The Keraton Palace of Yogyakarta sits inside the Kraton – the palace city of the Sultan. The walled city houses 25,000 people, 1,000 of whom are directly employed by the Sultan.
Today, the Kraton remains just as vibrant and bustling as it used to be – as it is a fully functioning city. In fact, it was the location of our AirBNB and made for a wonderful starting point for many of our adventures while in the Yogya city-center.
Getting Into Keraton Palace
Our plans to visit the Keraton Palace did not go the way we had intended though – it was supposed to be the second stop after visiting Taman Sari, but we ran into a random student on the street who got us to go check out the Batik school instead, and that totally threw off our plan. Though this resulted in a much more fun, and unexpected afternoon.
After wandering down Malioboro street from the north, we re-entered the Kraton. We found ourselves looking at the Keraton Palace. The Keraton is a still functioning palace, and home to the current Sultan. As such, some of the palace is off limits to the public and shuts down on holidays and Sundays.
But for those interested in visiting, you enter from the north side of the complex, on the right side of the entry gate.
Still, the complex can offer some interesting sights to wander around and explore.
If you come at the right time (which we didn’t) you can see performances which are included with your ticket. The specifics vary by the day but generally are between 9 am and noon and include gamelan, puppetry, poetry readings, and classical dances.
As well, there is a museum on the grounds. As I stated above, it’s poorly curated, so we don’t really have much context. The artifacts are still interesting to look at.
The palace looked nice, but ultimately we found it sort of boring as it was uninformative to the casual tourist. Still, it’s worth taking a peek – especially if you plan to show up at the right time and day.
If you’re really lucky, you might even get to see the Sultan.