TRAVELING IN STYLE : Royal Obsession : Ah, London. Tea at the Savoy. Strolling the West End. But We <i> Really </i> Go for the Royals. Now, Many of the Crown’s Classics Are Revamped and Reopened.

When I lived in Santa Fe, N.M., my friends and neighbors struck me as the best sort of American free spirits. They were Republicans and Democrats with small r’s and d’s, and they had scant respect for authority. Even less for dynasties.

Then the Prince of Wales came calling. Charles was on an Armand Hammer-funded enterprise to promote international understanding in somewhere such as Las Cruces. I was skeptical about the whole jamboree, but suddenly all my feisty New Mexican friends, flush with the prospect of an audience with the prince, started to go weak at the knees. What should they wear? Should they curtsy? Should they call him “Your Royal Highness”? Wasn’t he just the cutest person I’d ever seen?

“Mmmm . . . up to a point,” I mumbled, but it was no use.

They were in awe.

As an Englishman again living in England, I am sometimes a little dismayed by the American view of my country as no more than a theme park in which the royal family are the main characters. In fact, ever since the States rebelled against the Hanoverians more than 200 years ago, Americans have seemed compelled to troop back across the Atlantic to catch a glimpse of what they’ve been missing.

But there is no escaping the fact that the royal family is a major tourist attraction that is cashed in on by all and sundry, including royalty. The queen herself opened Buckingham Palace to tourists two years ago to defray the enormous cost of repairing Windsor Castle, her weekend home outside London that was heavily damaged by fire in 1992. More than 370,000 visited the palace in 1993, 47% of them foreigners, generating $3.3 million.

Americans accounted for 15% of visitors to Britain in 1993, the latest year for which figures are available. Altogether, tourists pumped $2.5 billion into the fragile British economy that year, depositing much of it in places such as the Tower of London, which rivals Madame Tussaud’s as Britain’s second-largest attraction (first place went to an amusement park in Staffordshire). Other coordinates on the royal compass did brisk business as well: Windsor Castle received 769,000 visitors; Hampton Court Palace, 580,000. The Buckingham Palace souvenir shop sold more than $4 million worth of curios, such as $60 cuff links decorated with the royal lion, the first year the palace was open.

Clearly, Americans adore brushing up against royalty. And if much of what they love to gawk at is ponderously valuable--the Imperial State Crown from Queen Victoria’s 1838 coronation, one of the Tower’s biggest draws, is encrusted with 3,000 jewels and the world’s second-largest diamond--well, staggering wealth is what makes the royals interesting in the first place. Conveniently, gadding about London in search of royalness is now enhanced: Classic attractions have been made new again. Refurbishments to the Tower, Hampton Court and other royal historic properties make them easier to navigate and more fulfilling overall.

Most tourists start with Buckingham Palace, that forbidding slab at the end of the Mall, backdrop for the Changing of the Guard (the late-morning shift rotation of the queen’s ceremonial palace security) and scene of innumerable tourist snaps of Buddy and Sis trying to get a rise out of the stone-faced, busby-wearing guards.

Built in 1703 for the Duke of Buckingham, it was taken over by George IV in 1820, who remodeled it into more or less its present state of opulence. Known simply as “Buck House” to Londoners, it is essentially the headquarters of the Family Firm, doing duty as a residence, offices and a place for grand entertainments. You can always tell if the queen is at home because her magnificent personal standard will be flying from the palace flagpole.

Buck House is open in summer, generally August through September when the family decamps for their holiday residences in Scotland. But aside from secreting one of London’s great gardens--off limits unless you can wangle an invitation to one of the queen’s garden parties--the palace is rather austere. (The queen is said to vastly prefer her beloved Windsor to “BP,” as the royal family calls the palace.)

Only a handful of the palace’s 600 rooms are open for inspection, and these tend to be ceremonial chambers, large and mausoleum-like, with tapestries, mountains of marble and a decidedly un-lived-in feel: the State Dining Room; the White Drawing Room, where the family gathers before state affairs; the Music Room, even the exalted Throne Room, with the chairs used for the 1952 coronation of Elizabeth II. The Picture Gallery, though, has an impressive collection that includes works by Rembrandt and Rubens.

