LONDON.- As part of the National Trust’s Europe & Us programme, three embassies are throwing open their doors for three days of exclusive, behind-the-scenes tours. The strictly limited openings will offer an intimate glimpse into the inner sanctums of diplomacy as part of Heritage Open days.

On show will be the principal rooms of the French Ambassador’s Residence in Kensington Palace Gardens (‘Billionaire’s Row’), Arne Jacobsen’s modernist 1970s Danish Embassy and Residence on Sloane Street and the palatial home of the Portuguese Ambassador in Belgrave Square.

The guided hour-long tours will allow visitors insights into how these important government buildings are used to allow envoys to entertain while promoting their countries’ interests to the ‘Court of St James’.

National Trust Creative Director Ivo Dawnay comments, In this year when our relationship with Europe has been front and centre of our thoughts, the National Trust is running a programme, dubbed ‘Europe & Us’, that seeks to gain insights into our long relationship with the continent. Thanks to the generous permission of the French, Danish and Portuguese ambassadors, these visits offer not only a chance to see three fascinating buildings and their contents, but also to gain insight into the world of diplomacy that has moulded our relationships with their countries over hundreds of years.

The embassy openings are part of a wider National Trust agenda to celebrate places where people live and work, offering the public access to usually inaccessible places. Recent events in this vein have included tours of the ‘Big Brother House’ in Elstree, opening Erno Goldfinger’s Balfron Tower in East London and the recent Edge City: Croydon project.

During these openings, guests will see reception rooms, dining rooms and offices, and the wealth of pictures, furniture and decorative art that reflects each nation.

The French Residence displays a range of valuable art and tapestries and shows the dining room where Her Majesty The Queen has dined four times with French Presidents. The Portuguese Ambassador’s home includes a splendid marble staircase, a hall ceiling from a church and a masterpiece by London-based Portuguese painter, Dame Paula Rego. The embassy also includes a room dedicated to Catherine of Braganza who was married to Charles II; it is often said that their marriage would lead to Britain becoming the largest empire in history because, as part of Catherine’s dowry, Charles was given the seven islands in Bombay, which he would later rent to the East India Company.

The 1970s Danish Embassy and Residence is the last great work by the Danish architect and designer, Arne Jacobsen, who also built St Catherine’s College, Oxford, and had a transformative impact on the Scandinavian design revolution of the mid-20th Century.

His Excellency, The Danish Ambassador Claus Grube remarks, I am delighted to be working with the National Trust to welcome visitors to the Danish Embassy. It gives me enormous pleasure to see such an interest in our remarkable building. The building is a window on Denmark, showing our thinking, mindset and technological capabilities. It's very functional, not flashy like traditional residences in Belgravia that have been remade from period properties, and shows Denmark to the British as a modern society. Some say the embassy's exterior is brutal and impersonal, too imposing. But others say it is a strong statement of 1970s Danish architecture. Regardless of the impression from the street, however, all seem to agree that the inside is light and comfortable. In any case, I am excited to find out what impression visitors from the National Trust tour will leave with.

The weekend-long event is part of Heritage Open Days, England’s annual festival of history that involves 5,000 events and 40,000 volunteers in a long-weekend of access to special places of historical interest.

The tours, which are free, are strictly limited in number and will be ticketed on a first-come-firstserved basis. For security reasons applicants will be asked to apply with their full names, addresses and contact details and will be admitted only with photo ID.

Tickets are available by application at www.nationaltrust.org.uk/embassy-openings.