Lisbon - Palácio de Belém

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d'Albuquerque a collection of former royal coaches and ceremonial carriages was assembled. These coaches dating from the 16th-19th C. certainly form the most extensive and valuable collection of its type and is well worth seeing.

Included among the exhibits are various presents from popes and foreign princes as well as a wedding present from Ludwig XIV; some of the coaches were even driven from Rome or Austria to Lisbon. The oldest exhibit is a 16th C. Spanish coach, in which Philipp II entered Lisbon at the time of the Spanish domination of Portugal. Simply decorated externally, the interior is richly embellished. Pompous baroque coaches, which demonstrate different principles of construction, form the largest part of the collection - clear evidence of the increasingly abundant great love of splendor among the nobility. They include some coaches built in the early 18th C. which are without doubt the most valuable, for example a carriage commissioned by Joao V for a Portuguese ambassador on the occasion of a papal visit. Also on show are two 18th C. processional coaches and several sedan chairs, which had to be carried by men or by mules.

On view in the second room is a forerunner of the first Lisboan taxi cab, a small coach colored green and black just like the current taxis - although in reverse order. In the entrance hall stands the coach in which Elizabeth II enjoyed a tour of Lisbon when she first came to Portugal in 1957.

For those interested in the appearances of members of the Portuguese royal family there are about 20 portraits of the members of the Bragan family on show upstairs in the gallery.

In contrast to the splendor of the coach museum there is a collection of model cars upstairs at the exit, the gift in 1986 of José Pinheiro da Costa.

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About 400 different plant species flourish in the peaceful park, which is worth visiting, and in some hothouses.