The queen’s private quarters, of course, are not on the tour, nor even prosaic spaces such as Prince Philip’s functional working office with its family photographs and portraits. Some visitors, noting the absence of any trace of living royalty, have not been amused. “When we go to Disneyland,” an American tourist griped in the press, “Mickey is there.”

After the tour, go to the guard at the gate at the far right of the palace forecourt, as you face the palace. Ask to sign the visitors book. Given reasonable luck, you will be allowed to crunch across the gravel to the “Privy Purse Entrance,” where you’ll be admitted by a uniformed footman and allowed to place your name in the palace log.

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If Buck House seems chilly, the Tower of London at least delivers the Crown Jewels. Plunked like a child’s toy fort on the River Thames near the bridge that bears its name, the Tower was the first fortress in London built by the Normans after the Conquest in 1066. It later gained notoriety as an A-list prison (Anne Boleyn, Sir Walter Raleigh, et al.) and as a lockup for the jewels, including the Royal Scepter and its 530-carat cut diamond, the world’s largest.

Time was when the jewels were displayed in sepulchral gloom with glowering Yeomen of the Guard daring you to steal them. Nowadays, there are Disney-ish actor types pretending, a la Colonial Williamsburg, to be real-life historical inhabitants of the Tower alongside the red-suited beefeaters who live there and act as guides. The Tower’s Jewel House was revamped last year and can now accommodate 20,000 visitors a day. State-of-the-art technology allows some pieces of regalia to be magnified as much as 40 times.

What I adore about the Tower is the Ceremony of the Keys, which has taken place every night for the past 700 years. It is quite simply the act of locking up for the night, but it is conducted with a wonderful pantomime of lanterns, watch coats and, above all, Monty Python-like dialogue:

Sentry: Halt! Who comes there?

Chief Warder: The Keys.

Sentry: Whose keys?

Chief Warder: Queen Elizabeth’s keys.

Sentry: Pass. Queen Elizabeth’s keys and all’s well.

The Tower is now under the auspices of Historic Royal Palaces, a new agency that looks after Kensington Palace in Kensington Gardens, the Banqueting House on Whitehall in central London, with its Rubens-painted ceilings and dark history (Charles I went to the scaffold from there) and, my favorite, Hampton Court Palace. The agency has been energetically restoring its properties, making them far more user-friendly, if a bit too commercial and tourist-oriented for some tastes.

Hampton Court Palace, 40 minutes by train from London’s Waterloo Station, was built by Cardinal Wolsey, Lord Chancellor of England, in 1515. Henry VIII decided he liked it and simply moved in. William and Mary arrived in 1688; they didn’t like Wolsey’s original Tudor buildings and commissioned Sir Christopher Wren to design a new palace. Mary died before the original was completely knocked down so what remains today is, in effect, two palaces: the surviving portions of the Tudor original and Wren’s 18th-Century additions.

Hampton Court’s main tenants were former servants of the crown, pensioners who lived rent-free in apartments called Grace and Favour Residences, which the crown granted to “deserving” subjects by “the Grace and Favour of the Sovereign.” Dating from the reign of George III, most of the residences are now occupied by serving members of the royal household. Two former residences are available for rent through the Landmark Trust. It’s the only way I know to actually stay in a royal palace.

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You have a better chance of spotting latter-day royalty by venturing outside London to Sandringham and Balmoral, the private residences of the family.

Sandringham lies about 100 miles north of London in Norfolk; Balmoral, in the eastern Scottish highlands. While there, the royals behave more like landed aristocracy than monarchy, wandering the exhibits at the summer Sandringham Flower Show.

They even take their custom to the local shops. Hard by the gates of Balmoral, for example, is a solid granite building with a massive royal coat of arms and a sign proclaiming: “George Strachan, General Merchant.” The crest means that Mr. Strachan is the proud holder of Her Majesty’s Warrant. British kings and queens have patronized the little shop since the days of Queen Victoria, who recorded in her diary that she “stopped at the shop and made some purchases for poor people and others.”

