The real estate lesson of the Palacio de Queluz

The Palacio de Queluz, the last royal palace of Potugal, is really quite pretty, marrying the quaint oddness of Portugal with the international French neocolonialism in delightful ways. Especially nice is the ceiling art, in some places couched in unorthodox-shaped domes vaguely reminiscent of bathroom fixtures. And the management is good: the cerberi leave you alone and you can photograph to your heart's content. The garden, however, is disappointing: not because the statuary is lousy (garden statuary almost always is), but because of the immense roar of traffic from the freeway which loops right around it; and to, a lesser degree, because of the occasional disconcerting sights of the boxy bedroom community which has sprawled over the surrounding hills. Let this be a lesson to you: when the kings chose this place, it was a remote hunting lodge in the middle of nowhere. It was cool to say "I'm off to Queluz" because it meant something like "I'm off to chop wood". Now, two hundred years later, the erstwhile lodge finds itself in the middle of the peripherique. You would not want to go on record actually saying that you live in Queluz, even if it were to say that you live at the royal palace. Where is your country place? your friends might ask. Oh, never mind, you might answer, trying to make it sound mysterious rather than embarrassed. The lesson? Be careful when you open new territory. The ensuing development doesn't always raise real estate values.