The Queen looked in high spirits as she smiled at photographers on her way back to Balmoral<\/p>\n
Jeff J Mitchell\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
The dash to Balmoral is a highlight of the royal family\u2019s calendar each year, as one of the only times that the Windsors are able to gather together as a unit. \u2018Nothing has the same meaning and soul-refreshing quality that Balmoral has,\u2019 King Charles wrote of the holiday home over five decades ago, while Princess Eugenie<\/a> has previously described it as \u2018the most beautiful place on earth\u2019. Said to have been the favourite property<\/a> of Queen Elizabeth II, the generations of the Firm have grown up on the estate\u2019s 50,000 acres, with Prince Harry<\/a> recalling how Prince Philip was \u2018master of the barbeque\u2019, and Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh<\/a>, taking some snapshots of the late Queen and late Duke of Edinburgh on Balmoral\u2019s rolling hills.<\/p>\n Prince William, too, has reflected on a childhood spent at Balmoral, once saying that \u2018a big part\u2019 of him would always be in Scotland<\/a> (where, of course, he met his future wife while at university<\/a>). \u2018My childhood was full of holidays, having fun<\/a> in the fresh air, swimming in lochs, family barbecues with my grandfather in command \u2013 and yes, the odd midge,\u2019 the Princess of Wales recalled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Queen looked in high spirits as she smiled at photographers on her way back to Balmoral Jeff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[7709,7714,7713,533,12,1761,7283,2832,532,1762,2831,7710,519,448,9321,7711,7712],"class_list":{"0":"post-376756","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-british-royal-family","9":"tag-catherine","10":"tag-catherine-middleton","11":"tag-kate-middleton","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-prince-george","14":"tag-prince-louis","15":"tag-prince-of-wales","16":"tag-prince-william","17":"tag-princess-charlotte","18":"tag-princess-of-wales","19":"tag-royal-families","20":"tag-royal-family","21":"tag-royals","22":"tag-the-princess-of-wales","23":"tag-uk-royal-family","24":"tag-william"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115098937528799081","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}