Soares dos Reis National Museum

This guide to the Soares dos Reis National Museum in Porto opens in May 1809 inside the mansion Porto nicknamed the House of Scowls, seized by French marshal Nicolas Soult for his headquarters. It follows an ordinary morning there, breakfast laid out and Soult confident the wide Douro made any crossing impossible, before a soldier interrupts with news that changes everything. It also traces the mansion's later turn as a young king's headquarters during the 1832 siege. Listen for the carved scowling faces above the windows that gave the house its name.