National Palace of Queluz

Saturday
We had a relatively quick and smooth check-in at Charles de Gaulle for our flight to Lisbon, arriving early afternoon. Unfortunately the same could not be said for picking up our Sixt rental car at Lisbon airport - we were waiting in line for about 80 minutes! Laura was joining us for the week, flying in from Bucharest, but her flight didnt get in till quite late at night, so we had booked a hotel quite near the airport for the night, then we were leaving for a few days in the Algarve after breakfast tomorrow. Since we had the car for the afternoon, we decided to drive out to the National Palace of Queluz, former Royal Palace, located about 15-20 minutes out of central Lisbon, on the road to Sintra. Prince Pedro, younger son of Dom Joao V had it built as a summer palace in 1747-52. Thirteen years later,when he married, he commissioned the French architect Jean Baptiste Robillon to design extensions to make it the permanent royal residence.Queluz enjoyed a brief golden era before the royal family fled to Brazil after Napoleans invasion in 1807. We toured the palace, using an audio guide,  and then went out to enjoy the rest of the lovely sunny afternoon in the wonderful gardens. One unusual feature of the gardens is the "Tiled canal", where the Jamor River, a stream which flows across the whole of the park, has a section that is contained within a canal, covered with panels of decorative tiles, all along its 115 metre length. 
Having left the Palace, we drove into Lisbon, stopping off for a little walk along the river, by the Torre de Belem, probably one of the most emblematic sights of Lisbon, before heading off in search of an early dinner, having only had a snack on the plane since breakfast. We found a restaurant by the river not far from the 25 de Abril bridge, a suspension bridge, rather reminiscent of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, which links the city of Lisbon to the municipality of Almada on the south bank of the Tagus river. We then went to check in at the hotel, and had a short rest before going back to the airport to meet Laura. The last time we had seen her was back in May when we visited her in Romania, so it was really good to see her again and give her a big hug!