor.
Sorry to reign on your parade, Mal, but in this game of thrones, wondrous Windsor takes the crown.
