Palácio Foz - Foz Palace - is one of the great surviving palaces in the city, and is located right in the city center, at Praca dos Restauradores. The palace now works as a base for cultural activities (the main tourist board offices and the central museum shop facilities are also located there), but has a long history behind it.
Built between the XVIII and the XIX centuries, it was home of counts, marquis and other noblemen, stage of intense social life with its richly decorated interiors. With the uprise of hard-working tradesmen, and decline of hard-spending nobility, the late Marquês da Foz was forced to literally sell-out all the furnishings of the palace in 1901, in a much attended auction. According to the records of the time, only the walls were not for sale.
The palace itself was then mortgaged, and finally sold in 1910 to a rich tradesman immigrated in Brasil. Up to 1939, time when the State finally took over it, the palace sadly worked as working grounds for people of various origins and professions, who rented space there. In 1944 large restoration started taking course, which produced what we see today.
The story of the palace, and images of the inside and of what it is today are available here.
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