I’m spending the summer in Spain with my husband and two children. My husband is teaching a course here, a summer program for law students who are, simplistically put, studying abroad.

One of the most impressive sights in Madrid (where we are living) is the Royal Palace. It is the largest palace in Europe by floor area, and it was built to compete with Versailles. It is noted for its luxurious tapestries and is filled with art by Old Masters such as Goya, Valezquez, and Caravaggio, and houses the world’s only complete Stradivarious string quintet.

It is truly a sight to behold, and our guidebook called it a place of tourists’ dreams.

It took us about 2 hours to walk through it, skipping the official tour and instead just hitting the highlights outlined in the guidebook. My 8 year old daughter just could not get enough of it, and my 13 year old son, a boy rapidly becoming obsessed with musicals, could not stop singing, “On the Steps of the Palace” from Into the Woods, because really, how often can you sing about being on the steps of the palace while you are ACTUALLY on the steps of a palace?

My daughter kept exclaiming, “What would it be like to LIVE here!” over and over.

Nobody actually lives there anymore–the current Spanish Royal Family have opted to live in a mansion some miles from the palace, but the palace is still used for ceremonial events and weddings.

At which point my daughter said, “Imagine getting MARRIED here!”

As we trudged through the palace (because with kids, at some point, all sight seeing eventually turns into trudging, palace or no palace), I pondered her question and asked my husband, “Yeah, what would it be like to live here?”

He said, “Well, it would certainly make it easy to go your whole day without seeing anybody. You could totally avoid your family entirely.”

That particular perk of palace living might have come to his mind because traveling with your children for 6 weeks means that the 4 of us have spent a LOT of time together. We are living in a small 2 bedroom apartment, and with no summer activities, no swim team, no playdates, no piano lessons, no birthday parties, no summer get together with friends, no family reunions, no cousin bonding (we are missing our annual family get togethers by being abroad), we are a little desperate to talk to other folks besides ourselves.

Indeed, we went to church the other day and the sight of so many friendly Mormons was spectacular, and we practically threw ourselves on another American family and begged for them to take mercy on us and plan a playdate. The missionaries introduced themselves, asked if they could visit us, so we set up a dinner appointment. My children absolutely mobbed those poor young men, showing them everything they’ve bought in Spain and telling them every detail of every adventure we’ve had, because seriously, THEY GOT TO TALK TO SOMEBODY BESIDES THEIR PARENTS!

And when my children bicker (and as with trudging, sight-seeing also involves bickering), the idea of stowing them away with a governess in a room so far away from us it could practically have another zip code sounds awfully appealing.

But then I started thinking about all the nastiness that has happened in royal families, all the bloody and bloodless coups, the deposing and the fights and the weird in-bred marriages, and I thought maybe palace living wouldn’t be so great for strengthening home and family. As I walked through the massive courtyard that separated the dining hall from the residences, I thought it could get kinda lonely and a little freaky to try to raise a family in such a big place. Maybe squeezing folks into tinier compartments has its merits, and I wondered if the mothers had their favorite places to love on their babies in that huge place. I wondered if there was a quiet, private place where they didn’t have to be the queen, they could just be the mom, and hold and cherish their children without having to worry about anything else in the moment.

We finished our tour of the palace, and then headed over to the armory to look at jousting outfits. At that point, the bickering and trudging turned into a full blown meltdown by the 8year old, and we had to call it a day and find a cafe (because trudging and bickering is always solved with a cold drink and some ice-cream). We said goodbye to the palace, grateful for the chance to see it, and just as grateful for the knowledge to know that we would never, ever want to live there.

It would be, however, a fan-TAS-tic place to film Cinderella.