Balmoral: 5 of Prince Harry’s Quotes About the Royal Family’s Summer Getaway

'Balmoral was always simply paradise,' Prince Harry said of the British royal family's estate in Scotland.

August means one thing for the British royal family—going to Balmoral. While he and the Sussexes aren’t invited this year, Prince Harry has, from time to time, opened up about vacationing in the Scottish Highlands. Ahead are some of the Duke of Sussex’s quotes about Balmoral from Spare.

1. Harry thought of Balmoral as ‘paradise’

Between all of the bombshells and claims in his 2023 Spare memoir, which may or may not someday get a sequel, Harry shared details about Balmoral, the royal family’s longtime summer retreat. (His late grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, who died at Balmoral in 2022, was especially fond of the estate.)

Harry began Spare by reflecting on Balmoral, the nearly 50,000-acre estate in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. To Harry, who now lives in Montecito, California, with Meghan Markle and their two children, it was “paradise.”

“To me Balmoral was always simply paradise,” he said, calling it “a cross between Disney World and some sacred Druid grove.” Like the rest of his family, he spent his time “mostly outdoors,” either “fishing, shooting,[or] running up and down ‘the hill.’”

2. He was ‘happy’ there before Princess Diana’s death

Before Princess Diana died in Paris, France, on Aug. 31, 1997, following a car accident, then-12-year-old Harry—just weeks shy of turning 13—recalled “happy.”

“I was happy there,” he said of Balmoral. “In fact, it’s possible that I was never happier than that one golden summer day at Balmoral: August 30, 1997.” (He woke up the next morning to his father, the now-King Charles III, at his bedside to break the news.)

He went on to describe the estate as “its own micro-season, a two-week interlude in the Scottish Highlands to mark the turn from high summer to early autumn.”

3. On the ‘shock’ of going from St. Tropez to Balmoral in 1997

When Harry’s “heaven” of a trip to St. Tropez, France, with Prince William and Diana ended—it would be their last vacation together before her death—returning to Scotland came as a “shock.”

Harry described it as a “shock to the system” to go “from sun-drenched St. Tropez to cloud-shadowed Balmoral,” which he “vaguely” remembers for his week at the castle in August 1997.

4. Harry shared a bedroom with Prince William at Balmoral

In perhaps the first example of “heir” and “spare” in his memoir, Harry recalled how he and his brother, the now-Prince of Wales, whom he referred to as “Willy,” shared a bedroom at Balmoral.

“Willy had the larger half, with a double bed, a good-sized basin, a cupboard with mirrored doors, a beautiful window looking down on the courtyard, the fountain, the bronze statue of roe deer buck.”

Meanwhile, his “half of the room was far smaller” and “less luxurious.” Harry explained he “never asked why” because it wasn’t necessary. He already knew the answer. “Two years older than me, Willy was the Heir, whereas I was the Spare.”

5 They felt ‘guilty’ crossing the castle’s manicured lawn

Elsewhere, Harry shared that the lawn, manicured to perfection by Balmoral’s “ballation” of gardeners, gave him and William pause.

“The lawn was so perfect, every blade of grass so precisely mown,” he wrote, “Willy and I felt guilty about walking across it, let alone riding our bikes. But we did it anyway, all the time.”