Palácio da Bolsa

This guide to the Palácio da Bolsa in Porto follows Porto's merchants after an 1832 fire gutted the neighboring Convent of Saint Francis, leaving them to trade in the open ruins until Queen Maria the Second handed over the site and construction began in 1842. It traces the decades the building took to finish, including the enormous glass-domed courtyard ringed with trading nations' coats of arms. You'll also hear about the Arab Room beyond it, a chamber built purely because Moorish revival style was fashionable at the time.