Most people walk past Palácio Nacional da Ajuda without knowing the story behind it. And the story starts with an earthquake.
On the 1st of November 1755, one of the largest earthquakes in European history destroyed most of Lisbon. King D. José I, so shaken by the disaster, decided he would never again live under a stone roof. He ordered the construction of a palace in wood and canvas, on the hill of Ajuda, far from the river and the ruins below. They called it the Real Barraca, which roughly translates as the Royal Hut.
It was designed by Italian architect Giovanni Carlo Bibiena, the same man who had designed the Lisbon Opera House, which also collapsed in the earthquake. The Royal Hut served as the residence of the Portuguese court for nearly three decades.
Then in 1794, a fire started by a servant with a candle destroyed the entire building. Tapestries, paintings, furniture, almost everything inside was lost.
The stone palace we see today was designed in 1802, under the future King D. João VI. But the family soon fled to Brazil to escape Napoleon, money was always short, and the building was never fully finished. It was only with King D. Luís I, who made it his permanent residence from 1861, that the palace truly came to life. His wife, Italian princess Maria Pia of Savoy, was responsible for much of the decoration and the art collection you can see there today.
Inside, the palace has around 20 rooms open to visitors across two floors. The ground floor has the private apartments: the Music Room, the Blue Room, the Queen's bedroom. The upper floor was for official ceremonies, grand banquets and state balls. The scale of everything is hard to describe until you see it.
The palace stopped being a royal residence in 1910 when Portugal became a republic. Today it is a museum, and one of the least visited major palaces in Lisbon, which means no queues, and a lot of space to take it all in.
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