QUELUZ PALACE

The building of the palace, designed by Mateus Vicente de Oliveira, began in 1747. Although much smaller, it is frequently called the “Portuguese Versailles”, converted in the late 1700s to a royal summer residence. It’s surrounded by queen-of-hearts formal gardens, with oak-lined avenues, fountains (including the Fonte de Neptuno, ascribed to Italian master Bernini) and an azulejo lined canal where the royals went boating.

One of the wings of the Queluz Palace, the Dona Maria Pavilion, built between 1785 and 1792 and designed by Manuel Caetano de Sousa, is now a guest room for the exclusive use of foreign heads of state visiting Portugal.