Travel giant TUI has published a striking new ranking in November 2025: the 1,000 most popular and highest-rated castles, palaces and fortresses in Europe. The list is based entirely on public Google data and was compiled in collaboration with German marketing agency Peak Ace.
More than 20,000 historic buildings were evaluated using three criteria: average star rating, percentage of 5-star reviews, and total number of reviews. These three figures were combined into a “Beliebtheits-Score” (popularity score). The higher the score, the higher the castle or palace ranks.
Europe’s Top 10 According to TUI (November 2025)
- Prague Castle (Pražský hrad) – Prague, Czech Republic
- Schönbrunn Palace – Vienna, Austria
- Royal Palace of Madrid – Madrid, Spain
- Palace of Versailles – Versailles, France
- Tower of London – London, United Kingdom
- Real Alcázar – Seville, Spain
- Castel Sant’Angelo – Rome, Italy
- Dolmabahçe Palace – Istanbul, Turkey
- Castello Sforzesco – Milan, Italy
- Neuschwanstein Castle – Schwangau, Germany
Notably, the fairy-tale castle of Neuschwanstein – long regarded as the ultimate symbol of romantic Europe and the subject of thousands of daily selfie marathons – only finishes in 10th place. The reason is straightforward: it averages 4.6 stars, while almost every site above it scores 4.7. It has an enormous volume of reviews, but the slightly lower average weighs more heavily in the formula.
How reliable is this ranking, really?
While the methodology is transparent and entirely data-driven, the list has clear limitations. Firstly, only buildings with a distinct, clearly identifiable Google Maps profile and a minimum number of reviews were included. This automatically excludes hundreds of stunning but less touristy castles – think many Scottish ruins, small privately owned castles and châteaux, or lesser-known gems – simply because they have too few reviews or appear under different names.
Even more striking is the absence (or deliberate exclusion) of several world-famous palaces. Buckingham Palace, the Palais Royal in Brussels, the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, and Topkapı Palace in Istanbul, for example, are nowhere to be seen, probably because they either lack sufficient standalone Google reviews or because TUI restricted itself to sites primarily categorised as “castle”, “fortress” or “palace”. Iconic favourites such as Pena Palace in Sintra, Windsor Castle, and Mont Saint-Michel also rank surprisingly low or are missing entirely from the top 100 one might expect.
In short: TUI’s ranking is a fun reflection of what millions of tourists actually think of the places they visit, but it is far from a definitive “most beautiful castles in Europe” list. It is essentially a popularity contest among the most visited and most reviewed icons. Anyone searching for hidden gems or architectural masterpieces that are less Instagram-friendly will need to look elsewhere. That said, it remains an excellent bucket-list resource for anyone planning to tour Europe in the coming years in search of towers, moats, and royal splendour!
The complete study results are available at tui.com.