Just down the valley from Balmoral, the little village of Ballater is almost smothered in royal crests. You’ll find them over the thresholds of Mr. Sheridan’s, the butcher, who specializes in homemade haggis and “Highland Fern” after-shave. There is, all told, probably a higher concentration of royal tradesmen in Ballater than anywhere in Britain outside central London.

The most obvious occasions for spotting royalty are when they are performing public duties. Buy a Times of London or Daily Telegraph and look under the heading “Court Circular,” which lists the day’s royal engagements. There is always a massive family turnout for the Royal Ascot race, in Berkshire (June 20-23 this summer); the queen and various royals parade down the course in carriages before the start of the race. The same applies to the Epsom Derby (June 9) in Surrey. Both are just outside London and open to the public.

To observe the monarchy at play, go to Smith’s Lawn in Windsor, home of the Guard’s Polo Club. The big days are the Queen’s Cup, (this year June 4), and the Cartier International Day (July 23). Attending is no problem; merely turn up and pay at the gate. The queen presents cups to winners, and Charles usually plays in the second of the two matches.

Some years ago, a consortium of entrepreneurs put together a permanent exhibit near London’s Barbican Arts Centre, in the City, called “Royal Britain.” It flopped miserably. What makes the real royal Britain so mesmerizing is that, titivated and modernized though it sometimes is, the essence is genuine. Even where kings and queens are long departed, their successors, however diminished and criticized, reign.

Still, they are not like the rest of us. And they are, against all logic, perennially fascinating.

“We are not amused,” Queen Victoria was supposed to have said.

But on the whole, we are.

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GUIDEBOOK / Royal Watching

Telephone numbers and prices: The country code for England and Scotland is 44. The city code for London is 171. All prices are approximate and are computed at the rate of $1.70 per English pound.

Getting there: American Airlines, Delta Airlines, United Airlines, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic have daily nonstop flights from Los Angeles to London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports. Buckingham Palace: St. James Park or Green Park tubes. Tower of London: Tower Hill tube. Hampton Court Place: Take the train from London’s Waterloo station to Hampton Court, or the river launch from the Westminster Pier to Hampton Court Pier. Windsor: Thirty-five minutes by train from London’s Waterloo station.

Royal attractions: Buckingham Palace, telephone 930-4832. State Rooms are open Aug. 7 through Sept. 28. Admission: adults, $14; senior citizens, $10; children under 17, $7. Also at Buckingham Palace: The Queen’s Gallery, tel. 930-4832, displays art selected from the queen’s collection (a Faberge exhibition this year). Open through Jan. 7. Admission: adults, $6; seniors, $4.25; children under 17, $4. Tower of London, tel. 709-0765. Best time to view Crown Jewels is just after opening and before closing. Admission: adults, $14; seniors, $10; children 5-17, $9. For free Ceremony of the Keys tickets, send a self-addressed envelope with international reply coupon (from post office) to: Operations Office, Waterloo Block, HM Tower of London, EC3M4AB. Hampton Court Palace, East Molesey, Surrey, tel. 181-781-9500. Open daily year-round, closed holidays. Admission: adults, $13; seniors, $9; children under 16, $8. Windsor Castle, tel. 1753-831118. The castle’s State Apartments are open January through October. Admission prices vary. Sandringham House and Grounds, a private royal residence, is 100 miles north of London in Norfolk and open to the public when the family is out. Admission: adults, $7; seniors, $6; ages 5-15, $5.

Where to stay: Two residences at Hampton Court rent by the week: the Fish Court, which sleeps six ($1,330-$1,825 during summer); and the Georgian House, which sleeps eight ($1,482-$2,030). It is recommended to book at least six months in advance through Landmark Trust (802) 254-6868.

For more information: British Tourist Authority, 551 Fifth Ave., Suite 701, New York, N.Y. 10176; (800) GO2-BRIT.