• The bat-guarded library is the story kids remember: grey long-eared and serotine bats eat the insects that would damage the 30,000 books
• Antler furniture in the hunting room, where chairs and candleholders are made from deer antlers, since the palace was mainly a royal hunting base
• About 40 minutes by car from Lisbon, so it fits a half-day outing with time left for lunch in town

A royal palace, basilica and convent built for King John V between 1717 and 1755, with about 1,200 rooms. Inside are royal apartments, a hunting room furnished with deer antlers, and a Rococo library of about 30,000 books, where a colony of bats eats the insects that would damage them.

The basilica's bell towers hold the world's largest historical collection of carillons.