Monday, September 21, 2026

History Highlights

The Palace of Queluz: Portugal’s Rococo Jewel and the Queen Who Lost Her Mind

A short distance from Lisbon, in the town that gave it its name, stands a palace that seems to have drifted straight out of eighteenth-century France and settled improbably on

The Palace of Pena: The Fairy-Tale Palace an Artist King Built in the Clouds of Sintra

High on a wooded crag above the town of Sintra, wrapped for much of the year in the mists that roll off the Atlantic, stands one of the most extraordinary

La Granja de San Ildefonso: The Spanish Versailles and the Homesick King’s Paradise

High in the pine-clad foothills of the Guadarrama mountains, above the city of Segovia and far from the dust of Madrid, an aging king built himself a mountain paradise meant

The Royal Palace of Aranjuez: Spain’s Spring Paradise of Palace and Garden

An hour or so south of Madrid, where the waters of the Tagus spread out to nourish a green and fertile plain, stands one of the most enchanting of all

The Royal Palace of Madrid: The Fireproof Palace the Bourbons Raised From the Ashes

Rising above the western edge of old Madrid, its long pale facade looking out across a great paved square, stands the largest royal palace in Western Europe. The Royal Palace